Quarts to Cups Converter

Exactly 4 cups, and the ratio holds in every measurement system this converter supports: US Liquid, US Dry, and UK Imperial. Only the underlying volume of each cup and quart changes; the count does not. So 1 qt = 4 cups, 2 qt = 8 cups, 4 qt (1 gal) = 16 cups, no matter which system the recipe was written in. The chain extends down (1 cup = 8 fl oz US, or 1 cup = 2 pt / 4) and up (4 qt = 1 gal), all exact by statute.

A US liquid quart is 946.35 mL (the quart on milk jugs, paint cans, and most US recipes). A US dry quart is 1,101.22 mL, about 16 percent larger. The dry quart exists because the US still measures fresh produce by volume in some contexts: berries, mushrooms, and oysters are sold by the dry quart at farmers' markets and produce stands. Both call themselves quarts, both contain 4 cups, but the physical container is different. The dry quart traces back to the 1/32-of-a-bushel definition used in 19th-century US grain trade and codified in NIST Handbook 44. If a recipe says '1 quart of strawberries' it usually means a dry quart (the container you bought them in); if it says '1 quart of milk' it always means a liquid quart.

No, the UK Imperial quart is about 20 percent larger than the US liquid quart. A US liquid quart is 946 mL (0.946 L) and a UK Imperial quart is 1,137 mL (1.137 L). The gap comes from the UK pint: the British pint is 568 mL (20 imperial fl oz), while the US pint is 473 mL (16 US fl oz). Multiply pint by 2 and you get the quart in each system. The Imperial system was redefined in 1824 around 10 pounds of water at a fixed temperature, while the US kept the older 1707 Queen Anne wine gallon of 231 cubic inches. For British recipes, scale every quart figure up by about 20 percent, or switch the system picker to UK Imperial.

Start from the gallon and divide by 4 each step. A gallon is 4 quarts; a quart is a quarter of a gallon (which is also the etymology of the word 'quart', from the Latin quartus). A quart is 2 pints. A pint is 2 cups. A cup is 8 fl oz. Put together: 1 gallon = 4 qt = 8 pt = 16 cups = 128 fl oz. The mnemonic that sticks for most cooks is 'Gallon Man': a big G with 4 Qs inside, each Q with 2 Ps, each P with 2 Cs, each C with 8 little Os for ounces. Once you have that picture, you never have to look up that 16 cups equals 1 gallon.

Because they are light, fragile, and inconsistent in size. Weighing strawberries or mushrooms would penalize the slightly larger or denser berries from one farm and reward the slightly drier ones from another, and the difference is real enough to matter at retail. Selling by volume in a standard dry-quart container (the green plastic basket you see at farmers' markets, or the cardboard clamshell at the supermarket) gives every shopper the same amount of fruit, lets growers pack the field directly into the retail container, and avoids tare-weight disputes. The US dry quart container has been the standardized produce volume since the 19th century, codified in NIST Handbook 44, and is still the legal basis for produce labeling in many states. One dry quart of strawberries weighs about 600 to 700 g; one dry quart of blueberries weighs about 500 to 600 g.