Planning & Prep

Oil-to-Butter Conversion: Guide to Butter Substitutes

Pausing your cooking to convert ingredients is never fun. Perhaps your recipe calls for oil, but you only have butter in your fridge. What happens if you’re making pancakes and you only have oil? Thankfully, you can use our oil-to-butter conversion without compromising the taste or texture of your recipe. We crunched the numbers and even provided a few butter substitutes to guide you.

Table of Contents:

How to convert oil to butter
How to convert butter to oil
Oil-to-butter conversion chart
Butter substitutes

How to convert oil to butter

You can convert oil to butter with a 1:1 ratio. This method of swapping oil for butter works with most oils, including olive, vegetable and canola oil. Make sure the butter is cool or at room temperature before mixing it into your recipe.

Example: If a recipe calls for 1 cup of oil, use 1 cup of cool or melted butter instead.

How to convert butter to oil

You can substitute butter for oil, but it may alter the flavor and level of moisture. To convert butter to oil, you’ll want to use a 3:4 ratio instead — this means one equal part of oil equates to ¾ butter.

Example: If a recipe calls for 2/3 cup of butter, use 1/2 cup of oil instead.

However, this is only if you’re using vegetable, canola or olive oil. If you’re replacing butter with coconut oil, you can use a 1:1 ratio.

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Oil to butter conversion chart

Still unsure of how to use the oil-to-butter conversion metrics? Here are some common standard metric conversions for butter to oil and vice versa.

Oil to butter (standard metrics)

Check out the standard metrics for converting oil to butter below.

Oil	Butter
¾ teaspoon	1 teaspoon
2 ¼ teaspoons	1 tablespoon
1 ½ tablespoons	2 tablespoons
3 tablespoons	¼ cup (1/2 stick)
¼ cup + 2 tablespoons	½ cup (1 stick)
½ cup	⅔ cup
½ cup + 1 tablespoons	¾ cup
¾ cup	1 cup (2 sticks)
1 ½ cup	2 cup (4 sticks)

Oil to butter (mL)

Not sure how to convert oil to butter in mL? Reference our chart below for common conversions.

Oil	Butter
75 ml	100 ml
150 ml	200 ml
225 ml	300 ml
300 ml	400 ml
375 ml	500 ml
450 ml	600 ml
525 ml	700 ml
600 ml	800 ml
675 ml	900 ml
750 ml	1000 ml

Oil to butter (grams to mL)

Use the grams to mL oil to butter chart below to convert common measurements. You can also bookmark our grams to mL converter to calculate other common ingredients.

Oil	Butter
83 ml	100 g
166 ml	200 g
249 ml	300 g
332 ml	400 g
415 ml	500 g
498 ml	600 g
581 ml	700 g
664 ml	800 g
747 ml	900 g
830 ml	1000 g

Common butter substitutes

No big deal if you run out of butter when cooking! Here are a few common butter substitutes that get the job done.

1. Olive oil

If you’re replacing butter with oil, you can follow a 3:4 ratio. This means you would use ¾ the amount of olive oil a recipe calls for butter. Try swapping butter for olive oil in your savory dishes, for example, this beef and broccoli recipe.

How much to use: 3:4 ratio

Best for: Cooking and sauteing

2. Coconut oil

Coconut oil is a dairy-free, vegan butter substitute. Although coconut oil can replace butter, it has a distinctive flavor that can alter some dishes. Try using coconut oil to replace butter in this chicken curry recipe, or add it to make a box cake taste better.