Fresh parsley

One US cup of fresh parsley weighs between 20 and 60 grams (0.71 to 2.1 ounces), depending on how the cup is filled and which source measured it. Use 32 grams (1.1 ounces) for leaves roughly chopped and spooned in without pressing, as Milk Street weighs a cup. Every figure behind it is below, with the method each source used.

Fresh herbs and aromatics compared: cup weights side by side, the source behind each, and why they differ.

A cup of chopped fresh parsley weighs anywhere from 20 to 60 g (0.7 to 2.1 oz), depending on how finely it is chopped and how hard the cup is filled. For leaves roughly chopped and spooned in without pressing, use about 32 g a cup; for finely chopped parsley measured by the spoon, about 3.8 g a tablespoon.

Parsley is the leaf of Petroselinum crispum, sold as curly parsley and as flat-leaf or Italian parsley, in bunches with the stems on. Recipes use the leaves, chopped, in tabbouleh, gremolata, chimichurri, salsa verde, soups and stuffings and as a garnish, and they measure them by the cup or the tablespoon even though no two cooks fill a cup of leaves the same way.

The sources show how wide that is. USDA's record for fresh parsley weighs a cup of chopped parsley at 60 g and a tablespoon at 3.8 g, which agree. Milk Street weighs a cup of roughly chopped leaves at 32 g, and Norway's food table, from parsley weighed by its health directorate, gives 12 g a decilitre, 28.4 g a US cup. USDA's school Food Buying Guide, working from a pound of curly parsley as bought, gets 20.85 cups of chopped parsley from the 0.92 lb left after trimming, 20 g a cup, and its dried-parsley row says the same: 4 cups of fresh chopped parsley weigh about 2.9 oz. The highest figure is three times the lowest, far over the 10% this site allows for chopped produce, so this entry publishes the range.

America's Test Kitchen gives one row for six leafy herbs together, parsley among them: half an ounce is 3/4 cup of whole leaves or 3 tablespoons finely minced, 18.9 and 75.6 g a cup. It is not a measurement of parsley alone, so it is listed without a figure, but it shows the same thing the other sources do: mincing the same leaves fills the cup about four times as heavily. The Culinary Institute of America gives 3 g for a tablespoon of any minced fresh herb, 48 g a cup, which sits inside the range.

The physical check: a parsley leaf is a thin, stiff sheet, mostly water and about as dense as water itself. Whole or coarsely chopped, the pieces spring against each other and fill only a twelfth to an eighth of the cup, which is 20 to 30 g. Chopped finely, the pieces get smaller, wetter and limper, and they settle into each other: a cup of finely chopped parsley filled firmly holds about a quarter of its volume in leaf, 60 g, and minced parsley more. Curly parsley stays springier than flat-leaf when chopped, which fits the Food Buying Guide's low figure for it.

Practical guidance: for roughly chopped parsley spooned into the cup without pressing, use 32 g a cup; for finely chopped parsley, 60 g a cup, about 3.8 g a tablespoon; for whole leaves, about 19 g a cup. For tabbouleh, pesto and sauces where parsley is a main ingredient, weigh the leaves after stripping the stems; for a garnish, the spoon is close enough. Dried parsley flakes replace fresh at about a third of the volume, and USDA's Food Buying Guide uses 1 oz of dried flakes for about 2.9 oz of fresh chopped parsley.