The most common uses for mason jars are storage, canning, and sprouting. But mason jars makes great liquid measuring cups, too. Sometimes all my “official” liquid measuring cups are dirty, or they're too small anyway. More and more I turn to a mason jar.
I don't mean to insult your intelligence by listing the volumes here. You probably already know these amounts. 😉 Just consider this a refresher, if you need one.
- 1 cup = 1/2 pint jar
- 2 cups = pint jar
- 4 cups = quart jar
- 8 cups = half gallon jar
Let's say I'm making soup. I need 8 cups or more of water. So I grab a half-gallon jar and fill it once, to within 1/2″ of the rim. The alternative would be to fill a liquid measuring cup two to four times, depending on whether it is the 2-cup size or the 4-cup size.
Let's say I'm making my 4-grain breakfast porridge, which calls for 6 cups of water. I use a half-gallon jar and fill it three-fourths of the way up. Some jars have marks for the cups, but some don't. That's okay. Three-quarters is easy to spot.
Let's say I store my bulk agave in quart jars (I do). When I need one cup, I pour one quarter of the jar's volume off, just eye-balling it, or using the markings on the jar. If I need all four cups of the agave (like for a quadruple batch of Kombucha), I use the full amount in the quart jar.
What other uses do you have for mason jars? Please share!
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Oh Wardee, Your so cleaver –
I never thought of using my mason jars for measuring….
Not that I have any of the half gallon ones empty 🙂 but I’m going to remember this tip, and let my jars help me in the kitchen.
The only thing I use my jars for that many people don’t is freezing, this way I can avoid using more plastic than I have to.
I fill only to the shoulder of the jar (below where it starts to curve in) and place cooled/room temp jars into the freezer without lids (lightly covered or not). Later, after freezing I come back and put on the lids. This is how I keep the jars from breaking. They are then easy to thaw in a bowl of water or on the counter. I use many of my 1/2 gallon jars for this.
Thanks for your tips,
Jami
Jami,
I do alot of freezing in jars, too. They fit well on the freezer door’s shelves. Thanks for sharing how you prevent the jars from breaking and also how you thaw.
shouldn’t use these for accurate measuring. i have a old perfect mason quart jar and it wont fit 4 cups in it regardless of the marks on the side of the jar. i filled a one quart Pyrex measure and then dumped it into my perfect mason jar and it filled it to the very top brim of jar and still could not fit the last 1/8th of a cup in it … apparently these jars all use the “its close enough” school of thought …