Peanut butter in grams, and the tablespoon that was never measured

Smooth peanut butter weighs 258 grams to the US cup. The figure most people want is the tablespoon, and there the situation is odder than it looks: the USDA published two tablespoons at 32 g and never a single one. Every chart that hands you a confident 16 got there by dividing.

The spoon everybody prints and nobody weighed

Peanut butter is measured by the spoon more than by the cup, so a tablespoon figure is the thing a reader comes for. Search it and every result gives you 15 or 16 grams. Look for the measurement behind those numbers and it is not there. The USDA's entry publishes a two-tablespoon portion at 32 g, which is what someone put on a scale, and no single-tablespoon row at all. Divide 32 by two and you get 16 on the nose, which is where the internet's figure comes from.

We print the pair instead: 32 g for two tablespoons. Halving it would be inventing a measurement the authority declined to make, and peanut butter is the worst ingredient to invent one for. It clings to whatever touches it, the way honey clings to a cup at 339 g, so what leaves the spoon is not what the arithmetic promises. If your recipe wants one tablespoon, put the spoon on a scale; if it wants two, the published 32 g is waiting. The reasoning behind refusing this kind of division is on the methodology page.

Peanut butter conversions in full

Following the USDA's 258 gram cup. A cup of peanut butter in grams follows from it, and two cups covers a larger batch.

Density used: 1.09 g per ml, heavier than water at 1.00.

The doubling that overshoots

King Arthur publishes half a cup at 135 g. Doubled, that is 270 against the USDA's measured 258: 12 grams too much. Count the cases across the ingredients we hold and the direction splits evenly. Cornstarch, olive oil and cocoa all come out short when you multiply a published fraction; rice, breadcrumbs and peanut butter all come out long. That even split matters more than the size of any single error: a bias in one direction could be corrected for, and there is no bias, so it cannot. The only safe move is to use the figure someone weighed, at the amount they weighed it.

Smooth, crunchy, salted, unsalted

Four products sit on the shelf and the charts describe one. The USDA's salted and unsalted entries publish identical portions, so salt does not change the weight. Smooth against crunchy is unanswered: neither authority splits them, and we will not guess at a figure for peanut pieces suspended in the same butter. Crunchy is likely close, since the peanuts are the same material as the paste, but likely is not measured and we do not print likely.

A cup abroad, and a cup missing

Australian Women's Weekly weighs a 250 millilitre cup at 280 g. Sanitarium prints a quarter cup at 70 g, which we have not multiplied out for the reason this whole page is about. No Japanese standard table carries peanut butter at all, so there is no Japanese figure here, and an empty row is the honest form of that.

Questions about peanut butter weight

How much does a tablespoon of peanut butter weigh?

The USDA never published one. It measured two tablespoons at 32 g and stopped there, so the honest answer is 32 g for two. Halving that gives the 16 g you will find everywhere else, and that 16 is arithmetic rather than a weighing.

How many grams is a cup of peanut butter?

258 g, from the USDA, for smooth peanut butter. The salted and unsalted entries carry identical portions, so the salt does not move the weight.

Does crunchy peanut butter weigh the same as smooth?

Nobody has published an answer. Neither King Arthur nor the USDA splits smooth from crunchy, so we cannot give you two figures. If a recipe is tight on fat, weigh the jar you have.

Sources

USDA FoodData Central SR Legacy for the 258 gram cup and the 32 gram two-tablespoon portion. King Arthur Baking for the 135 gram half cup. Australian Women's Weekly for the 280 gram metric cup, and Sanitarium for the quarter cup we did not extrapolate. Full citations on the sources page.