How much is a bunch of parsley?
I think of parsley as a happy little herb because it is an easy and versatile herb to use in meals. For example, I use raw parsley in a sandwich or chuck it into a curry close to when the stew is about to come off the burner.
This last-minute addition of curry to hot dishes is one of my favorite tricks to ensure that I capture the herb’s delicate taste, which is quickly overwhelmed by more assertive flavors.
Another terrific attribute of parsley is that it is pretty hard to mess up by adding too much to a meal. Maybe, for this reason, many recipes are somewhat cavalier about stating the proportion of parsley to add to the ingredients, using words like “sprig” and “bunch.” Personally, this is frustrating and comes off as the recipe writer’s silly pose.
There are two different types of parsley, the moss-curled and flat-leaf variety according to the University of Illinois.
How much is a bunch of parsley?
A bunch of parsley weighs between two and four ounces. Accepting that a ‘sprig’ of parsley is the part of the plant taken from the first forking on a branch, reckoning from closest to the leaves on that branch, and also accepting that a ‘bunch of parsley’ contains between five and ten sprigs of parsley.
Vague descriptors that try to describe measures of parsley
Fresh parsley entices the sight, seduces the nose, and fascinates the palate. Cooking with parsley can bring an extra imaginative flavor to dishes that are subtle yet effective.
It should be easy and fulfilling to follow any recipe that includes this great little herb as an ingredient, but too often, cooks are confounded by vague quantities, such as “two sprigs of parsley.” What on Earth is a “sprig” of parsley?
What is a ‘sprig’ of parsley?
As there is no hard and fast rule in cookery literature, I have decided on my definition of ‘sprig’ by watching countless cooking videos and working with hundreds of chefs in dozens of kitchens. Most cooks break off ‘clumps’ of parsley by the nearest forking to the parsley leaves–it’s almost instinctive. To me, this is a convenient definition of a ‘sprig’ as it is physically a single unit bigger than a bud yet smaller than a branch.
What is a cup of sprigs of parsley?
I have absolutely zero ideas. I know what a sprig of parsley looks like, and I expect you do too. I know what a cup of chopped parsley looks like, and again, I imagine you do too. What flummoxes me completely, and I’m man enough to own up to it, is what on Earth is a cup of sprigs? Why would I–or anyone–fill a cup with sprigs of parsley instead of with chopped–or at least de-branched–parsley?
What is a ‘bunch’ of parsley?
A bunch of parsley is an inexact quantity that is definitely more than one sprig of the herb. By the rule of threes, I’d say that a bunch of parsley is five to ten parsley sprigs. The wonderful thing about this is that you can join me and say it’s the same thing, and no one could argue with either of us, as there is no hard-and-fast definition of what a ‘bunch’ of parsley means for sure.
“Bunch” is the qualitative equivalent of “about.” One way to settle how much is a bunch of parsley is to run a thought experiment. Let’s imagine a mother saying to her child, “Please fetch me a bunch of parsley from the vegetable patch.” In your mind’s eye, how much parsley should the child return?
I posit that in the long run, most people will visualize just enough parsley to weigh between two and four ounces because if the kid comes back with a bucket load, he or she would be sure to earn a rebuke from their mother: “I said, ‘bunch,’ numbskull!” The same goes for returning with only one or two sprigs of parsley. This time, the rebuke would be, “What do you call that?! I said ‘bunch,’ numbskull!”
Perhaps it is in this way that we build up a societal instinct for how much a bunch is. I can picture a bunch of flowers quite easily, and I’m pretty sure that you can too.
Can we use cost to standardize what makes a bunch of parsley?
There are two significant components to the cost of parsley. The first is the cost of production. This will be related to the farmer’s labor costs, the cost of farmland (if there is one), farm tool costs, and input production costs, such as fertilizer. The second is the cost of transportation. The further away from the farm to the store shelf and the fresher the herb must be, the higher the cost of transportation.
The relative cost of parsley around the world
I’ve had to convert a ‘bunch’ of parsley to something more objective for comparison purposes. Right or wrong, I’d say that a bunch of fresh parsley weighs about two ounces or around 55 grams in SI units. So, fresh parsley’s cost is based on two ounces of fresh parsley that hasn’t been chopped.
Cost of parsley in America
Some US sources give wildly varying prices for the cost of a bunch of parsley. These prices go from 50 cents to as much as two dollars per bunch. To make the comparison more meaningful, in this section and others below, I begin by finding out the price per pound or kilogram, then convert that into the price per ounce.
A pound of freshly cut parsley is about six dollars in the US or about 75 cents per bunch.
Cost of parsley in Asia
Cost of parsley in the Philippines
In the Philippines, a pound of fresh parsley would cost somewhere in the region of $14. A bunch of parsley will set you back about 88 cents.
Cost of parsley in Europe.
Cost of parsley in the UK
In the UK, a pound of fresh parsley costs about $11 if my back-of-the-envelope calculations are accurate. Therefore, a bunch of parsley in the UK will set you back about 65 cents.
Cost of parsley in Poland
In Poland, where parsley seems to be exceedingly cheap for some reason, a kilogram of parsley will set you back just 2 euros (just over 2 dollars). This means that a bunch of parsley will set you back an amazingly reasonable 12 cents.
Cost of parsley in Africa.
Cost of parsley in Nigeria
In Nigeria, a kilogram of fresh parsley costs 2,500 Naira, around 6 dollars. Thus, a bunch of fresh parsley will set you back some 33 cents.
Frequently Asked Questions About How Much is a Bunch of Parsley
Do the flat-leafed type, and the curly-leafed type of parsley cost the same?
There are two types of parsley, the flat-leafed type, and the curly-leafed type. Both look, smell, and taste the same. They also generally cost the same, although there might be local variations where local farmers produce one kind, and the other has to “travel in,” so to speak.
Afterword: How much is a bunch of parsley?
It is hard to nail down precisely what a “bunch” of anything is, be it a bunch of baloney or a bunch of parsley, because it is never the intention of the person using the word to be precise anyway–imprecision is built into this adjective more or less on purpose.
Regardless of this, most of us have a pretty good idea of what we expect to see if we are offered a “bunch of parsley” because we’ve been socialized to the term all our lives. By such consensus, a bunch of parsley weighs between two and four ounces.