Rice: Cups to Grams
One cup of dry long-grain rice is 198 g — but only if you level it, don't shake it down, and measure it before the rinse.
Long-grain rice (uncooked) conversion table
| Cups | Grams | Ounces |
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How to measure dry rice so it weighs 198 g
Pour the rice into the cup rather than scooping with it, let it heap, then level the top with the back of a knife — the same spoon-and-level discipline as flour, for the same reason. The figure on this page, 198 g per cup, comes from the King Arthur chart's 99 g per level half cup. Two habits break it. Shaking or tapping the cup settles the grains into the gaps and fits noticeably more rice into the same volume. And pressing the rice down with a spoon is just packing by another name.
Measure before you rinse. Rinsing is a good habit — it washes off surface starch — but wet grains cling to each other and to the cup, and the water film itself adds weight that has nothing to do with rice. If a recipe gives a weight, weigh the dry rice first, then rinse it in a sieve and cook as usual; the rinse water is discarded, so the 198 g you weighed is the rice that ends up in the pot.
Uncooked rice only — and why there is no cooked figure here
Everything on this page is for dry, uncooked long-grain rice. Cooked rice is a different substance by weight: the grains absorb water as they cook, so a cup of cooked rice contains far fewer grains — and far less rice by weight — than a cup of the dry grain, and the exact figure depends on the cooking method and how much water was absorbed. Our sources list rice by the dry cup only, so rather than invent a cooked conversion, this site doesn't publish one. If your recipe is written for cooked rice, cook a weighed batch of dry rice once, weigh the result for your method, and write your own ratio on the recipe — it will be more accurate than any chart.
What the dataset does cover is the grain shelf around rice: quinoa at 177 g per cup and bulgur at 152 g per cup, both in the converter above. Rice flours are separate products with their own weights (white rice flour 142 g, brown rice flour 128 g, glutinous rice flour 120 g per cup) — they live on the flour page, not here, because nobody cooks a pilaf with them.
Frequently asked questions
How many grams is 1 cup of uncooked rice?
198 grams for long-grain rice, from the King Arthur Baking chart (99 g per level 1/2 cup, scaled to a full cup). The cup should be poured and levelled, not scooped, shaken or packed.
How many grams is half a cup of rice?
99 grams — the King Arthur chart lists the half cup directly, and the full cup on this page is that figure doubled. A quarter cup is about 50 g by the same arithmetic.
Can I use this converter for cooked rice?
No. Cooked rice has absorbed water, so its weight per cup is different and depends on the cooking method. Our sources only publish the dry weight, so this page converts dry rice only; weigh your own cooked batch once if you need a cooked ratio.
Does rinsing rice change its weight?
Yes, a little: rinsed grains carry a film of water and clump together, so a cup measured after rinsing is not the same 198 g. Weigh or measure the rice dry, then rinse it — the rinse water is thrown away before cooking.
Why does another website say a cup of rice is 185 g or 200 g?
Different charts use different rice, different fill methods, or round differently. A heaped or shaken cup weighs more; a different grain shape packs differently. This page uses the King Arthur chart's long-grain figure end-to-end like the rest of the site.
Related pages
- Oats: cups to grams — another dry grain where shape — flakes vs. steel-cut — changes the cup weight completely
- Flour: cups to grams — where the rice flours (white, brown, glutinous) are converted instead
- Water: cups to grams — the other half of every pot of rice
Data sources: King Arthur Baking Ingredient Weight Chart and USDA FoodData Central. Weights are per US customary cup (236.588 mL); other cup sizes are scaled by volume ratio. See the data sources & method page for how values were chosen.