How Many Chocolate Chips in an Ounce

Have you ever pulled out a recipe that called for 1-ounce squares of chocolate only to discover you have no baking chocolate in the house?

Don’t worry. If you have a bag of chocolate chips and you know how many chocolate chips in an ounce, you are set. You can use chocolate chips in place of a baking chocolate bar.

Being out of baking chocolate happened to me one too many times. So, I pulled out my kitchen scale to figure out how many chocolate chips in an ounce.

I plopped a handful of Nestle Toll House semi-sweet chocolate chips on the scale. I kept adding chocolate chips until the display read one ounce (28 grams). Then I counted the chocolate chips. There are approximately 48 chocolate chips in one ounce of semi-sweet morsels.

Why am I approximating instead of declaring the exact numbers? You wanted precise, didn’t you?

Three things will always influence the count of chocolate chips. Brand differences, type of chocolate, and the size of the chocolate chips. These variations make precision impossible without a kitchen scale.

RELATED: See more tutorials and especially the chocolate information.

You may also be interested in number of chocolate chips in a tablespoon or how many chocolate chips in a cup. But remember, measuring by weight is the most precise way to measure chocolate chips.

Breaking News: Chocolate Chip Brands are All Different

Nestle Toll House semi-sweet morsels are the most common brand of chocolate chips used in the United States. Over 78 million of us buy this brand and use it in our favorite baking recipes.

However, it's no surprise that each chocolate chip manufacturer produces chips unique in size and appearance.

The size and shape of chocolate chips can differ among manufacturers. This is due to diverse production methods, ingredient compositions, and the machinery used during the manufacturing process.

Some morsels are plumper, while others are taller. Each brand adds a different amount of cocoa butter to their chocolate chips. This too can affect the weight.

All these variations affect the number of chocolate chips in an ounce.

You may also be interested in how to melt chocolate chips in the microwave. You will discover that different sizes of chocolate chips have different melting times. And try a few melted chocolate chips recipes.

Milk vs. Semi-Sweet vs. Dark vs. White Chocolate

To make it even more confusing, different types of chocolate also have different weights. Milk chocolate morsels weigh less than semi-sweet chocolate chips. And semi-sweet chocolate chips weigh less than dark chocolate chips.

That means you need a few more semi-sweet chocolate chips than dark chocolate chips to reach an ounce. And you will need still more milk chocolate chips for a full ounce.

What about white chocolate chips? They are lighter than all the other chocolate chips, so plan on counting out a few more of white chips to reach an ounce.

But do not worry. Weight fluctuations in the chocolate chips result in insignificant differences in most recipes.

Chip Size and Shape

Chocolate chips come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Think mini morsels, regular chips, jumbo morsels, chunks, and wafers.

The smaller the morsel, the more chips you need to reach an ounce. The opposite is true for large morsels. Larger morsels are heavier, so you need less of them to get an ounce.

To get the most correct information, I took a sampling of sizes and brands and weighed one ounce of each. Then I counted the chocolate chips.

Ready to find out how many chocolate chips in an ounce of different sized chocolate chips?

Simple Observation Study: The Essentials

I brought the following items to the observational study.

• Oxo kitchen scale. My kitchen scale measures ounces to the nearest 8th fraction increments. (⅛, ¼, ⅜, ½, ⅝, ¾, ⅞, 1). It also weighs in grams in increments of 1 gram.

• Background knowledge. There are 28.35 grams per ounce. One ounce of chocolate chips equals approximately 28 grams of chocolate chips. Toggling between ounce and gram increased the precision of the chocolate chip weight.

• Lots of chocolate chips. I used four brands. They were Nestle Toll House, Trader Joe's chocolate chips" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Trader Joe's, Ghirardelli, and Kroger store brand. I used a sampling of sizes and types of chocolate chips within these brands.

I measured each brand two times on the same day. Both measurements were from the same bag of chocolate chips. Here are my results.

How Many Chocolate Chips in an Ounce of Semi-Sweet Morsels?

Nestle Toll House semi-sweet morsels are the most common brand of chocolate chips used in the United States. So, I used these morsels as the baseline with which I compared all the other chocolate chips.

I spooned Nestle Toll House semi-sweet morsels onto my kitchen scale. This is what I discovered.

• There are 48 semi-sweet morsels of Nestle Toll House chocolate chips in one ounce.

• Trader Joe’s semi-sweet morsels are 25% larger than Nestle Toll House semi-sweet morsels. There are 36 chocolate chips in one ounce of TJ’s morsels.

• Kroger store brand semi-sweet morsels are 36% larger than Nestle’s morsels. There are 31 chocolate chips in an ounce of Kroger’s morsels.

• Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips are 22% smaller than Nestle morsels. There are 60 semi-sweet chocolate chips in an ounce of Ghirardelli morsels.

If you do not use Nestle Toll House chocolate chips, there could be between an 11 and 18 count difference in number of chocolate chips to reach one ounce of chocolate.

Will 11 to 18 chocolate chips make a difference in your recipe? Depends on the recipe, but probably not.

Certainly not for a chocolate glaze, chocolate cake, or chocolate mousse.

Instead of counting individual chocolate chips, try measuring them with a tablespoon. There are 2 tablespoon of chocolate chips in an ounce.

How Many Nestle Toll House Mini Chocolate Chips in an Ounce?

About 6½ mini semi-sweet chocolate chips equal 1 morsel-sized chocolate chip. These small pieces of chocolate are good in mini chocolate chip cookies or as dessert toppings.

• There are 302 semi-sweet mini chocolate chips in a full ounce.

Number of Jumbo Chocolate Chips in an Ounce

How do jumbo chips compare to morsels? About 1½ chocolate chip morsels fit into 1 jumbo chocolate chip.

• There are 31 jumbo chips in one ounce.

How Many Chocolate Chunks in One Ounce?

There are approximately 2⅕ chocolate chip morsels in one chocolate chunk.

Nestle Toll House and Trader Joe’s brands of chocolate chunks are shaped differently. However, their weight is almost identical. The count for either brand of chocolate chunks is the same.

• There are 22 chocolate chunks in one ounce.

Number of Chocolate Wafers in an Ounce

Wafers make the best melted chocolate. If you are out of baking chocolate and have a choice, use an ounce of chocolate wafers instead of chocolate chips.

They easily melt in the microwave or a double broiler.

Unlike chocolate wafers that are a breeze to melt, chocolate chips were engineered to not melt easily. Chocolate chips have less cocoa butter, and this makes them more resistant to heat.

Chocolate chips usually contain soy lecithin, an emulsifier and stabilizer, which helps the chip hold its shape.

For size comparison, there are almost 3¾ morsels in one chocolate wafer.

• There are 13 chocolate wafers in one ounce.

How Many White Chocolate Chips in an Ounce?

White chocolate is made of cocoa butter, milk powder, and sugar. But no cocoa liquor.

By weight, there are 1⅓ white chocolate chips in one semi-sweet chocolate morsel.

• There are 73 Nestle Toll House white chocolate chips in one ounce.

• Ghirardelli white chocolate chips weigh 8% less than Nestle white chocolate chips. There are 66 Ghirardelli white chocolate chips in an ounce.

We are talking about a difference of 7 chocolate chips. Seven white chocolate chips make insignificant differences in a recipe.

RELATED: See all the best substitutes for white chocolate. You'll love the list.

How Many Unsweetened Cacao Chips in an Ounce?

Trader Joe’s unsweetened cacao chips are lighter in weight than sweetened chocolate chips. Just over 3¾ unsweetened cacao chips will fit into 1 semi-sweet morsel.

Unsweetened cacao chips are perfect to use if your recipe calls for 1-ounce squares of unsweetened baking chocolate.

• There are 184 unsweetened cacao chips in one ounce.

What Kind of Chocolate are You Measuring?

Although the size of milk chocolate chips, semi-sweet chocolate, and dark chocolate chips are almost the same, their weight is different.

To measure this, I compared Nestle Toll House brand of milk chocolate chips, semi-sweet chocolate, and dark chocolate chips. Comparing the varieties of chocolate within the same brand revealed the differences in morsel weight.

• Milk chocolate chips are about 6% lighter than semi-sweet chocolate chips. A difference of 3 chocolate chips.

• Dark chocolate chips are 61% heavier than semi-sweet chocolate chips. A difference of 19 chocolate chips.

Hot chocolate with chocolate chips calls for about 2 ounces of chocolate chips per cup of milk. Hot chocolate is forgiving, so you do not need to be as accurate when measuring the chocolate chips for the hot chocolate.

Don’t Want to Count Chocolate Chips? Do This Instead

I discovered something cool when measuring and counting all the different chocolate chips. There are approximately 2 US tablespoons in each ounce of chocolate chips.

This held true for morsels, mini chips, chunks, and jumbo chocolate chips. Even if the chocolate chips were made by different manufacturers and were different sizes.

Chocolate wafers and Trader Joe’s unsweetened cacao chips were the only exceptions to the rule.

An ounce of chocolate wafers was 1½ US tablespoons. An ounce of unsweetened cacao chips was 2½ US tablespoons.

Chocolate Baking Bars

Baking chocolate comes in unsweetened, bittersweet chocolate, semi-sweet, or German sweet chocolate bars. Baker’s brand is the most common brand. Ghirardelli is also common, as are store brands.

Ghirardelli chocolate bars are segmented into ½ ounce or 1-ounce squares. Ideally you break off a square of chocolate or two to get the amount of chocolate the recipe calls for.

I find breaking off a perfect square of chocolate nearly impossible with some baking chocolate bars. I get chocolate splinters and cracks in the square.

Because segmented bars are hard to break, you may prefer Baker’s brand chocolate. This brand comes with the chocolate individually wrapped in ½ ounce or full ounce squares.

Baking chocolate is the best choice when you need melted chocolate because it is designed to melt. Unlike chocolate chips, which are designed to withstand melting.

If you do not have unsweetened chocolate baking bars, other possible substitutes include Trader Joe’s unsweetened cacao chips or unsweetened cocoa powder whisked into milk or water.

Substitute semi-sweet baking chocolate for any size of semi-sweet chocolate chips.

Substitute dark chocolate chips for bittersweet chocolate and milk chocolate chips for sweet chocolate bars.

RELATED: Discover delicious cookie add-ins (that aren't chocolate).

Nutrition Information

For reference, I have included the nutrition information for the chocolates in this experiment. Find the grams of fiber, grams protein, grams of carbohydrates, total fat content, and sugar content. There are 0 mg of cholesterol in each type of chocolate.

Mini Chocolate Chips

• <1 grams protein
• <1 grams fiber
• 9 grams carbs
• 8 grams sugar
• 4 grams of fat

Regular Chocolate Chips

• <1 grams protein
• <1 grams of fiber
• 9 grams carbs
• 8 grams sugar
• 4 grams of fat

Jumbo Chocolate Chips

• 1 grams protein
• 1 gram fiber
• 10 grams carbs
• 8 grams sugar
• 4 grams of fat

Chocolate Chunks

• <1 grams protein
• <1 grams of fiber
• 8 grams carbs
• 7 grams sugar
• 3.5 grams of fat

White Chocolate Chips

• <1 grams protein
• 0 grams of fiber
• 9 grams carbs
• 9 grams of sugar
• 4 grams of fat

Milk Chocolate Chips

• <1 grams protein
• 0 grams of fiber
• 9 grams carbs
• 8 grams of sugar
• 4 grams of fat

Dark Chocolate Chips

• <1 grams protein
• 1 gram of fiber
• 8 grams carbs
• 6 grams of sugar
• 5 grams of fat

Chocolate Math

My Chocolate Observation Study showed how many chocolate chips in an ounce. It revealed the shortcut of measuring 2 US tablespoons by volume of any sized chocolate chips to get an ounce.

But what about other common measurements? Here are some of the most common chocolate measurements you will need.

• One cup of chocolate chips weighs 6 ounces.

• Three ounces of chocolate chips equals a half cup.

• A 12-ounce bag of chocolate chips will measure 2 US cups of chocolate chips. Use a whole bag in Hershey chocolate chip cookies.

• There are 8 quarter cups of chocolate chips in a 12-ounce bag of chocolate chips.

• 6 ounces equals 1 cup chocolate chips.

Need some comparisons? Look at these. Contrast white vs. milk chocolate or dark vs. white chocolate. Or contrast almond bark vs. white chocolate or candy melts vs. white chocolate.

Now you know how many chocolate chips in an ounce (48 semi-sweet morsels). And you know measuring 2 tablespoons of chocolate chips is the easiest way to measure an ounce when you don’t have a kitchen scale.

Finally you know about how many chocolate chips in a tablespoon (28 semi-sweet morsels).

Counting and measuring by volume will always be approximations. The only way to ensure a full ounce of chocolate is to weigh it with a kitchen scale.