Weighing also works without scales. We will show you three practical tips that you can use to determine the quantities of ingredients alternatively. You need a few kitchen utensils for this.

Weighing without scales, but with alternative kitchen helpers – that’s not that difficult. If you don’t have a kitchen scale, you can use the following kitchen utensils instead:

measuring cup
tablespoons and teaspoons
cups
Quantities may be slightly less accurate when measured using these methods. This is usually not a problem. Nevertheless, there are some recipes, for example for cakes, for which you need very precise quantities. In this case, you should use the measuring cup. With this you can get a pretty accurate result.

The kitchen scale alternatives are often more sustainable, after all they do not require electricity or batteries and you most likely already have them at home. We present the three options in detail.

Measuring cup for weighing food

Weighing without a scale works with a measuring cup, for example. It is usually printed with several scales. Thanks to the given units of measurement and quantities, you don’t have to convert anything when weighing. You can read liquids such as water by marking them in milliliters or liters. On the other hand, you can measure the amount of solid food, such as flour or sugar, in milligrams and grams.

Weighing without a scale: This is how it works with spoons

You can also use spoons to weigh without scales. The cutlery serves different purposes in the kitchen: you can use it not only for eating, but also for weighing. Many recipes use tablespoons or teaspoons as the usual quantities anyway. This often means a level, sometimes also a heaped spoon. Quantities may vary slightly depending on the size of the spoon and the density of the ingredients. However, a heaped spoon is always double the amount of a level spoon.

A teaspoon of salt serves as an example:

1 teaspoon (level) equals 5 grams of salt.
1 teaspoon (heaped) is approximately 10 grams of salt.

Weighing without scales, but with cups

You can also weigh food with a cup without needing a scale. As a rule of thumb, remember that a small coffee cup is about 125 milliliters. That’s the equivalent of about 80 grams of flour or 120 grams of sugar. Measuring cups are helpful for very precise information.

Many American recipes give the quantities in cups. But beware, the German cup corresponds to a much smaller unit of measurement than the American cups. The latter contains around 235 milliliters – almost twice as much as a German cup.