Cooking with nuts can be tricky. Their odd, irregular shapes guarantee that they won’t pack neatly into measuring cups, making precise measurement nearly impossible. Our solution: Measure the nuts by weight, rather than volume. At Milk Street, we often prefer to weigh ingredients, particularly when baking, because it ensures consistency and accuracy and, more often than not, is easier. Nuts are no exception. Unfortunately, most recipes call for nuts by volume, not weight. To clear up the guesswork, we’ve compiled the weights of the most commonly used nuts (as well as seeds, including sesame and pumpkin, and peanuts, which are legumes). In our testing, we weighed 1⁄2 cup of each variety three times, then averaged those results to arrive at their final weights.

Chart
Nuts By Weight
½ Cup Of...Equals (In Grams)
Almonds, sliced54
Almonds, slivered73
Almonds, whole83
Cashews, whole75
Hazelnuts, whole71
Macadamia nuts72
Peanuts, whole74
Pecan halves61
Pecans, chopped64
Pine Nuts71
Pistachios77
Pumpkin seeds (pepitas)78
Sesame seeds63
Sunflower seeds74
Walnut halves57
Walnuts, chopped63