Green onions are often regarded as one of the most important ingredients in a variety of dishes created or invented around the world. The popularity of the green onion is mainly attributed to its attractive appearance that adds a vibrant green color to dishes, as well as its crunchy texture and unique flavor. However, the drawback to green onions is that they can often overpower the taste of the entire dish, although their overpowering flavor isn’t necessarily the fault of the vegetable, as it is most likely the fault of the people that would usually add way too much green onions to their recipes.
Too many green onions in dishes typically happen when the one who cooks them doesn’t know how to measure green onions. Luckily, it is relatively easy to measure them, as you would only need to remember how many pieces of green onions you would need to fill up at least one cup or serving. To help you understand the basics of measuring green onions and other vegetables, we are here to give you tips on vegetable measurements. Also included in the guide is the recommended serving size for each popular vegetable.
Measuring Green Onions and Other Vegetables
In order for us to properly measure vegetables like green onions, we must first know that each part of a specific vegetable would have a different weight. The larger vegetables would tend to have different parts, and an example of this kind of vegetables is the lettuce, which has a head and leaves. According to experts, the average weight for the lettuce’s head is 755 grams, while its leaves would weigh 15 grams each. As for green onions, they are usually bought in bundles, and almost all the parts of the vegetables, except their white ends, are edible. As such, green onions are weighed as a whole, so they don’t exactly have separate parts for cooking.
Measuring green onions is relatively easier than weighing other vegetables since you don’t have to separate the parts. Of course, the white ends of the green onions are considered inedible, so you would have to remove them before cooking. Weighing a bunch of green onions using a scale is more convenient at home, but most of us may probably not own a weighing scale. Fortunately, there is a way for us to measure the weight of green onions without using a scale, and that is by knowing how many whole green onions we should prepare for the dish to serve as one cup.
Knowing the Weight Equivalents
If we don’t have a weighing scale at home, we will be able to know the weight of vegetables by memorizing their weight equivalent. What is a weight equivalent? To better explain, let us imagine that we need 1 cup of celery. According to the USDA or the United States Department of Agriculture, 1 cup of celery is equal to 2 to 3 medium stalks, and those numbers are supposed to be the weight equivalent of 1 cup of the vegetable. However, the same numbers cannot be applied to other vegetables, meaning that you would need to have fewer or more pieces of a specific vegetable to fill one cup.
Below is a table for the weight equivalents for each popular vegetable so that you would know how many pieces of parts of a certain vegetable you would need to have one cup of it. Included in the table are the name of the vegetable and their average serving size by cups.
| Vegetable | Weight Equivalents | |
| Green Onion | 1 cup | 16 to 18 stalks (whole) |
| Asparagus | 3 cups | 17 to 20 spears |
| Broccoli | 2 cups | 3 stalks |
| Cabbage | 5 cups | 1 medium head (with leaves attached) |
| Carrot | 1 cup | 2 to 5 medium carrots |
| Cauliflower | 3 cups | 1 to 2 stalks or 1 medium head |
| Celery | 1 cup | 2 to 3 medium stalsk |
| Corn on the Cob | 1 cup | 3 to 4 husks or ears |
| Cucumber | 1 cup | 1 small-sized cucumber |
| Eggplant | 2 ½ cups | 1 pound (whole) |
| Iceberg Lettuce | 4 cups | 1 medium head (leaves attached) |
| Onion | 1 cup | 1 small-sized onion (whole) |
| Potato | 1 cup | 1 small-sized potato (whole) |
| Radish | 1 cup | 10 to 12 radishes |
| Romaine Lettuce | 6 cups | 1 head (with leaves attached) |
| Spinach | 4 cups | 1 ½ cups of leaves |
| Sweet Potato | 2 cups | 3 medium-sized sweet potatoes |
| Tomato | 1 cup | 1 large-sized tomato |
| Zucchini | 1 cup | 3 medium-sized zucchinis |
So, that is a simple guide on how to measure green onions by cups or by their serving sizes. After learning about the weight equivalents of green onions and other vegetables, it is important to know that the USDA recommends that one adult person should consume at least 2 cups of vegetables per day to have a balanced diet. So, if you are going to cook for one or more people, you should take note of the serving size for each of the ingredients used to prepare or cook your dish.