Some recipes list an amount of vegetable oil and you may want to replace it with butter since "Everything's better with butter"! This oil to butter converter allows you to easily substitute vegetable oil with butter. The converter supports conversion in cups, teaspoons (tsp), tablespoons (tbsp), ounces (oz), pounds (lb), sticks of butter, grams (g), and milliliters (ml).
Quick navigation:
- Substituting vegetable oil with butter
- Oil to butter conversion
- Oil to butter conversion examples
- Cups of oil to sticks of butter
- Ounces of oil to ounces of butter
- Cups of vegetable oil to cups of butter
- Grams of oil to grams of butter
- How much is a stick of butter?
Substituting vegetable oil with butter
Vegetable oils are oils extracted from a variety of seeds and other plant parts with popular vegetable oils including sunflower oil, olive oil, palm oil, soybean oil, grape seed oil, and coconut oil. Butter is a dairy product typically produced from the fats and proteins in cow's milk and has a yellowish to white color. Both are used in many cooking recipes.
A recipe may call for a certain amount of vegetable oil in its ingredients list, but if you want to use butter instead, you can definitely substitute oil with butter. The unique flavor added by butter will be well worth it!
Oil to butter conversion
Vegetable oils of all kinds consist of close to 100% fat while butter consists of only about 80% fat. Given this, an easy rule of thumb is that to replace a unit of oil you need 4/3 the amount of butter. This can be done by multiplying by 4/3 (1.333), or by dividing by 3/4 (0.75). For example, if a recipe calls for one cup of oil you'll need 1 · 1.333 = 1⅓ cups of butter to replace it, or roughly 2½ sticks of butter.
To substitute an amount of oil specified in a volume unit such as tablespoons, cups, teaspoons, or milliliters with butter, the difference in density between oil and butter needs to be accounted for to achieve a precise oil to butter conversion. Since the differences are quite small, the division by 3/4 rule works just fine for most recipes prepared in a home kitchen.
Note that the kind of vegetable oil does not really matter. Olive oil, sunflower oil, soybean oil, and all other popular ones have roughly the same consistency and density therefore converting from any kind of vegetable oil to butter works the same way.
Oil to butter conversion examples
Here are some example vegetable oil to butter conversion calculations to get you started. As noted, oil to butter conversion which includes switching the measurement unit is more difficult and using our oil to butter conversion calculator above is recommended so you do not need to remember the ratios between cups and grams, cups and ounces, tablespoons and grams, and so on.
Cups of oil to sticks of butter
Sample task: convert 1 cup of oil to sticks of butter, knowing that a standard sticks of butter is 1/4 lb or 4 oz and one cup of oil weighs 7.704 oz. Solution:
Formula:
cups of oil * 2.5906666666667 = sticks of butter
Calculation:
1 cups of oil * 2.5907 = 2.590667 sticks of butter
End result:
1 cups of oil is equal to 2.590667 sticks of butter
How did we arrive at the 2.59 number? First, multiply the cups by 7.772 to arrive at ounces of oil, then divide by 0.75 (this is the 3/4 oil to butter ratio) to get the substitution amount of butter in ounces, and finally divide by 4 to convert it to sticks of butter. Note that there is a small rounding difference between what you will get in the oil to butter converter above. The practical result is that substituting one cup of vegetable oil requires roughly 2½ sticks of butter.
Ounces of oil to ounces of butter
Sample task: convert 3 oz of oil to ounces of butter, given that the oil to butter conversion ratio is 1:1.33. Solution:
Formula:
oz of oil * 1.333 = oz of butter
Calculation:
3 oz of oil * 1.3330 = 3.9990 oz of butter
End result:
3 oz of oil is equal to 3.9990 oz of butter
The above means three ounces of oil can be substituted with exactly one 4-ounce stick of butter.
Cups of vegetable oil to cups of butter
Sample task: convert 2 cups of vegetable oil to cups of butter, knowing that the conversion ratio of oil to butter is 1:4/3 (1:1.33). Solution:
Formula:
cups of oil * 1.333 = cups of butter
Calculation:
0.5 cups of oil * 1.3330 = 0.6665 cups of butter
End result:
0.5 cups of oil is equal to 0.6665 cups of butter
So half a cup of veggie oil can be replaced by three quarters of a cup of butter in most recipes.
Grams of oil to grams of butter
Sample task: convert 30 grams of oil to grams of butter. Solution:
Formula:
g of oil / 0.75 = g of butter
Calculation:
30 g of oil / 0.75 = 40 g of butter
End result:
30 g of oil is equal to 40 g of butter
or roughly a third of a butter stick.
Oil to butter conversion table
| Vegetable oil | Butter | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Cups | Weight | Sticks | Weight |
| 1/4 of a cup | 2 oz (55 g) | 2/3 stick | 2½ oz (74 g) |
| 1/3 of a cup | 2½ oz (73 g) | 1 stick | 3½ oz (98 g) |
| 1/2 of a cup | 4 oz (113 g) | 1⅓ stick | 5⅕ oz (147 g) |
| 2/3 of a cup | 5⅕ oz (147 g) | 1¾ stick | 7 oz (196 g) |
| 3/4 of a cup | 6 oz (165 g) | 2 sticks | 7¾ oz (220 g) |
| 1 cup | 7.772 oz (220 g) | 2½ sticks | 10⅓ oz (294 g) |
| 1½ cups | 11.657 oz (330 g) | 4 sticks | 15½ oz (441 g) |
| 2 cups | 15.543 oz (330 g) | 5⅕ sticks | 20¾ oz (587 g) |
How much is a stick of butter?
In the United States, butter is often sold in sticks, each weighing 1/4 pounds or 4 ounces, which is about 113 grams. Due to historical differences in butter cutting and packaging machinery, 4-ounce sticks are mainly produced in two different shapes, with most recipes referring to Elgin-style, a.k.a. Eastern-pack shaped sticks.
See "How much does a stick of butter weigh?" for more on this topic.
