Many recipes will call for "1 cup of chopped carrots" or "1/2 cup of shredded carrots" but it is not always easy to figure out actually how many carrots are in a cup. In order to help make cooking easier we did some experiments to help tell you exactly how many carrots you need to buy.
To answer How many carrots in a cup we went to the grocery store to check out the vegetable section. After surveying the produce we realized there are a wider variety of carrot sizes to choose from than we remembered from our casual shopping trips for dinner.
After some research, we found it's easy to locate the fresh baby ones because they come in a 1-pound plastic bag with a label on it that contains about 48 baby carrots. Since the other sizes are not as obvious, the United States Department of Agriculture gave its opinion that a medium carrot is between 5.5" and 7.25" in length and weighs between 50 and 72 grams each. Anything bigger than these measurements is considered a large carrot, or less than is called a small carrot.
Given our newly found parameters, we determined 1 pound of this vegetable was equal to 6 to 8 medium carrots or 4 large ones. We purchased medium carrots for our how many carrots in a cup testing samples. We found that it took about 2.75 medium carrots to obtain 1 cup of grated carrots. When sliced or chopped, only 2 carrots were needed to reach the 1 cup mark.
Did you know that the longest carrot officially recorded was in 2007 at over 19 feet. Baby carrots aren't individually peeled; they get buffed and polished in a large tumble drum. The orange carrot that we eat today is a domesticated version of the wild purple, red, white, and yellow carrots originally found in Europe and South-Asia. And finally, due to its high natural sugar content, carrots are enjoyed in cakes, desserts, jams and juice drinks worldwide.
Next time your recipe calls for a cup of chopped, sliced or grated carrots you'll feel confident knowing how many you need. You can also use our conversion tool below for any custom how many carrots in a... measurements you need. If you peel a lot of carrots by hand you should definitely look into getting a good vegetable peeler to greatly speed up the process. I feel comfortable recommending the OXO Good Grips Swivel Peeler since I use it all the time at home!
Carrots with the green tops attached tend to lose sweetness quickly so purchase them only if you can use them in a day or two. Remove tops as soon as possible.
Place carrots in a plastic bag or in refrigerator vegetable compartment for up to 3 weeks.
Cooked carrots will keep 2 to 3 days in the refrigerator.
For the best freezing results, select young, tender, medium length carrots. Remove tops, wash and peel. Leave small carrots whole; cut others into thin slices, 1/4 inch cubes or lengthwise strips. Blanch small whole carrots for 5 minutes, diced, sliced and lengthwise strips for 2 minutes. Cool by dipping in ice water, drain and package, leaving 1/2 inch headspace; seal in airtight freezer bags or containers. Carrots will keep frozen for 6 to 8 months.
Carrots can be pickled or canned.Even though they'll lose sweetness and succulence the longer they're kept, carrots are still one vegetable that can be stored without tremendous damage to their taste.
One of the biggest hassles when cooking and working in the kitchen is when a recipe calls for "the juice of 1 lime" or a similar measurement. Often times when cooking people use bottled juices, pre-sliced vegetables and other convenient cooking time savers. Produce Converter will help you convert the "juice of 1 lime" and other similar recipe instructions into tablespoons, cups and other concrete measurements.
Produce Converter can also be used to figure out how many vegetables to buy when you need, for instance, "A cup of diced onion." You can use our easy conversion tool to figure out exactly how many onions you need to buy at the store in order to end up with the amount you need for your cooking.
We hope you enjoy Produce Converter and if you have any suggestions for how we can improve it and make your cooking easier please let us know.