Canned Food Sizes

Older recipes and recipes in community cookbooks often simply list a can size number or size can for certain ingredients.  If you want to cook your own, use your home-canned food, make a substitution, or you simply don’t know can size numbers, it can leave you stumped.  Here’s a chart for can sizes that I keep on hand.

Can #	Can Size	Volume in cups
	5 ounce (tuna)	5/8
	5 1/3 ounce (small evaporated milk)	2/3
	6 ounce	3/4
	8 ounce	1
#1	11 1/2 ounces	1 1/3
	12 ounce (new evaporated milk)	1 1/2
	13 ounce (old evaporated milk)	1 2/3
	14 ounce (condensed milk)	1 2/3
	15 ounce	1 3/4
#300	14-16 ounces	1 3/4
	16 ounce	2
#303	16-17 ounces	2
#2	18-20 ounces	2 1/2
#2 1/2	29 ounces	3 1/2
#3	46 ounces	5 3/4
#10	6 pounds	12

One of my pet peeves is how manufacturers have reduced can and package sizes in the last few years.  Your old recipe may not work as well if it called for a can of tuna expecting the 6 ½-7 ounce cans of yesterday and all you can get now are 5 ounce cans – a change made in the last year or two, or if it calls for evaporated milk, and the cans are no longer 14 ounces, not even the 13 ounce cans of fairly recent years, but are now 12 ounces!  If you are sharing recipes, do the recipient a favor, and specify the ounces of the can or package or bag of ingredients called for.