How Many Ounces in A Bowl of Soup?

This quick guide explains the different soup bowl sizes, shares every way to measure your soup servings, and highlights important industry standards.

Not all soup bowls are created equal. From small appetizer servings to main courses, bowl sizes can vary more than you’d think. Whether you’re setting a restaurant menu, planning catering, or just serving dinner at home. Understanding the relationship between bowl sizes and ounces is crucial.

In this article, we explain the different soup bowl sizes and ways they are measured.

How Many Ounces in A Bowl of Soup?

Soup bowls come in several shapes, sizes, and designs. The difference between these options is so drastic that categorizing soup bowls becomes difficult.

Some bowl designs have a wide top for better presentation. These bowls look bigger from the top but have a narrow bottom. So, the amount of soup in the bowl will be less than the apparent size.

To solve this confusion, the soup industry exclusively uses volume to measure the size of a soup bowl. Volume is a measure of how much liquid a bowl can store. In the United States, soup is measured in ounces (oz). Whereas the rest of the world uses milliliters (ml).

• Small Soup Cup: 8-10 oz

• Medium Soup Bowl: 12-16 oz

• Large Soup Bowl: 16-24 oz

• Extra Large Bowl: 24-32 oz

• XXL Container: >32 oz

Table 1 - Comparing the serving size of different bowl sizes.

Soup containers under 10 oz are generally called a cup. Chick-fil-A, a popular US chain restaurant, uses a cup to denote an 8-oz serving and a bowl to denote a 16-oz serving.

You can also find super-large soup bowls that are over 32 oz. These bowls are generally used for ramen or rice dishes.

5 Factors that Affect Soup Bowl Sizes

Several factors determine the final shape and size of a soup bowl. Here are our top five factors that contribute to a soup bowl's size.

1. Soup Consistency

Soup consistency matters a lot when it comes to bowl size. There are hundreds of different soups that you can serve in a bowl. However, we can broadly categorize them into two categories.

• Light Soups - Tomato Basil, Chicken Broth, Consommé,  etc.

• Rich Soups - Minestrone, French Onion, Chicken Noodle, Clam Chowder, etc.

Lighter soups are generally smooth and occasionally have some solid chunks. These types of soups are served in small bowls with a deep design.

Rich soups are served as a hearty meal with lots of veggies and meat chunks. These soups are best served in wide bowls that showcase the ingredients.

2. Type of Meal

Next, you have to determine the meal or course of your soups. Generally speaking, we can divide soups into three categories based on the type of meal.

• Appetizers: A small 8-oz soup bowl that is served before the main dish.

• Main Course: A large, hearty meal served in a 12-16 oz bowl.

• Side Soups: An 8-12oz soup bowl served next to a sandwich or salad.

The best example of a side soup is a smooth tomato soup served with a classic grilled cheese sandwich.

3. Bowl Shape & Design

Bowl shape is another very important factor. It’s also one of the most difficult to gauge design aspects. The following are common shapes for soup bowls and their recommended sizes.

• Bowls with Straight Sides: These are your standard soup bowls that scale well with every application. You can get them in small, medium, and large sizes.

• Bowls with Handles: Ideal for small soup serving, where the diner can grab the handle for additional leverage.

• Conical Soup Bowls: Best suited for light soups. Since these bowls have a tall design, they cannot be too large or they will topple.

• Wide-Top Soup Bowl: Ideal for large servings of rich soups. Works best as a ramen bowl.

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4. Dine-in or Take Away

Dine-in bowls have a heavy design. The soup bowl will be made of ceramic with usually thick walls that prevent heat loss. Whether it's home or restaurant use, you have a lot of versatility here. Ceramic soup bowls can be large, small, wide, or narrow.

Take-away soup containers have a limited design. Usually, they have a cylindrical design with a 4 to 5-inch-wide top. The difference between small, medium, and large containers is their height.

5. Bowl Materials

Materials are the last but definitely not the least important factor for soup bowl sizes.

• Ceramic: The overall best option for soup bowls. It's a heavy material, so extra-large bowls are not practical.

• Glass: Great at showcasing the soup colors and ingredients. It’s fairly fragile and best suited for small to medium servings.

• Melamine: A durable, customizable, and affordable material that is great for all types of soup applications. 

• Plastic: A lightweight material that is commonly used for take-away soup containers. Low-cost plastic soup bowls are great for households with young children.

• Cardboard/Paper: Paper bowls or containers are only used for take-away soups. They are available in 8 to 24-oz.

• Biodegradable: Made from plant-based materials like sugarcane plant (bagasse), they are similar to paper soup containers. Biodegradable soup containers are an eco-friendly packaging that curbs plastic pollution.

Table 2 - Comparing the material options for soup bowls.

Industry Standard Sizes for Soup Bowls

We looked at a number of big US soup sellers to identify the most common soup bowl sizes. From Olive Garden to Red Lobster, there is a lot to unpack.

Here are soup serving sizes based on the US food industry.

1. Restaurant & Fast Food

The biggest takeaway here is that 8 and 16-oz servings are the most common. Almost every restaurant has a regular 8-oz soup bowl, irrespective of soup flavor and consistency. The 16-oz bowl is treated as a large serving and comes with the same sides. The only outlier here is Red Lobster, which has 6 and 12-oz soup bowls.

Many of these restaurants give out complimentary breadsticks or garlic bread, which indirectly inflate the portion sizes. So a restaurant's 8-oz soup bowl will feel more fulfilling than a homemade 8-oz bowl.

2. Hidden Serving Sizes

Several restaurants don't list their soup serving sizes on their menus or websites. This is most likely due to preventing customers from comparing soup bowl prices with other restaurants. Oliver Garden, Pei Wei’s, and many other restaurants show soup calories but don't list the size. No ounces, milliliters, or cups anywhere on the product page.

By our estimate, most of these restaurants have an 8 and 16-oz soup serving. But, without official confirmation, we can’t make any judgments.

3. Packaged & Canned Soup Serving

Most brands sell ready-to-eat soup in standard 16-oz packaging and market it as a single serving. The profit margins for store-shelf packaged food are different. The number of sales is more important than the volume of product per sale.

Campbell's soup cans are an exception to this rule. They exclusively market their soups as 10.75 oz per serving. Which makes sense as they are often placed as an affordable meal solution.

Since restaurants have overhead (staff wages, restaurant upkeep, and utilities), they offer smaller soup portions at higher prices.

What is the Difference Between Ounces, Grams, and Milliliters?

Throughout this article, we have talked about soup bowl sizes in ounces. But what about grams, milliliters, and cups? It all has to do with volume and weight.

Volume

Soup density changes its weight. So, 8 ounces of light broth will weigh less than 8 ounces of thick clam chowder. Therefore, we use volume to measure soup serving sizes.

Volume is the space a liquid occupies. Whether your soup is light or thick, comes with or without vegetable chunks, the volume will remain the same.

Volume is measured in cups, ounces, and gallons in the US. In the rest of the world, it’s measured in milliliters or liters.

Weight

Weight is used to measure solid objects with irregular shapes and sizes. It’s a more accurate way of measuring ingredients, but less useful for cooked items like soup. The US uses pounds and ounces to measure weight. While other countries generally use grams and kilograms.  

Ounces is an incredible measuring system. 

In general, 1 fluid ounce measures volume, i.e., how much space the soup occupies.

1 ounce measures weight, which is the actual mass of the soup.

For water, 1 fluid ounce ≈ 1 ounce (weight unit, since water's density is very close to 1 gram per milliliter).

However, soup is typically not pure water; it may contain oil, vegetables, noodles, etc. This alters its density.

If you're measuring broth, 1 fluid ounce ≈ 1 ounce.

For thick or chunky soups, 1 fluid ounce will weigh slightly more than 1 ounce.

Here is a handy dandy chart to help you convert cups, ounces, milliliters, and grams.

Table 3 - Conversion chart for cups, ounces, and milliliters for soup.

We used simple tomato soup as the standard for light soups and clam chowder for rich soups. The volume (oz and ml) remains the same irrespective of soup consistency. But the weight changes slightly.

Conclusion

Soup bowl sizes vary significantly based on shape, material, and design. As a rule of thumb, small, medium, and large bowl sizes are designed for 8, 12, and 16-oz soup servings. Application plays a big role in determining which size is appropriate for which occasions. You can use this article to optimize your soup bowl sizes for your business.

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