Indian Food Calorie Chart: Roti, Rice, Dal and Sabzi by Portion

A plain phulka is about 95 kcal, a medium katori of cooked rice is about 175 kcal, and a katori of home-made dal is about 140–150 kcal including a teaspoon of tadka. Most Indian home meals are not high in calories on their own. The numbers climb because of portion size and cooking fat, and one teaspoon of oil or ghee adds roughly 45 kcal every time.

Below is a chart of everyday foods by the portions you actually eat, with protein, plus the two things that change the total most: how big your katori really is and how much oil went into the kadhai. If you'd rather not add it up by hand, put your day's meals into the Indian food calorie counter.

Where do these numbers come from?

Every value here is approximate. Two sources do most of the work:

• Indian Food Composition Tables (IFCT 2017) from ICMR-National Institute of Nutrition, for raw Indian ingredients: atta, rice, dals, paneer, milk, eggs, vegetables.
• USDA FoodData Central for cooked items IFCT doesn't cover, such as cooked rice, idli, dosa and puri. Each one is linked in the tables.

For home dishes, the calories are worked out from the raw ingredients. Say a roti uses 30 g of atta: IFCT lists whole wheat atta at 1,340 kJ (about 320 kcal) and 10.6 g protein per 100 g, so 30 g gives about 96 kcal and 3.2 g protein. Your roti may use 25 g or 40 g of atta, so treat every row as a starting point, not a lab result.

How big is a katori, really?

This matters more than any number in the table. The ICMR-NIN Dietary Guidelines for Indians 2024 (Annexure I) uses standard household measures:

Most steel katoris at home are somewhere between the small and medium sizes. In this chart, "1 katori" of cooked food means a medium 200 ml katori filled level, not heaped. If yours is the big 360 ml bowl, almost double the number.

A quick way to check yours: fill your usual katori with water, pour it into a measuring jug (or a 500 ml bottle you know the volume of), and note the number. Do it once and you'll never have to guess again.

Indian food calorie chart: breads and rice

The rice weight per katori is scaled from USDA's cup weight for cooked rice (158 g per 237 ml). Packed or heaped, it can be 180 g or more.

Dal, rajma, chole and paneer

All dal values assume a home-style katori made from about 30 g of raw dal, which is the portion the Dietary Guidelines use in their sample meal plans. The tadka is listed separately because it varies the most.

Honestly, dal is one of the best-value foods on an Indian plate: about 100 kcal for 6–7 g of protein before the tadka.

Sabzi, eggs, milk and curd

Vegetables themselves are low in calories. IFCT lists cauliflower at about 23 kcal per 100 g and bhindi at about 27. Potato is higher at about 70 kcal per 100 g raw. In a sabzi, the oil usually outweighs the vegetable.

How much does cooking oil add?

Fat has 9 kcal per gram, and the Dietary Guidelines define a teaspoon as 5 g. So:

• 1 teaspoon of oil or ghee ≈ 45 kcal
• 1 tablespoon (15 g) ≈ 135 kcal

The same guidelines suggest about 27–30 g of visible fat a day (oil, ghee, butter) for a 2,000 kcal diet, which is roughly 5–6 teaspoons for the whole day, across every meal.

Now picture a normal home sabzi. Say 3 tablespoons of oil go into the kadhai for a family of four. That's 45 g of oil, about 405 kcal, and roughly 100 kcal per person before a single vegetable is counted. Add a ghee tadka on the dal and a little ghee on two rotis, and one meal has used most of the day's fat allowance.

You don't need to cook without oil. Just know where it's going:

1. Measure the oil for one week. Use an actual teaspoon or tablespoon instead of pouring from the bottle. Most people are surprised.
2. Tadka once, not twice. Many recipes add oil at the start and again at the end.
3. Use a non-stick or well-seasoned pan for sabzi, which needs less oil to stop sticking.
4. Keep ghee for the roti you'll enjoy most, not every one by habit.

Home vs restaurant: why the same dish doubles

Restaurant versions are mostly the same ingredients with more butter, cream and oil. Using USDA values for butter (about 717 kcal per 100 g) and heavy cream (about 340 kcal per 100 g):

These are hypothetical additions to show the arithmetic; kitchens vary a lot. When you eat out, assume more fat than you can see, enjoy it, and don't skip meals the next day to "make up for it".

A worked example: one home thali

Here's a normal lunch at home, using the chart:

That's a filling, balanced plate. Swap the phulkas for two ghee parathas and the gobhi for aloo, and the same lunch goes past 1,000 kcal without looking much bigger.

What you do with this depends on your goal. If you want to lose weight, first find your maintenance calories with the calorie calculator, then read how a calorie deficit and maintenance calories actually work. If you'd like a full day already planned out, the 1,500 calorie Indian diet plan builds meals from these same portions. For samosas, momos and chaat, see the separate street food calorie guide.

How accurate do you need to be?

Not very. Get within 10–15% and stay consistent; your weight trend over a few weeks will show whether your estimates are right. The common mistakes are bigger than that:

• Counting "1 katori" when it's actually the 360 ml bowl
• Forgetting oil, ghee and butter entirely
• Counting dinner but not the chai, biscuits and namkeen in between
• Using restaurant-sized numbers for home food, or the other way round

The short version

• Phulka about 95 kcal, rice about 175 kcal per medium katori, dal about 145 kcal with tadka
• Check your katori size once with water and a measuring jug
• 1 teaspoon of oil or ghee is about 45 kcal; it adds up faster than the food itself
• Dal and paneer give the most protein per calorie in a veg thali
• Restaurant versions are higher mainly because of butter, cream and oil
• Use the calorie counter for a day or two to learn your usual portions, then go by eye

This is general information, not medical advice. If you have diabetes, kidney disease, are pregnant, are under 18 or have a history of disordered eating, plan your diet with a doctor or registered dietitian.