Cooking Oil Converter

Cooking oil conversions by volume and weight.

Density of common oils (grams per tablespoon):

• Olive oil: 13.5 g
• Coconut oil (liquid): 13.6 g
• Vegetable/canola oil: 13.6 g
• Butter (melted): 14.175 g

Substitution ratios (by volume):

• Butter to oil: use 3/4 the amount (1 cup butter = 3/4 cup oil)
• Oil to butter: use 1 1/3 the amount (1 cup oil = 1 1/3 cup butter)
• Coconut oil to butter: 1:1 ratio
• Olive oil to vegetable oil: 1:1 ratio

1 cup of oil:

• Olive oil: 216 g = 1,910 calories
• Coconut oil: 218 g = 1,879 calories
• Vegetable oil: 218 g = 1,927 calories

This converter handles oil by volume, the everyday question of how many quarts or liters a job needs. It does not deal with viscosity grades like 5W-30, which describe how the oil flows, not how much of it there is. Those grades are a separate spec entirely, and easy to confuse with quantity.

For motor oil, the right amount depends on the engine, not the bottle. A typical car takes 4 to 6 quarts, but the only number to trust is your owner’s manual capacity, confirmed afterward on the dipstick, since overfilling can foam the oil and starve the engine just as underfilling does. For cooking oil, keep volume and weight separate: oil is lighter than water, so a cup weighs roughly 220 grams rather than the 240 a cup of water would. A recipe that lists oil by weight and one that lists it by volume aren’t interchangeable without accounting for that gap.