How Many Carrots Are in A Pound?

Novice gardeners shouldn’t have too much trouble growing a bunch of carrots. All you really have to do is plunge the bottom-sides into the ground and pray for the best. But when it comes harvest time, you’ll want to see how many of them it takes to add up to a pound.

On average, it will take five medium-sized carrots (6 inches long and 1 inch wide) to reach a pound.

In this guide, I’ll explain how to measure 1 pound of carrots by eye, how many baby carrots it takes to reach a pound, and how to start your own backyard carrot garden.

How Many Carrots in a Pound?

You can evaluate how well your backyard garden harvest is by the weight of the yield. You can also compare your self-grown vegetables to the ones you pick up at a farmer’s market, but don’t be too surprised is your carrots are a lot stubbier than theirs.

So, how do you weigh a pound of carrots without a scale? Simple—memorize their weights by size and multiply how many it would take to reach a pound. As a reference, 1 pound = 16 ounces ≈ 454 grams.

Small carrots

Small carrots are carrots that are fully grown and measure about 3 to 4 inches long. Their girth is roughly ¾ of an inch wide at its widest point. A single small carrot will usually weigh around 2 ounces. So, you would need roughly 8 of them to get to a pound.

Medium carrots

A medium carrot has a length range of between 5 and 6 inches long and is roughly 1 inch wide near the greens or fronds. Each medium carrot should clock in at around 2.5 to 3 ounces, meaning that five medium-sized carrots will come in at roughly 1 pound.

Large carrots

Large carrots, which are usually the ones you can pick up at grocery stores, measure between 6 and 8 inches in length. Their widths vary, but they, too, will usually measure around 1 inch in girth. With each large carrot weighing around 4.4 ounces, you would need slightly less than 4 of them to have a full pound.

Extra-large carrots

If a carrot measures between 9 and 11 inches, it falls into the extra-large or jumbo carrot category. Each carrot will weigh around 7 ounces, meaning that you would need about 2-1/3 of them to reach 1 pound.

What About Baby Carrots?

Like me, you probably thought baby carrots were stubby carrots. This is only partially the truth. In reality, baby carrots were once fully grown carrots, but they were cut down to size (about 2 inches long) by a machine before having their edges rounded.

You’re probably wondering why companies would spend the extra money to make baby carrots in the first place. Sure, there’s the cost factor to take into account, but some carrots that make it from the farm are unsightly and unsellable. However, when cut into 2-inch-long pieces, peeled, and rounded, they become appealing and palatable.

So, how many baby carrots does it take to reach 1 pound? This isn’t too difficult to answer since many companies sell baby carrots in 1-pound packages. Usually, the most baby carrots you’ll find in a bag is 48, though the size of each baby carrot will affect the final count.