Here’s What 1 Pound of Carrots Looks Like

Do you often reach for the bagged carrots at the grocery store only to have them wallow in the fridge, forgotten and unused? Maybe you need to skip the two-pound bag; maybe you even need to skip the one-pound in favor of buying carrots loose. Here’s how to eyeball one pound of carrots so you can scale up or down as needed.

One pound of carrots is about 5 medium-size carrots, no wider than an inch, and about 6 inches long.

Go for uniformity when selecting carrots by eye — it’s the best way to ensure you’re getting as close to a pound as possible without relying on a scale. From there, you can scale up or down as need; 10 carrots will get you to two pounds, and two to three carrots equates to half a pound.

Our eyes are one of our greatest, most useful tools in the kitchen. They can help us size up everything from the weight of vegetables to the doneness of meat. Educate Your Eye is a series on The Kitchn that teaches you what you need to know to use your eyes for smarter cooking both inside and outside the kitchen.