How Many Carrots In A Pound?

Shopping for carrots or need them for a recipe? It’s helpful to know how many carrots in a pound!

Shopping for carrots for a recipe? It’s helpful to know how many carrots are in a pound and how many carrots are in a cup, as you plan to shop for a recipe that calls for cups of grated, sliced, or chopped carrots.

You don’t want to buy too many if you don’t use carrots often and won’t use the leftovers, but you also don’t want to come up short. 

How Much Does A Carrot Weigh?

The carrots most commonly found bagged at your grocery are called Imperator carrots. According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), an imperator carrot has the following weight by size classification:

• Large Carrots weigh 72 grams or about 2.5 ounces
• Medium Carrots weigh 61 grams or about 2.2 ounces
• Small Carrots weigh 50 grams or about 1.75 ounces
• Baby Carrots have no USDA standard, but are typically 11 grams or 0.3 ounces

How Many Carrots Are In A Pound?

The USDA figures translate to roughly:

• 6 large carrots in a pound 
• 8 medium carrots in a pound
• 9 small carrots in a pound
• 30-40 baby carrots in a pound

We have learned to check behind what we find online (imagine that) even if it comes from the USDA, so we checked the produce aisle. We checked 1 pound bags of carrots and found. It generally contained 7-9 carrots of all sizes, so the USDA data is about right. 2 pound bags tended to have more larger carrots and generally contained 14-15 carrots.

How Many Carrots in a Cup?

Many recipes call for cups of grated, sliced, or chopped carrots. The USDA standard here is:

• 1 cup of grated carrots weighs 110g or roughly 4 ounces
• 1 cup of sliced carrots weighs 122g or about 4 1/4 ounces
• 1 cup of chopped carrots weigh 126g or about 4 ½ ounces

And there are 2 large or medium carrots in a cup cut in any way.

How Many Cups of Carrots from a Pound?

There really isn’t a big weight difference between the three cuts. This converts to:

• 4 cups of grated carrots in a pound
• 3½ cups of either sliced or chopped carrots in a pound

What is a Baby Carrot?

Baby carrots are not immature carrots, but simply normal carrots peeled and cut into 2-4 pieces about 2” long. 80% of the carrots sold in the US today are baby carrots. A California farmer came up with this idea, and after they got to grocery stores in the early 1990s, carrot consumption in the USA doubled. They are popular in veggie trays and for cooking as they are already peeled and cleaned.  Just chop them up. While they obviously aren’t great for grating, they do save you a bit of time despite the added expense.

Note that the skin on unpeeled carrots helps to preserve them. Baby carrots lack this skin, and are generally packed damp to help keep them fresh. They won’t last as long as that bag of carrots in the back of your veggie crisper.

Carrot Nutrition Facts

A large carrot has 29 calories and delivers a variety of health benefits to include:

• 2.2g of your daily need for Fiber
• 400% of the RDA of Vitamin A
• 8% of the RDA of Vitamin K

They also contain a fair bit of a lot of other vitamins and minerals. The obvious super power of the carrot is Vitamin A. This is the nature of orange fruits and vegetables. They tend to be high in Vitamin A. This is why dietitians advise us to eat a wide variety of colored foods. If you want other ideas for Vitamin A rich foods check out 15 Orange Veggies.

Our Favorite Healthy Carrot Focused Recipes

The most common carrot use in the USA is in veggie trays, but their uses go so much farther. Our favorite way to cook them is in the air fryer making healthy carrot fries. Similarly you can use the oven for baked carrot chips, the juicer for easy tropical carrot juice, or as slow cooker carrots. Finally, we are going to propose a recipe for those with an open mind in our Carrot Hotdogs!

We hope you found information you can use here. In short, there are 6 large carrots in a pound and 2 large or medium carrots in a cup. As always, happy cooking!