Ground Cumin

One US cup of ground cumin weighs 96 grams. Going the other way, 100 grams is about 1.04 cups.

Also called ground cumin, cumin powder, jeera powder, ground jeera, cumin spice, powdered cumin.

TL;DR: Ground cumin runs 96 grams per cup by the anchor USDA measurement, with a tight 96-101 g/cup cluster across independent USDA and Chef's Resources sources — slightly lighter than the whole cumin seed range of 96-109 g/cup documented in the paired cumin-seeds entry, matching the physical prediction that grinding solid seeds produces cohesive powder that bridges more air per unit volume than tightly-nesting whole seeds.

Ground cumin is the finely milled powder produced from dried cumin seeds (Cuminum cyminum), a member of the parsley family native to the eastern Mediterranean and South Asia. It is a foundational aromatic in Indian, Mexican, Middle Eastern, and North African cuisines, and its warm, earthy flavor comes primarily from cuminaldehyde, which makes up about 25-35% of the volatile oil content. Commercial ground cumin is milled from whole seeds after cleaning and sometimes light toasting; fresh grinding at home releases 30-50% more volatile compounds than pre-ground.

USDA Global Branded Food Products Database records two clean measurements: UPC 855269003404 at 96 g/cup and UPC 8906046144215 at 101 g/cup. Chef's Resources' spice conversion table lists ground cumin at 3.38 oz per cup, converting to 95.8 g/cup — matching the USDA cluster within measurement precision. The 96-101 gram convergence across three independent sources anchors the published figure at 96 g/cup, at the low end of the cluster and matching the USDA anchor exactly.

A fourth Chef's Resources data point (107 g/cup, from the site's density-category prose at 0.45 tsp/gram) is excluded from the published figure. CR self-contradicts here: its oz-per-cup table gives 95.8 and its tsp/g prose derives 107 from a rougher density-bucket approximation. The direct oz-per-cup measurement takes precedence over the derived tsp/g category figure — the same handling pattern used for ground cinnamon.

Two additional USDA GBFD records are excluded. Great Value ground cumin (UPC 078742230351) at 134 g/cup sits 40% above the cluster, outside spice tolerance; it may reflect a tapped-fill measurement or an FDA serving-size rounding artifact rather than genuine physical density. Morton & Bassett ground cumin (UPC 016291441200) at 192 g/cup is physically implausible — no ground spice packs at twice the density of its whole-seed form, and this figure would exceed the density of even the heaviest granulated spices. Both are treated as outliers with unknown labeling methodology rather than legitimate alternative densities.

Physical reasoning supports the published cluster. In the paired cumin-seeds entry (whole form), the WITHHELD RANGE was 96-109 g/cup, reflecting genuine seed-settling variance. Cumin seeds are solid, dense, spindle-shaped kernels with no internal cavities — they pack tightly when whole, with elongated seeds nesting efficiently into inter-seed void spaces. Grinding these solid seeds produces a cohesive fine powder whose particles bridge and trap air, giving ground cumin a slightly lower cup density than whole seeds. Ground cumin at 96 g/cup fits at the low end of the whole-seed range, matching the direction predicted for solid-seed spices. This contrasts with hollow-seed spices like coriander (documented separately), where grinding collapses the schizocarp cavities in the whole seed and ground coriander is denser than whole.

King Arthur Baking does not publish ground cumin, or any single non-baking spice by common name, restricting its chart to a few baking-adjacent aromatics like allspice, cinnamon, and cloves. No direct KA correction opportunity here, but the absence itself is worth noting: bakers relying on KA's chart alone will find no guidance for cumin and often over- or under-measure by extrapolating from denser or lighter spices.

For practical use, treat ground cumin as 96 g/cup for recipe scaling. A teaspoon runs about 2.0 grams, a tablespoon about 6.0 grams. Fresh ground cumin (within 6 months of grinding) may run slightly lighter due to higher retained volatile oil content; older or long-stored ground cumin can pack denser as oils oxidize and particles settle. When precision matters, weigh by grams. For a cumin-forward dish like a garam masala blend or Mexican mole, the 5-10% density variance between fresh and aged product can meaningfully shift the spice profile; for background use in a chili or curry, cup measurements work fine within the noise floor of home cooking.

The following published figures for ground cumin are rejected here, with the physics or standards reasoning behind each rejection on its own page:

• Chef's Resources spice conversion prose: 107 g per cup
• USDA Branded (Great Value Ground Cumin): 134 g per cup
• USDA Branded (Ground Cumin, Morton & Bassett): 192 g per cup