Out of granulated sugar
Honey in place of granulated sugar: two Extension charts compared
Updated
Colorado State and Mississippi State both list honey as a stand-in for a cup of granulated sugar, and they do not print the same thing. The card below shows each chart as printed.
They differ on how much honey to use, on how much liquid to take out of the recipe, and on what to do about baking soda.
Sources disagree · replaces 1 cup granulated sugar
Honey, with less liquid in the recipe
The charts below do not print the same thing for 1 cup of granulated sugar. We show each one as printed instead of averaging them.
Colorado State Extension — a little less than a cup
| Amount | Ingredient | ≈ grams |
|---|---|---|
| 1 cup minus 3 tbsp | honey | 275 g |
| 3 tbsp | Reduce the liquid in the recipe, for every cup of honey added by |
- Colorado State University Extension, Ingredient Substitutions (web page) — verified 2026-09-27
Mississippi State Extension — three-quarters of a cup
| Amount | Ingredient | ≈ grams |
|---|---|---|
| ¾ cup | honey | 254 g |
| ¼ cup | Reduce the liquid called for in the recipe by | |
| ½ tsp | Increase the baking soda, for each cup of honey in baked goods by |
- Mississippi State University Extension, Ingredient Substitutions and Equivalents (Publication 1690, 2024), p. 7 — verified 2026-09-27
Grams are volume-to-weight estimates from USDA FoodData Central (SR Legacy): Honey — 1 cup = 339 g. Blank means the chart does not say which kind to use, or the unit is not a volume.
Before you swap
- Colorado State ties its liquid cut to each cup of honey added. Mississippi State prints its cut inside the line for a cup of sugar. The charts do not say whether the two are meant to come out the same, so we do not convert one into the other.
- Colorado State adds a pinch of baking soda “to neutralize acidity”. Mississippi State’s soda step is worded “for each c of honey in baked goods”, so it is written for baked goods only. A pinch has no measured amount, so it is not on the card.
- Both charts list other stand-ins for granulated sugar, such as corn syrup, molasses and brown sugar. Mississippi State also lists powdered sugar, and Colorado State lists confectioners sugar for uses other than baking. Only honey is on this page.
- The amounts on the card are per cup of sugar. For honey, neither chart prints a smaller size, and we do not scale them.
Going the other way, granulated sugar in place of honey: honey substitute.
How these ratios are checked: our method. Spotted a mismatch with a chart? Tell us and we will recheck the original.