How Many Tablespoons in an Ounce?

An ounce without a jigger

A drink recipe that reads "2 oz, ¾ oz, ¾ oz" assumes a jigger on the counter. If yours is missing, a tablespoon does the same work, because the arithmetic here is friendlier than almost anywhere else in the kitchen: each ounce is two level tablespoons. So that recipe becomes 4 tablespoons, 1½ tablespoons and 1½ tablespoons, seven in all, or 3½ fluid ounces in the shaker.

I'd take a plain spoon over a free pour. A cocktail is small enough that one heavy-handed ounce changes the whole balance, and a spoon you can level is more honest than a count of "one, two" over the glass.

1.5 ounces, ¾ ounce and the awkward third

An ounce and a half is three tablespoons. And ¾ ounce is 1½ tablespoons, which you can measure as 1 tablespoon plus 1½ teaspoons if your set has no half-tablespoon. The fraction that trips people up is ⅓ ounce: that's ⅔ of a tablespoon, and the clean way to get it is 2 teaspoons. For anything in between, type ¾ or 1 1/2 into the calculator above and read the spoons, the teaspoons and the milliliters off the same line.

Scaling is where I'd change tools. Four of that same drink comes to 8 ounces, 3 ounces and 3 ounces, or 28 tablespoons if you insist on counting them. Eight ounces is a single 1-cup pour. Three ounces is ¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons. The whole batch lands at 14 ounces, or 1¾ cups, so a liquid measure with ounce lines gets you there in one pour per ingredient.

Vinaigrette by the tablespoon

A vinaigrette is a ratio, so the ounce matters mostly as a way of counting parts. I think three parts oil to one part vinegar is the sensible place to start, and then your palate gets the last word: a sharp vinegar may want more oil, a mellow one less. For one large salad that means 3 tablespoons of oil and 1 of vinegar, 2 fluid ounces in total, which is exactly ¼ cup. Double it and you have 3 ounces of oil and 1 ounce of vinegar, or 6 and 2 tablespoons, for ½ cup of dressing.

If you like it sharper, two to one is just as easy: 4 tablespoons of oil to 2 of vinegar, 3 ounces altogether. Spoon the vinegar first and the oil second, since a spoon that has just held oil carries a film into whatever comes next. A jar with ounce marks looks like the shortcut here, but a couple of tablespoons in a wide jar barely reaches the first line, and that's the amount you're trying to get right.

An ounce of honey in a dressing

Read the recipe's wording. One fluid ounce of honey is still 2 tablespoons, but "1 oz honey" meant to be weighed is less than that. The King Arthur chart puts honey at 336 grams per cup, or 21 grams per tablespoon, so an ounce by weight is about 1⅓ tablespoons. That gap is why the cooking conversion chart asks for an ingredient before it will touch a weight. If your recipe leans smaller, the page on teaspoons in an ounce works through extracts and concentrates in even smaller steps, and tablespoons in a quarter cup picks up where this ladder stops.