Calculator
Herbal Recipe Calculator: Scale a Recipe by Parts
Turn a recipe written in parts (1 part herb, 3 parts oil) into cups, ounces, mL, or grams for any batch size, with the math shown.
Your recipe
| Ingredient | Parts | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Total |
Parts by weight and parts by volume make different recipes: a cup of dried leaves weighs far less than a cup of oil. Pick one and stick to it.
Heating oil or wax, or working with alcohol? The method page for your preparation has the safety steps.
Show the math
A part is whatever measure you choose: a teaspoon, a mug, an ounce. Type each ingredient and its parts into the calculator above, and choose weight or volume. Then size the batch one of two ways: the total you want, or the amount you already have of one ingredient.
The calculator adds up the parts, divides the batch by that total, and multiplies by each ingredient’s parts. No recipe is built in; you type in your own. Mountain Rose Herbs and the Herbal Academy call measuring in parts the Simpler’s Method.
Turn parts into cups, ounces, or grams
Choose “Total batch” and enter the size you want. A recipe of 1 part to 3 parts has 4 parts in all. For 2 cups, that’s ½ cup of the first ingredient and 1½ cups of the second.
The Herbal Academy gives a tea blend in parts: 2 parts lemon balm, 1 part spearmint, and ½ part rose petals. For 2 cups of dried blend, the calculator gives 1⅛ cups lemon balm, about ⅝ cup spearmint, and about ¼ cup rose petals. “About” means the nearest kitchen measure is more than 2% off; the mL figure beside it is more precise.
Want to grow your own tea herbs? See how to grow an herbal tea garden.
Before you brew a blend, read each herb’s cautions. Lemon balm’s are in its safety notes. Mountain Rose Herbs adds this note to its recipe: “Just because you can scale up a recipe, doesn’t mean you always should. When working with potent herbs, it is always wise to review the plant’s contraindications and consult with a qualified practitioner before changing your wellness routine.”
Scale from the amount you have
Say you have 3 oz of dried lemon balm. Choose Weight and “What I have of one ingredient,” then pick lemon balm and enter 3 oz. For the same tea, you’ll need 1½ oz spearmint and ¾ oz rose petals, 5¼ oz of blend in all.
Parts by weight or by volume?
Herbalists measure parts either way, the Herbal Academy says, and volume is “perhaps the most common.” Its advice is to choose one measure and “stick to that measurement through the recipe.”
The choice matters because dried herbs can be light. USDA’s FoodData Central lists a tablespoon of dried basil leaves (record “Spices, basil, dried”) at 2.1 grams and a tablespoon of olive oil (“Oil, olive, salad or cooking”) at 13.5 grams. That’s one herb, but it shows how the two ways can give different recipes.
Here’s the same tea measured by weight. For a 4 oz batch, you’d use 2¼ oz lemon balm, 1⅛ oz spearmint, and about ⅝ oz rose petals. That’s not the 2-cup batch above in ounces: with no weight for a cup of this blend, one can’t be converted into the other.
Some recipes say how to measure. Oregon State’s high-sugar recipe for canning American and European elderberry jams, jellies, and syrups says to “Carefully follow the recipe” and that “Ingredients MUST be weighed to get the correct sugar ratio” (Oregon State University Extension). Make that one as written. Our syrups guide explains when it applies.
If a recipe doesn’t say how to measure, choose Weight or Volume once in the calculator and use it for every row.
Two examples from our method pages
A salve, by weight
Our salves guide weighs both the oil and the wax: 1 oz beeswax for every 5 oz oil for a soft salve, 1 oz for every 4 oz for a firmer one. That’s a maker’s rule of thumb, tested by Humblebee & Me with olive oil at about 68°F (20°C). Other oils may set differently, so check yours with the cold-plate test.
Say you’ve strained 6 oz of infused oil for a soft salve. Choose Weight, enter Beeswax 1 and Oil 5, and enter the 6 oz of oil under “What I have of one ingredient.” You need about 1¼ oz (34 g) of beeswax, for 7¼ oz in all.
Melt them over low heat. University of Delaware Extension warns that “beeswax is flammable. If beeswax should boil over or flow onto the burner there is danger of a violent fire,” and advises “low heat and careful attention” (University of Delaware Extension). The salves guide’s safety notes cover the rest.
A glycerite liquid, by volume
A glycerite is a glycerin tincture. Our tinctures guide mixes 3 parts vegetable glycerin to 1 part distilled water for dried herbs. It’s a common herbalist rule, and we found no official standard for it. The Herbal Academy and Mountain Rose Herbs both recommend it.
Neither says whether to measure the parts by volume or by weight. This example uses volume; that’s our choice, not the sources’. A 1-cup batch is ¾ cup glycerin and ¼ cup distilled water.
Common questions
What is a part in a recipe?
The Herbal Academy defines a part as “any form of measurement used to dole out the ingredients in a given recipe.” Recipes use parts so one list works at any size, from a single cup of tea to a big batch of blend.
What does 1 part mean in measurements?
It means one share of the batch. Add up all the parts, and 1 part is the batch divided by that number. If two ingredients are 1 part each and you want 1 cup in all, each is ½ cup (118 mL).
Does 2 parts mean 2 cups?
Only if your part is a cup. With a tablespoon as the part, 2 parts is 2 tablespoons. With an ounce, it’s 2 ounces by weight.
What does 4 parts to 1 mean?
Four times as much of one ingredient as the other, 5 parts in all. The firmer salve above works this way: 4 oz of oil takes 1 oz of beeswax, 5 oz in all. Melt it with the beeswax heat warning above in mind.