How to measure without a kitchen scale

Most Indian kitchens cook superbly without ever weighing anything. Trouble starts only when a recipe from a book or a video asks for 150 grams of this and 80 ml of that. You do not need to buy a scale to follow it. You need two or three known measures, and every kitchen already has them.

1. Use the weight printed on the packet

The most accurate "scale" in the house is a sealed packet, because its weight is printed on it. Divide the packet by eye and you have a good measure.

A 1 kg packet of sugar, atta or rice: half is 500 g, a quarter is 250 g, an eighth is 125 g. Pour it out on a plate, shape it into a flat even rectangle and divide it with a knife.
A 500 g block of butter usually has markings on the wrapper. A 100 g pack cut in half is 50 g.
A 200 g packet of paneer cut in four gives 50 g pieces.

2. Use bottles and pouches for liquids

A 500 ml milk pouch, a 1 litre water bottle and a 200 ml juice pack are all exact volumes. Pour one into your usual pan or glass and note where it reaches.
A syrup bottle's measuring cap is marked at 5 ml and 10 ml: one teaspoon and two teaspoons.
For water and milk, millilitres and grams are nearly the same: 100 ml weighs about 100 g. This is not true for oil, which is lighter, or honey, which is much heavier.

3. Find the size of your own katori and glass

A katori and a steel glass are not standard, but yours do not change. Measure them once and they become reliable tools.

Take a full 500 ml milk pouch or bottle of water.
Fill the katori to the brim again and again, counting, until the 500 ml is finished.
Divide: if the pouch filled the katori three and a third times, the katori holds 150 ml.
Do the same for the glass. Write both numbers inside a cupboard door.

Many katoris hold 120 to 180 ml and many steel glasses 200 to 250 ml. If your glass is close to 240 ml, it can stand in for the "cup" of recipe books.

4. Turn the volume into weight

Once you can measure a cup, the cups to grams table gives the weight of each ingredient. A few worth remembering, for a 240 ml cup filled level:

Ingredient	1 cup	1/2 cup	1/4 cup
Milk	245 g	122 g	61 g
Ghee	205 g	102 g	51 g
Sugar, granulated	200 g	100 g	50 g
Sugar, powdered (icing)	120 g	60 g	30 g
Maida (plain flour)	125 g	62 g	31 g
Atta (whole wheat flour)	120 g	60 g	30 g
Besan (gram flour)	92 g	46 g	23 g
Sooji (semolina, rava)	167 g	84 g	42 g

So 150 g of maida is a cup and about three tablespoons, and 100 g of sugar is half a cup. For small amounts, use the spoons to grams chart.

5. The hand measures of Indian cooking

Family recipes are full of measures that no shop sells. They are not exact, and they are not meant to be, but they are consistent for the person who uses them.

Chutki (pinch): what the thumb and first finger pick up. Used for hing, salt in dough, turmeric. Roughly a sixteenth of a teaspoon.
Two-finger and three-finger pinch: thumb with two or three fingers, for salt in a sabzi. A three-finger pinch is close to a quarter teaspoon.
Mutthi (fistful): a closed handful, the classic measure for rice or dal per person. An adult's fistful of raw rice is very roughly 40 to 60 g, so measure your own once against a known cup.
Andaaza: judgement by eye. It comes from repeating the same dish in the same vessels, which is exactly why it fails in someone else's kitchen.

When you write down a recipe from a parent or grandparent, ask them to cook it once while you catch each "handful" in a cup or spoon before it goes into the pan. That translates the recipe for the next generation.

6. A balance from a coat hanger

For a one-time need, a hanger makes a workable balance. Hang it from a door handle, tie identical bags to the two ends, put a sealed packet of known weight (say a 100 g pack of butter or biscuits) in one bag and add the ingredient to the other until the hanger sits level. Children enjoy this more than the recipe.

How exact do you need to be?

Dal, sabzi, curry, pulao: a tenth more or less changes nothing. Taste and adjust.
Roti and paratha dough: go by feel. Flour differs from bag to bag, and the amount of water with it.
Cakes, biscuits and bread: flour, sugar, fat and raising agents should be within about a twentieth of the recipe. This is where a careful cup, or a scale, matters.
Sugar syrups and pickles: proportions decide whether it sets or keeps, so measure with care.

Questions people ask

How can I measure 100 grams of flour without a scale?

Use a 240 ml cup: 100 g of maida is about three-quarters of a cup plus one tablespoon, spooned in lightly and levelled.

How can I measure 250 ml without a measuring cup?

Half of a 500 ml milk pouch or water bottle is 250 ml. Pour it into a glass once and remember the level.

How many grams is one katori?

It depends on the katori and the ingredient. Measure how many ml your katori holds, then use the cups to grams table: a 150 ml katori holds about 115 g of raw rice or 125 g of sugar.