Ground ginger

One US cup of ground ginger weighs between 80 and 104 grams (2.8 to 3.7 ounces), depending on how the cup is filled and which source measured it. That range is the answer; a single number would not be. Every figure behind it is below, with the method each source used.

TL;DR: **One US cup of ground ginger weighs anywhere from 80 to 104 g depending on grind coarseness and origin variety — the 30% spread is real and reflects genuine market variance.** USDA's reference is 80 g/cup (5 g per tablespoon, 1.8 g per teaspoon); most home-baker references land at 96-104 g/cup. King Arthur does not publish a per-cup weight for ginger, leaving no anchor to correct against. This entry publishes the honest range.

Ground ginger is the dried, milled rhizome of *Zingiber officinale*, native to Southeast Asia and now cultivated across India, Nigeria, China, Peru, Jamaica, and Fiji. The rhizome is peeled, sliced, dried at 50-60°C for 8-12 hours, and milled to a fine powder. During drying, the fresh rhizome's dominant flavour compound — gingerol — dehydrates into shogaol, which is roughly four times more pungent per gram. This chemistry is why ground ginger is not interchangeable with fresh ginger one-to-one by volume: the standard culinary conversion is 1 teaspoon ground for every 1 tablespoon fresh grated (a 3:1 volumetric ratio), and even that ratio understates ground ginger's heat in raw applications.

The density spread across reliable sources is unusually wide. USDA FoodData Central FDC 170926 lists 5 g per tablespoon and 1.8 g per teaspoon, extrapolating to 80 g per US cup. Aqua-calc, referencing USDA, reports 83 g per US cup (88 g per metric cup, the same physical density against Europe's 250 mL). Home-baker references cluster higher: Pantrymath publishes 96 g/cup; CupOrGram publishes 104 g/cup as its central figure and explicitly notes a practical 94-114 g/cup range across brands and freshness windows. Chefs-Resources' professional kitchen chart categorises ginger as a medium-density spice at 0.45-0.55 teaspoons per gram, which brackets 87-107 g/cup. That is a 30% spread from USDA's 80 g/cup to the home-baker upper bound at 104 g/cup — well above ExactCups' 10% milled tolerance, and honestly published as a range rather than as one authoritative figure. The Spicery (UK) reports 8 g per tablespoon for their ground product (128 g/cup extrapolated), which sits outside even this range and appears to reflect a particularly settled or coarse-milled retail product.

The variance is physical, not editorial. Ground ginger is 71% carbohydrate (mostly fibre and starch), 9% protein, 4% fat, and 10% water, with 5% ash. The dominant fibrous carbohydrate structure creates internal air pockets that pack tighter or looser depending on grind coarseness, aging, water reabsorption from humid storage, and the origin variety's cell structure — Jamaican ginger fibres differ from Chinese Cochin or Indian varieties in ways that show up on the scale. USDA's 80 g/cup figure represents a laboratory-standardised loose fill; commercial jars settle over shelf time and yield noticeably higher per-cup weights.

For comparative context in the ExactCups milled category: ground ginger (80-104 g/cup) sits well below oily ground nutmeg (112 g/cup, ~36% fat), below waxy ground turmeric (144 g/cup), and roughly in the ballpark of ground allspice and low-side ground cinnamon at the light end. It is the lightest of the common baking spices per cup, which makes recipe scaling by weight materially more accurate than by volume.

Practical baker recommendation: for weighed baking, use USDA's 5 g per tablespoon / 1.8 g per teaspoon when converting recipes that call for volume, since USDA represents freshly-milled loose fill and matches what most spice jars deliver when spooned into a measure. When bulk-buying or working with settled containers, expect 96-104 g per cup — the difference matters when scaling gingerbread or spice cookies where ginger drives the flavour. For freshness testing, rub a pinch between your fingers: sharp warm aroma means the shogaols are active; faint or musty means they have oxidised, and the powder is functionally spent regardless of what it weighs on the jar.