How Many Apples Are In A Pound?

There are some recipe conventions that we all accept as normal. However, some of these can cause a certain amount of consternation when it's time to cook or, just as importantly, to shop. One of these is the willingness of recipe writers to note a weighted measure for an ingredient that is not normally sold in such intervals. Cups of onion and inches of root ginger are common. But a particularly frustrating one for making pie filling is apples by the pound.

A lot of grocery stores have scales where you can weigh your produce; but that's an extra step, they aren't always available, and they don't help if you're picking up your produce at a local farmers market. If you need 2 pounds of apples from the grocery store for your pie, how many should you buy? The answer is always going to be a little bit variable; no two apples are identical and there will be a variation in weight, naturally. However, those variations tend not to matter too much as most recipes will be forgiving as long as you're within a few ounces of the recommended amount when it comes to apples.

If you're asking someone to run to the store for you and won't see the apples yourself, your best bet is to ask them to grab three apples for each pound of apples that you need. On average, you can count on apples to be in the vague ballpark of one 4 to 6 ounces. If you're at the store yourself, you want to balance that out with some that look a bit bigger, or some that look a bit smaller, or you might want to ask the person getting you apples to grab one for the pot, just to be safe.

It's also worth bearing in mind that the average apple size will be a little different between apple varieties. Three apples to a pound is a guideline. You won't be too far off with this as a rule; but if you're planning to use smaller varieties, plan ahead to account for the lower average or seek out the larger ones.

Of course, while we're talking about scratching our heads over how many apples a recipe wants when it calls for 3 pounds, we should talk about cups as well. We've all spent time staring at fresh, uncut apples and asked ourselves, "How many apples fit in a cup?" As with apples to pounds, there's a rule of thumb you can use here.

A pound of apples will produce between 2 ½ and 3 cups of cut-up apples. That leaves some fairly easy math to work from there. One apple, on average, will make about 1 cup of chopped apple. Three pounds would be about 9 cups. However, that will vary a little bit depending on how finely you cut your apple.

Because there always has to be one more complexity, there's an additional consideration when planning how many apples you need to grab for a recipe. That comes down to the distinction between needing "a pound of apples, cored and sliced," versus "a pound of apples cored and sliced." Some recipes will make the difference in instruction a little clearer, but it's important to pay attention to the times when it is phrased like this.

Three apples will usually be good for a recipe asking for a pound of apples, cored and sliced. But if the recipe wants a pound of apples cored and sliced, you will be left short. In the second instance, the weight of the apples is after they have been processed. This will take away about 30% of the weight of the apples. So if you're being asked for apples by their weight after they have been cut up, you will be looking at nearer to four apples to the pound rather than three.