Penne
One US cup of penne weighs 95 grams (3.4 ounces). Going the other way, 100 grams is about 1.05 cups.
Also called penne rigate, penne pasta, dry penne, uncooked penne, penne lisce.
Most sites print a number for a cup of penne and do not say where it came from. This page publishes 95 g (3.4 oz) and names all four sources it was checked against: USDA SR Legacy "Pasta, dry, enriched" (FDC 169736), USDA Food Buying Guide for Child Nutrition Programs (penne, enriched, dry), America's Test Kitchen, One-Pot Penne with Chicken and Simple Skillet Sausage Pasta and Prince Penne Rigate and other labels; Barilla measuring chart (barilla.com/en-us/help/measuring-pasta).
| Volume | Grams | Ounces |
|---|---|---|
| 1 cup | 95 g | 3.4 oz |
| 3/4 cup | 71.2 g | 2.5 oz |
| 2/3 cup | 63.3 g | 2.2 oz |
| 1/2 cup | 47.5 g | 1.7 oz |
| 1/3 cup | 31.7 g | 1.1 oz |
| 1/4 cup | 23.7 g | 0.84 oz |
| 1 tablespoon | 5.9 g | 0.21 oz |
| 1 teaspoon | 2 g | 0.07 oz |
Penne ounces to grams and cups
| Weight | Grams | US cups |
|---|---|---|
| 1 oz | 28.3 g | 0.30 |
| 4 oz | 113.4 g | 1.19 |
| 8 oz | 226.8 g | 2.39 |
| 16 oz (1 lb) | 453.6 g | 4.78 |
Compared side by side
Dry pasta and noodles compared: cup weights side by side, the source behind each, and why they differ.
Where this number comes from
A cup of dry penne weighs 95 g (3.4 oz). USDA, the USDA Food Buying Guide and America's Test Kitchen fall within 7.3% of each other, so this entry publishes USDA's figure.
Penne are short tubes of semolina pasta cut on the diagonal at both ends. In the US they are usually ridged, penne rigate; smooth penne are penne lisce. Ziti and mostaccioli are close relatives: ziti are cut straight across, mostaccioli are the smooth diagonal cut.
USDA SR Legacy "Pasta, dry, enriched" (FDC 169736) lists 1 cup of penne at 95 g. The USDA Food Buying Guide counts about 5 1/8 cups of dry enriched penne to the pound, 88.5 g a cup. America's Test Kitchen gives 8 ounces as 2 1/2 cups in its One-Pot Penne with Chicken and 12 ounces as 3 3/4 cups of penne or another short tube in its Simple Skillet Sausage Pasta, 90.7 g a cup both times. The spread is inside the 10% tolerance for grains and pasta.
Labels scatter much more. Prince prints its penne rigate at "3/4 cup (56g)", 75 g a cup; retailer listings show Ronzoni, Mueller's and Kroger at 2/3 cup (84 g) and De Cecco at 1/2 cup (112 g), all for the same 56 g serving; Barilla's measuring chart gives 2/3 cup per 2 ounces. The labels round the cup to a common fraction at a fixed weight, and for a tube that falls between fractions they disagree by a third, so they are kept as sources without a figure.
The physical check: a tube holds air inside as well as around it. At 95 g a cup is 0.40 g/mL. Dry semolina pasta is about 1.4 g/mL (Biernacka and colleagues, 2018, measured raw spaghetti at 1.34 to 1.45), so only about 29% of a cup of penne is pasta. That is why a cup of penne weighs a fifth less than a cup of elbow macaroni (113 to 130 g), whose short curved pieces pack closer, and about the same as a cup of rotini (84 to 96 g).
Cooked: USDA weighs a cup of cooked penne at 107 g (FDC 169737), the same figure it gives for cooked farfalle and rotini. The Food Buying Guide's yield, 2.60 lb cooked (about 7 3/4 cups) per pound of dry penne, works out to about 152 g a cup, so a cup of cooked penne depends heavily on how firmly it is filled; it is described here rather than published. Barilla counts a 2-ounce serving as 1 1/4 cups cooked.
Practical guidance: use 95 g per cup of dry penne, 48 g per half cup; a 1 lb box holds about 4 3/4 to 5 cups. For a recipe that gives penne in cups, 2 1/2 cups is about 8 ounces. When swapping penne for ziti or rigatoni, weigh rather than measure by the cup.
Sources
Dry, uncooked, poured into the cup and leveled
- USDA SR Legacy "Pasta, dry, enriched" (FDC 169736)95 g per cup3.4 ozUSDA lists 1 cup penne = 95 g (density 0.402 g/mL). Portion names as listed by getfoodfacts.com for FDC 169736 ("1 cup elbows (122g)" shown there), gram weights for every shape as listed by Prospre from the same USDA record: 1 cup spaghetti 91 g, elbows 122 g, penne 95 g, farfalle 81 g, rotini 96 g, shells 64 g, lasagna 90 g. Water 9.90 g per 100 g.
- USDA Food Buying Guide for Child Nutrition Programs (penne, enriched, dry)88.5 g per cup3.1 ozGrains yield table (foodbuyingguide.fns.usda.gov, Section 4): "Penne, Enriched", purchase unit pound, "1 lb dry = about 5-1/8 cups dry enriched penne pasta; 1 lb dry = 2.60 lb (about 7-3/4 cups) cooked", 88.5 g per cup dry (density 0.374 g/mL).
- America's Test Kitchen, One-Pot Penne with Chicken and Simple Skillet Sausage Pasta90.7 g per cup3.2 ozOne-Pot Penne with Chicken, Artichokes, Cherry Tomatoes, and Olives: "8 ounces (2½ cups) penne"; Simple Skillet Sausage Pasta: "12 ounces (3¾ cups) penne, fusilli, or short, tubular pasta". Both 90.7 g per cup (density 0.383 g/mL).
- Prince Penne Rigate and other labels; Barilla measuring chart (barilla.com/en-us/help/measuring-pasta)Prince (princepasta.com): "Serving Size 3/4 cup (56g)", 8 servings (75 g per cup). Barilla's chart: "Penne | 2/3 cup | 1-1/4 cups | 5 cups | 9-1/2 cups" (85 g per cup). Retailer listings show Ronzoni, Mueller's and Kroger at 2/3 cup and De Cecco at 1/2 cup per 56 g (84 and 112 g per cup). Pasta labels and Barilla's chart give a fixed 2-ounce (56 g) serving and round its volume to a common fraction of a cup, so they are kept as sources without a figure.
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