Techniques · 3 min read ·
Kitchen Measurements in Pakistan: Pao, Ser, Tola, Cups and Grams
A clear conversion guide for Pakistani kitchens: traditional weights (tola, chatank, pao, ser, maund) in grams, how cups and spoons work, grams per cup for common ingredients like rice, atta, sugar and besan, and handy everyday equivalents.
Pakistani kitchens mix three systems of measurement. Grandmothers’ recipes use pao and chatank, shops sell in kilos and litres, and recipes online use cups and spoons. Add in “one cup” that might mean a tea cup or a measuring cup, and it’s easy to get a recipe wrong. This guide puts them all in one place.
Traditional weights
The traditional system is based on the tola. The old official values are:
| Unit | Equals | In grams (traditional) |
|---|---|---|
| Tola | about 11.66 g | |
| Chatank | 5 tola | about 58 g |
| Pao | 4 chatank | about 233 g |
| Ser | 4 pao (80 tola) | about 933 g |
| Maund (mann) | 40 ser | about 37.3 kg |
How they’re used today: in everyday shopping, most people treat 1 pao as 250 g, 1 ser as roughly 1 kg and 1 maund as 40 kg. When an old family recipe says “aadha pao”, read it as about 120–125 g. The tola is still the standard for gold, and sometimes for saffron and very small amounts of spices.
Cups and spoons
Recipes on this site use standard measuring cups and spoons:
- 1 cup = 240 ml
- 1 tablespoon (tbsp) = 15 ml = 3 teaspoons
- 1 teaspoon (tsp) = 5 ml
- 1 pinch is roughly what you can hold between thumb and finger, about 1/16 teaspoon.
A household tea cup usually holds less, around 150–200 ml, and a glass is typically 200–250 ml. If a recipe says “cup”, use a measuring cup; it’s worth buying a cheap set.
Spoons should be level, not heaped, unless the recipe says “heaped”. A heaped teaspoon of spice can be almost double a level one.
Grams per cup for common ingredients
A cup measures volume, so the weight depends on the ingredient. These are typical values for a 240 ml cup, spooned in and levelled:
| Ingredient | Grams per cup (approx.) |
|---|---|
| Water | 240 g |
| Milk | 245 g |
| Yogurt | 245 g |
| Basmati rice (uncooked) | 190–200 g |
| Atta (whole wheat flour) | 120–130 g |
| Maida (plain flour) | 125 g |
| Besan (gram flour) | 90–100 g |
| Suji (semolina) | 165–170 g |
| Sugar | 200 g |
| Cooking oil | 215–220 g |
| Ghee (melted) | 210–220 g |
| Lentils (daal) | 190–200 g |
| Chopped onion | 150–160 g |
Weighing is always more accurate than cups, especially for baking and for flour, which packs down easily. A digital kitchen scale is one of the most useful tools you can buy; see our kitchen tools guide.
Small amounts
- 1 tsp salt: about 5–6 g
- 1 tsp sugar: about 4 g
- 1 tsp ground spice: about 2–3 g
- 1 tbsp ghee or butter: about 13–14 g
- 1 tbsp oil: about 14 g
Everyday equivalents
- 1 medium onion: about 150 g, or roughly 1 cup chopped.
- 1 medium tomato: about 120 g.
- 1 medium potato: about 170 g.
- 1 lemon: about 2 tablespoons of juice.
- 1 inch ginger: about 1 tablespoon grated.
- 1 dozen eggs: about 600–700 g without the shells, depending on size.
Oven temperatures
| Celsius | Fahrenheit |
|---|---|
| 150°C | 300°F |
| 160°C | 325°F |
| 180°C | 350°F |
| 200°C | 400°F |
| 220°C | 425°F |
Many home ovens in Pakistan run hotter or cooler than their dial says. An oven thermometer helps.
Scaling recipes
Every recipe page on this site has a serving scaler that converts quantities for more or fewer people, and a cost panel that uses the same grams-per-cup values to estimate what a dish costs. For big gatherings, the dawat planner totals up quantities across several dishes.
