Tomato Juice

One US cup of tomato juice weighs 243 grams (8.6 ounces). Going the other way, 100 grams is about 0.41 cups.

Also called canned tomato juice, 100% tomato juice, bottled tomato juice, tomato juice no salt added.

Tomato paste, puree, sauces, canned tomatoes, juice and ketchup compared: cup weights side by side, the source behind each, and why they differ.

Tomato juice weighs 243 g per US cup (8.6 oz), a density of 1.027 g/mL. USDA's salted and unsalted canned tomato juice records both give 243 g per cup, and their fluid-ounce portions agree with the cup to within a fifth of a gram.

Tomato juice is the strained juice of ripe tomatoes, heated and canned or bottled, usually with salt. It is about 94% water, with about 5% dissolved and suspended solids: sugars, citric and malic acids, pectin and fine tomato pulp. Drunk on its own, it is also the base of a Bloody Mary, of gazpacho and of tomato soups and braises. Vegetable juice blends such as V8 are mostly tomato juice with other vegetables and are a different product.

USDA SR Legacy "Tomato juice, canned, with salt added" (FDC 170458) lists 1 cup at 243 g and 6 fluid ounces at 182 g; the without-salt record (NDB 11886) lists 1 cup at 243 g and 1 fluid ounce at 30.4 g. Each portion works out to 1.027-1.028 g/mL, so the records agree with themselves and with each other. Confidence is medium rather than high because both figures come from USDA, and no independent measurement was found. Labels do not help: US juice labels state the serving as 8 fl oz (240 mL), the FDA reference amount for vegetable juice, with no gram weight.

The physical check agrees. Dissolved solids raise a liquid's density by roughly 0.04 g/mL for every 10% they make up. Tomato juice, at about 5-6% solids, should come out around 1.02-1.03 g/mL, and USDA's 1.027 sits in the middle. It is lighter than the sweet citrus juices, because tomato carries less sugar: fresh orange juice weighs 248 g per cup and grapefruit 247 g, at roughly twice tomato's dissolved solids. Lemon (244 g) and lime (242 g) bracket it.

Salt makes no visible difference. The salted and unsalted records give the same 243 g cup, and their fluid-ounce portions differ by less than a gram per cup, which is inside the rounding of the portions themselves.

Practical guidance: 1 cup is 243 g, 1/2 cup 122 g and 1 fluid ounce about 30 g. A 46-fl-oz can holds about 1.36 L, roughly 1,400 g or 5 3/4 cups; a 5.5-fl-oz single can about 167 g. For a Bloody Mary, 4 fl oz is about 122 g. Because tomato juice is so close to water, using it by volume is accurate enough for drinks and soups; weigh it only where a recipe is built on grams.

The tomato products comparison page shows tomato juice beside canned tomatoes, puree, sauce, paste, marinara and ketchup, from thinnest to thickest.