Indian Food Calorie Chart: Roti, Dal, Rice and More in Real Portions

Most calorie charts on the internet are useless in an Indian kitchen. They talk in grams and ounces, while your kitchen talks in katoris, pieces and spoons. Nobody weighs dal before eating it, and nobody should have to.

This chart translates everyday Indian food into the units you actually serve in. Every number here is for a normal home portion: a medium phulka, a standard steel katori of about 150 ml, a regular teaspoon. The numbers are rounded on purpose, because a useful estimate you actually use beats a precise number you abandon in three days. If you want the method behind the numbers, we have explained how to count food calories step by step, and how many calories you need per day in a separate guide.

How to read this chart

Three rules make every number below more useful.

First, the katori is your unit. A standard steel katori holds about 150 ml. If your bowls at home are bigger, count them as one and a half katoris and move on. Consistency matters more than precision.

Second, oil is the multiplier. Almost every Indian dish exists in a light version and a heavy version, and the difference is rarely the ingredient. It is the oil, ghee, butter or cream it was cooked in. One teaspoon of any oil or ghee is about 45 calories, and it is invisible once cooked. When a range is given below, your home preparation decides where in the range you sit.

Third, count what repeats. You do not need the calorie count of every dish you will ever eat. You need the count of the fifteen or twenty things that appear in your kitchen every week. Master those, and you have covered ninety percent of your diet.

Rotis, rice and breads

| Item | Portion | Calories | | --- | --- | --- | | Phulka (no ghee) | 1 medium | 80 to 100 | | Roti with ghee | 1 medium | 120 to 150 | | Tandoori roti | 1 | 120 to 140 | | Plain paratha | 1 medium | 180 to 220 | | Aloo paratha | 1 medium | 250 to 300 | | Puri | 1 small | 100 to 120 | | Plain rice, cooked | 1 katori | 130 to 140 | | Jeera rice or pulao | 1 katori | 180 to 220 | | Biryani | 1 katori | 220 to 280 | | Plain dosa | 1 medium | 130 to 170 | | Masala dosa | 1 | 300 to 380 | | Idli | 1 | 60 to 70 | | Bread slice | 1 | 65 to 80 |

Notice the jumps. The same wheat becomes 90 calories as a phulka, 200 as a paratha and 280 as an aloo paratha. The grain did not change; the fat and filling did. The same logic runs through rice: plain rice to biryani roughly doubles the count per katori, because the oil, fried onions and meat travel with it.

Two practical notes on this table. Roti size matters more than people admit: a large ghar ki roti in Punjab or UP can be half again the size of a Mumbai phulka, so if your rotis are big, count them at the top of the range. And South Indian staples behave the same way as North Indian ones. Idli is steamed and stays cheap at 60 to 70 calories, while a masala dosa carries oil on the tawa plus a potato filling and lands near 350. Steam and boil sit low; shallow fry sits in the middle; deep fry sits at the top. That one rule predicts most of this page.

Dals, sabzis, paneer and non-veg

| Item | Portion | Calories | | --- | --- | --- | | Plain dal (toor, moong, masoor) | 1 katori | 120 to 160 | | Dal makhani | 1 katori | 250 to 320 | | Rajma or chhole | 1 katori | 180 to 230 | | Dry sabzi (bhindi, gobi, beans) | 1 katori | 80 to 150 | | Aloo sabzi | 1 katori | 150 to 200 | | Palak paneer | 1 katori | 200 to 260 | | Paneer butter masala | 1 katori | 300 to 380 | | Plain paneer | 50 g cube | 130 to 150 | | Boiled egg | 1 | 70 to 80 | | Egg bhurji (2 eggs) | 1 plate | 220 to 280 | | Chicken curry, home style | 1 katori | 180 to 250 | | Butter chicken | 1 katori | 320 to 400 | | Fish curry | 1 katori | 160 to 220 |

The pattern repeats. Plain dal and dal makhani are the same lentil separated by cream and butter. Home chicken curry and butter chicken are the same bird separated by 150 calories a katori. When you eat out, assume the restaurant version sits at the top of every range, because restaurant food is engineered around fat.

Numbers are the easy half. Doing something with them every day is the hard half. On SuperLiving, 20+ coaches work in Hindi and Hinglish around the food your household already cooks, helping you build a plate that fits your calorie budget without a separate diet being cooked for you. Download SuperLiving

Breakfast and snacks

| Item | Portion | Calories | | --- | --- | --- | | Poha | 1 plate (2 katoris) | 250 to 300 | | Upma | 1 plate (2 katoris) | 280 to 350 | | Vegetable oats | 1 bowl | 200 to 250 | | Besan chilla | 1 medium | 130 to 160 | | Samosa | 1 | 250 to 280 | | Kachori | 1 | 190 to 230 | | Vada pav | 1 | 290 to 330 | | Pakora | 4 to 5 pieces | 200 to 250 | | Namkeen or mixture | 1 handful | 140 to 170 | | Biscuits, glucose type | 4 | 100 to 120 | | Roasted chana | 1 handful | 110 to 130 | | Peanuts, roasted | 1 handful | 160 to 180 | | Fruit (apple, orange, guava) | 1 medium | 50 to 80 | | Banana | 1 medium | 90 to 110 |

Breakfast is where good days are built, and a poha or chilla breakfast in the 250 to 300 range holds most people comfortably till lunch. If weight loss is the goal, a protein-forward morning works even better, and we have a full guide on the best breakfast for weight loss. The snacks half of this table is where evenings go wrong: a samosa and four biscuits with tea is 380 calories that nobody remembers eating.

Drinks, sweets and the calories nobody counts

| Item | Portion | Calories | | --- | --- | --- | | Tea with milk and sugar | 1 cup | 60 to 80 | | Tea without sugar | 1 cup | 30 to 40 | | Coffee with milk and sugar | 1 cup | 90 to 120 | | Cold drink | 1 glass (250 ml) | 100 to 110 | | Packaged fruit juice | 1 glass | 110 to 130 | | Lassi, sweet | 1 glass | 220 to 280 | | Buttermilk (chaas) | 1 glass | 40 to 60 | | Gulab jamun | 1 piece | 140 to 160 | | Jalebi | 2 pieces | 180 to 220 | | Kheer | 1 katori | 200 to 250 | | Halwa | 1 katori | 280 to 350 | | Ladoo (besan or boondi) | 1 | 180 to 220 | | Ghee | 1 teaspoon | 45 | | Sugar | 1 teaspoon | 20 |

Three cups of sugared tea a day is roughly 200 calories, which over a month is close to a full day of eating that you never sat down for. Swapping to one sugar, or to chaas in the evening, is one of the highest return changes on this entire page because it costs almost no willpower.

Sweets deserve one honest sentence rather than a lecture. A single gulab jamun after dinner twice a week is about 300 calories a week and fits inside almost any sensible plan. The trouble is the open dabba during festivals and office birthdays, where four pieces disappear standing up. Decide the portion before you touch the plate, enjoy it slowly, and let the chart keep you honest rather than guilty.

How to use this chart without going crazy

Do not try to count everything from day one. That road ends in a week.

Start by adding up one normal day: your breakfast, lunch, evening tea and dinner, using the tables above. Most people discover their normal day sits somewhere between 1800 and 2600 calories, and the discovery itself is worth more than any diet chart. Compare that number with your daily requirement, and you will know your gap. If you are unsure what your target should be, our guide on daily calorie needs walks you through it in five minutes.

Then change the two or three biggest lines, not the whole menu. Trim the rice mound from two katoris to one. Take the phulka over the paratha on weekdays. Cut tea sugar in half. These three moves alone remove 300 to 400 calories a day while your plate still looks like your plate. A daily gap of 400 to 500 calories translates to roughly two kilos a month, without a single foreign food entering your kitchen.

Finally, re-count only when something changes. Once you know your regular meals, daily counting becomes unnecessary. You are not running an accounts department; you are keeping a rough family budget for food.

When to speak to a doctor

This chart is for general awareness and is not medical advice. Calorie needs differ with age, medical conditions, pregnancy and medication. If you have diabetes, thyroid issues, kidney or liver disease, or any ongoing treatment, speak to your doctor or a qualified dietitian before making significant changes to your diet. Sudden large calorie cuts are not safe for everyone, and no food plan should promise you a fixed result by a fixed date.

The one habit that makes the chart work

A calorie chart on your phone changes nothing by itself. The chart plus one honest weekly review changes a lot. Every Sunday, ask two questions: which three items added the most calories this week, and which one of them am I willing to shrink next week? That single loop, repeated for three months, quietly rebuilds how you eat.

The hard part is not the arithmetic, it is staying with the loop in week six when motivation dips. On SuperLiving, 20+ coaches guide you in Hindi and Hinglish, look at what you actually ate, and adjust your plan around your real kitchen and your real cravings, so the habit survives the boring middle weeks where results are built.

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