Food and Cooking in Mexico

Ingredients in Spanish, Measures in Metric

Cooking in Mexico presents opportunities to improve your Spanish and to savor new foods and flavors. If you have favorite recipes which call for spices, herbs, and seasonings you found easily north of the border, you'll ask for them by different names in Mexico. Some of these can be simply hard to find in Mexico. This page offers resources to help you put dinner on the table; they are our tips for your galley.

Why Does Meat Look Different in Mexico?

Butchers in Mexico begin with the same primal cuts as their counterparts north of the border, but Mexican butchers break them down slightly differently than American or Canadian butchers. Here is a document showing common Spanish names for cuts of beef. The cuts may look different, but you'll know what they are.

Cooking with Herbs in Mexico

Add some spice to your favorite food. Here are most common spices, partially drawn from The Book of Spices by Fredrick Rosengarten, jr. For even more information on Mexican herbs, see Karen Graber's great online article, A Culinary Guide to Mexican Herbs. Or peruse her Mexican recipes.

Convert Temperature

To convert temperatures between Celsius and Fahrenheit, enter a number in one scale. Click the other scale to convert.

May require rounding

  °F
  °C

Unit Conversions

Here is a handy interactive tool to convert units in the kitchen.

Chef's Corner

For those chefs who don't have time to find a converter to grams for Mom's brownie recipe, here are some handy values for reference when you're trying to read that label; there's also a draggable calculator ready to go.

Table #9 – Convert Imperial units to Metric units for the kitchen or galley (approximate)
Imperial Units in the Kitchen
Imperial x Multiplier = Metric
teaspoons x 5 = milliliters
tablespoons x 15 = milliliters
fluid ounces x 30 = milliliters
fluid ounces x 0.03 = liters
cups x 240 = milliliters
cups x 0.24 = liters
pints x 0.47 = liters
quarts x 0.95 = liters
gallons x 3.8 = liters
ounces x 28 = grams
pounds x 454 = grams
pounds x 0.45 = kilograms
Table #10 – Convert Metric units to Imperial units for the kitchen or galley (approximate)
Metric Units in the Kitchen
Metric x Multiplier = Imperial
milliliters x 0.2 = teaspoons
milliliters x 0.07 = tablespoons
milliliters x 0.034 = fluid ounces
liters x 34 = fluid ounces
milliliters x 0.004 = cups
liters x 4.2 = cups
liters x 2.1 = pints
liters x 1.06 = quarts
liters x 0.26 = gallons
grams x 0.035 = ounces
grams x 0.002 = pounds
kilograms x 2.2 = pounds

Weight and Volume – By Ingredient

Here's a weight and volume tool, a kitchen converter, which converts measures for many different ingredients, from sliced apples and grated cheddar to yeast.

Convert Currency

For help establishing relative value of prices, see the currency page.

Mexican Produce

Here is a handy resource describing fruits and vegetables you may not have seen before.

Traditional Markets

To top it off, here is a great site about traditional Mexican markets.