Minced garlic

One US cup of minced garlic weighs 134.4 grams (4.7 ounces), measured fresh cloves, peeled and minced by hand, spooned and leveled. Going the other way, 100 grams is about 0.74 cups.

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

A teaspoon of fresh garlic minced by hand weighs about 2.8 g and a tablespoon about 8.4 g (134.4 g a cup); a teaspoon of jarred minced garlic in water weighs about 5 g. King Arthur Baking's 28 g for two tablespoons of minced garlic, 224 g a cup, is the weight of a fluid ounce read as a weight ounce, not of minced garlic, and is rejected.

Garlic is the bulb of Allium sativum, divided into cloves under papery skin. Recipes call for it by the clove or by the teaspoon or tablespoon minced, and a medium clove is usually treated as about 1 teaspoon minced. Jarred minced garlic, packed in water with citric acid, is sold as a shortcut and measured with the same spoons.

USDA's record for raw garlic weighs a teaspoon at 2.8 g, a clove at 3 g and a cup at 136 g. The Culinary Institute of America's conversion chart gives a tablespoon of minced garlic at 8 g, 128 g a cup, and a clove as about 1 teaspoon minced, 3 g. The two are 5% apart, inside the 10% this site allows for chopped produce, and this site publishes USDA's 2.8 g a teaspoon with medium confidence.

King Arthur's chart lists garlic, minced, at 2 tablespoons = 1 oz = 28 g. Two tablespoons is one fluid ounce, and 28 g is one ounce by weight: the row reads the fluid ounce as a weight ounce, which makes minced garlic nearly as heavy as water. King Arthur's own row for peeled, sliced garlic, 1 cup = 149 g, is 0.63 g/mL, close to USDA's minced figure and far from the 0.95 g/mL its minced row implies.

America's Test Kitchen sizes a clove that yields 1 teaspoon minced at 5 g, which would also make a teaspoon of mince weigh 5 g. That is a rule for judging the size of a clove, not a weighing of the mince, and it is listed without a figure.

The physical check: garlic cloves are a little heavier than water, and hand-minced garlic is small, moist, sticky pieces with air between them. Spooned into a measuring spoon and leveled, the pieces fill about half of it, which is what USDA's 0.57 g/mL and the CIA's 0.54 g/mL say. To weigh 0.95 g/mL, as King Arthur's row does, a spoon of minced garlic would have to be almost solid garlic, which happens only when it is pressed into a paste or packed in liquid. That is what jarred minced garlic is: Spice World's jar of garlic, water and citric acid labels a teaspoon at 5 g, and Gourmet Garden's minced garlic paste the same 5 g, 240 g a cup, because liquid fills the gaps between the pieces. King Arthur's 28 g for two tablespoons sits close to jarred garlic and far from fresh.

Practical guidance: for fresh garlic minced by hand, count 2.8 g a teaspoon and 8.4 g a tablespoon; a medium clove gives about a teaspoon. Garlic crushed in a garlic press is a paste and weighs more by the spoon than minced garlic. For jarred minced garlic, count 5 g a teaspoon and 15 g a tablespoon. When a recipe written for fresh minced garlic is made with a jar, measure by the same spoon; the jarred garlic will weigh nearly twice as much because of the water in it.

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

• King Arthur Baking Ingredient Weight Chart: 224 g per cup