Worcestershire sauce

One US cup of Worcestershire sauce weighs 267 grams (9.4 ounces). Going the other way, 100 grams is about 0.37 cups.

Also called Worcester sauce, Worcestershire, Lea & Perrins, Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce.

Condiments and sauces compared: cup weights side by side, the source behind each, and why they differ.

A cup of Worcestershire sauce weighs 267 g (9.4 oz), a density of 1.13 g/mL, so a tablespoon weighs 16.7 g and a teaspoon 5.6 g. A 568 mL bottle of Lea & Perrins has a net weight of 641 g, its 150 mL bottle 166 g, and Heinz's own Worcestershire sauce 169 g per 150 mL. USDA's 275 g per cup is heavier than a sauce with its water content can be, and is rejected.

Worcestershire sauce was first sold by the chemists John Lea and William Perrins in Worcester, England, in the 1830s. It is a thin, dark, sharp sauce of vinegar, molasses, sugar, salt, anchovies, tamarind, onion, garlic and spices, aged before bottling. It goes into marinades, Caesar dressing, Bloody Marys, chili and meatloaf, usually by the teaspoon or tablespoon.

Its weight comes from the molasses, sugar and salt dissolved in vinegar. Heinz's technical sheet gives 19 g of sugars and 2.8 g of salt per 100 g, and USDA's record lists 78.5 g of water, about 21% solids. A solution with that much sugar and salt weighs about 1.10 to 1.13 g/mL by the sucrose and salt tables, and the bottles agree. Lea & Perrins' 641 g in 568 mL is 1.129 g/mL, 267 g per cup; its 166 g in 150 mL is 1.107 g/mL, 262 g; and Heinz's 169 g in 150 mL is 1.127 g/mL, 267 g. The three sit within 2% of each other, inside the 5% tolerance this site allows for liquids, and the large Lea & Perrins bottle, weighed over the biggest volume, is published. Both brands belong to Kraft Heinz, so the confidence is medium rather than high.

These are European bottlings. The American Lea & Perrins uses distilled white vinegar where the British bottle uses malt and spirit vinegar, with the same molasses, sugar, salt, anchovies and tamarind. Its label gives the serving as 1 tsp with no grams, the FDA reference amount for a minor condiment, so it states no weight.

USDA's Standard Reference record (FDC 171610) gives 1 cup as 275 g, 1.162 g/mL. The same record lists 78.5% water, so at most 21.5% solids. A solution reaches 1.16 g/mL at that strength only if nearly every dissolved gram is salt, the densest common solute; Worcestershire's solids are mostly molasses and sugar, and a 21.5% sugar solution weighs 1.09 g/mL. The cup figure is rejected and has its own correction page.

Japanese Worcester sauce, such as Bull-Dog, is a different, sweeter fruit-and-vegetable sauce made for tonkatsu and okonomiyaki; this figure is not for it.

Practical guidance: use 267 g per cup, 67 g per quarter cup, 16.7 g per tablespoon and 5.6 g per teaspoon. For a Caesar dressing that calls for a teaspoon, that is 5.6 g; for a big batch of marinade, the cup figure matters more than the spoon. Worcestershire sauce contains anchovies, so look for a vegetarian version when that matters; its weight is not covered here.

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

• USDA SR Legacy "Sauce, worcestershire" (FDC 171610): 275 g per cup