How to halve (or third) a recipe

Last reviewed 2026-11-03

Halving a recipe means multiplying every ingredient by 1/2. Making a third means multiplying by 1/3. The arithmetic is easy; the hard part is that the answers are often amounts no measuring cup holds, like 1/6 cup.

The quick way

Put the recipe into the recipe scaler, press Halve (or set the new yield), and it shows each amount in cups and spoons you can measure. The tables below cover the common amounts if you'd rather do it by hand.

Halving: US cups and spoons

Based on 1 US cup = 16 tablespoons and 1 tablespoon = 3 teaspoons.

A third: US cups and spoons

Some thirds don't come out as tidy spoon amounts. A third of 1/3 cup, for example, is 1 Tbsp plus 2⅓ tsp. The scaler shows these with a "≈" so you know they are rounded.

Metric measures work differently: a 250 mL cup is about 16.7 metric tablespoons (15 mL), not 16, so these tables don't apply. Choose metric or Australian measures in the scaler instead.

Eggs

Halving 3 eggs gives 1½ eggs. You can round, but it changes the recipe. A more accurate way is to beat 2 eggs and use 75% of the beaten weight. See what to do with half an egg.

Besides the amounts

• Use a smaller pan. Nebraska Extension advises keeping the food at a similar depth when you change pan size. Half the batter in the original pan will be shallower and bake differently.
• Check early. Smaller batches may bake faster, so start checking before the original time.
• Keep the oven temperature. Halving the ingredients doesn't mean halving the temperature.

More on this in what scales and what doesn't.