How much does a dinner plate weigh?

A glass dinner plate on our bench weighed 293 grams, empty — that is the figure this page leads with, because it is a full-size plate someone could put on their own scale and match. A different plate we weighed in an earlier round of testing came in lighter, at 176 grams; real plates from the same kitchen drawer can land a hundred grams apart.

The thickness of the glass and the diameter of the plate account for most of that gap: a slightly smaller or thinner-walled plate loses weight fast, because a plate is mostly a thin disc of material and glass is dense enough that small changes in thickness show up quickly on a scale. Ceramic and stoneware dinner plates are a heavier category again — a thick stoneware plate commonly runs 450 to 700 grams, well above the range on this page, because the clay is worked thicker at the rim than glass needs to be for the same strength. If the plate in question is stoneware rather than glass, expect a noticeably higher number than either figure above.