100 g of raw skinless chicken breast is 120 calories (504 kJ). The same 100 g, roasted, is 165 calories (693 kJ). Nothing was added.
Cooking does not put calories into chicken and it does not take them out. It takes out water. The two figures disagree because 100 g of raw breast does not stay 100 g.
That is the entire source of confusion around calories in chicken breast. Most people weigh it raw, eat it cooked, and log whichever number they found first.
The figures in brackets are kilojoules, the metric unit for the same energy, which is why they sit beside every calorie figure on this site. If you have never had to read one, start with what a kilojoule is.
Below are nine ways of preparing a chicken breast, raw and cooked, skin on and skin off, all per 100 g. The table comes first. Everything after it explains why the rows disagree.
Chicken Breast Calories Per 100 g: Nine Ways, Raw and Cooked
Find your row by how the breast was cooked and whether the skin was on.
| Preparation | Skin | Energy per 100 g | Protein per 100 g | Fat per 100 g |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Raw, meat only | No | 120 calories (504 kJ) | 22 g | 2.7 g |
| Grilled | No | 151 calories (634 kJ) | 30.6 g | 3.2 g |
| Braised | No | 156 calories (655 kJ) | 31.8 g | 3.3 g |
| Roasted | No | 165 calories (693 kJ) | 31 g | 3.6 g |
| Raw, meat and skin | Yes | 172 calories (722 kJ) | 20.7 g | 9.2 g |
| Pan-fried, no coating | No | 187 calories (785 kJ) | 32.7 g | 4.6 g |
| Roasted | Yes | 197 calories (827 kJ) | 30 g | 7.9 g |
| Fried with a flour dredge | Yes | 222 calories (932 kJ) | 32.2 g | 8.8 g |
| Battered and deep fried | Yes | 260 calories (1,092 kJ) | 24.7 g | 12.9 g |
Carbohydrate is effectively zero in every row except the two coated ones. The flour dredge adds 1.7 g per 100 g, the batter 8.9 g.
There is no poached or boiled row. USDA publishes a cooking yield for poaching, but no calorie figure per 100 g for poached or boiled skinless breast, so none is shown rather than estimated.
One row looks wrong. Raw skinless sits at the bottom at 120 calories (504 kJ), so roasting appears to add 45 calories (189 kJ) to every 100 g of the same meat. It did not.
These are the “Chicken, broilers or fryers, breast” entries, USDA composition data via FoodData Central-derived listings, split by skin status and cooking method. Part of the food energy reference.
Why Raw and Cooked Chicken Show Different Numbers
Start with 100 g of raw skinless breast: 120 calories (504 kJ).
Roast it. USDA’s mean yield for baked or roasted chicken breast is 72%, so that 100 g comes out of the oven at about 72 g.
72 g of roasted breast, at 165 calories (693 kJ) per 100 g, is 119 calories (500 kJ).
120 calories (504 kJ) before. 119 calories (500 kJ) after. One calorie apart, which is rounding.
Cooking added no energy and destroyed none. It drove off water. The per-100 g figure climbed because the 100 g shrank. Oats run this in reverse, absorbing water until their per-100 g figure collapses, as covered in high volume, low calorie foods. Same mechanism, opposite direction.
Weigh 100 g of cooked breast, log it against the raw figure, and you record 120 calories (504 kJ) for food carrying 165 calories (693 kJ). That is 45 calories (189 kJ) unrecorded per 100 g.
Two ways of stating that gap sound like different errors. Measured against the number you logged, the truth is about 38% higher. Measured against the food on the plate, the missing 45 calories (189 kJ) are 27% of it. Same gap, different denominators, repeating in the same direction on every meal.
The mirror error is the same size. Apply 165 calories (693 kJ) per 100 g to a raw weight and you log 165 where the finished food carries about 119 calories (500 kJ), an overstatement of roughly 39%.
Protein does the same. Per 100 g it reads 22 g raw and 31 g roasted, which looks like cooking manufactured protein. Those 100 g became about 72 g, and 72 g at 31 g per 100 g is about 22 g.
How Much Weight Chicken Breast Loses When You Cook It
The 28% loss everyone quotes is not folklore. It is a published USDA figure, and it comes with a range that matters more than the mean.
Baked or roasted breast has a mean yield of 72%, range 61 to 82%. Read as loss, that is 28% on average, anywhere from 18 to 39%.
Poached, simmered or stewed breast holds on to more: mean yield 77%, range 70 to 88%, a mean loss of 23%. No dry surface, so much less evaporation.
Both come from the USDA Table of Cooking Yields for Meat and Poultry, Nutrient Data Laboratory, Agricultural Research Service, December 2012 edition, entry “Chicken, broiler-fryer, breast.”
One caveat. The chicken breast measurements in that table date to 1975 and were carried forward unchanged from USDA Agriculture Handbook No. 102, while other cuts in the same document were re-measured much later. It is the best published yield for this cut, and it is half a century old.
The range is the point. A 180 g raw breast should finish around 130 g roasted at the mean, but the published range puts it anywhere from 110 g to 148 g. Thickness, bird and oven time all move it. A converted number is an estimate. A scale on the cooked meat is not.
What a Real Supermarket Chicken Breast Actually Weighs
Every figure so far has been per 100 g, and nobody buys a 100 g chicken breast.
| Size | Raw weight | Calories raw (whole piece) | About what it weighs roasted |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small | 4 to 5 oz (113 to 142 g) | 136 to 170 calories (571 to 714 kJ) | 81 to 102 g |
| Medium | 6 to 7 oz (170 to 200 g) | 204 to 240 calories (857 to 1,008 kJ) | 122 to 144 g |
| Large | 8 to 10 oz (227 to 283 g) | 272 to 340 calories (1,142 to 1,428 kJ) | 163 to 204 g |
The most commonly cited single average is about 6 oz (174 g), which works out to roughly 209 calories (878 kJ) raw and lands near 125 g once roasted.
Those bands are the one thing on this page that is not USDA. No government or industry body publishes a retail weight distribution for chicken breast, so they are the consensus across several retail-facing consumer and cooking sites. Treat them as a sanity check rather than a measurement. Your own scale beats all three rows.
The spread is the useful part. Between the small end and the large end sits roughly 200 calories (840 kJ) of the same food, which is why “one chicken breast” is not a portion size. For everyday foods and where their energy sits, see typical foods.
How to Turn a Raw Weight Into a Calorie Count
There are two routes and they agree. The mistake is not choosing wrong, it is mixing them.
Route A, weigh it raw. Multiply raw grams by 1.20 for skinless breast. No yield factor, no cooked lookup. The calories do not change during cooking, so the raw weight already holds the answer.
Route B, weigh it cooked. Match it to the entry for your method: 165 calories (693 kJ) per 100 g roasted skinless, 151 calories (634 kJ) grilled, 156 calories (655 kJ) braised. Multiply cooked grams by that figure divided by 100.
Run one breast through both. A medium raw breast at 180 g is 216 calories (907 kJ) by Route A. Roasted at the 72% mean yield it comes out around 130 g, which by Route B is 215 calories (903 kJ). Not two numbers. One number reached two ways. Whether that is a small part of your day or a large one depends on your own maintenance number.
Route A is the more useful of the two. It needs no cooked entry, so it covers methods USDA has no calorie figure for. Poached and boiled skinless breast is exactly that: a published yield exists, a calorie figure does not.
One honest limit. A little fat renders out with the drippings when you roast or grill, so Route A runs slightly high. Skinless breast carries only 2.7 g of fat per 100 g, so the overstatement cannot exceed about 24 calories (101 kJ) per 100 g even if every gram drained away. That ceiling is arithmetic at 9 calories per gram of fat (38 kJ per gram), not a USDA measurement.
Route A breaks in one place. Add oil, butter or breading and calories genuinely enter the food, so the raw weight no longer holds the answer.
What the Skin Actually Costs
Skin is expensive raw and much less expensive roasted, and the reason is the same water story running underneath.
Raw, 100 g goes from 120 calories (504 kJ) skinless to 172 calories (722 kJ) with skin. That is 52 calories (218 kJ) more, about 43%.
Roasted, the same comparison is 165 calories (693 kJ) against 197 calories (827 kJ). Now it is 32 calories (134 kJ) more, about 19%.
Fat is doing it: 2.7 g per 100 g becomes 9.2 g raw, and 3.6 g becomes 7.9 g roasted. Protein density drifts down slightly in both states, 22 g to 20.7 g raw and 31 g to 30 g roasted, because the skin occupies part of the same 100 g.
So the proportional cost of skin is less than half as large once the chicken is out of the oven. Two things happen at once. Some skin fat renders out during roasting, and the meat underneath concentrates as it loses water, so the skin is a smaller share of a denser 100 g.
Cook with the skin on and take it off at the table and neither figure describes what you ate. The skinless roasted number is the closer of the two.
Where the Calories Really Do Change: Method, Oil and Breading
Across the three methods that add nothing to the pan, the numbers barely move. Grilled skinless is 151 calories (634 kJ) per 100 g, braised 156 calories (655 kJ), roasted 165 calories (693 kJ). The whole spread is 14 calories (59 kJ), and fat sits at 3.2 g, 3.3 g and 3.6 g.
Grilled reading lower than roasted does not mean grilling saves calories. It means the grilled entry carries a little more water per gram in USDA’s data. A 180 g raw breast is about 216 calories (907 kJ) whichever of the three you pick, minus whatever fat drips out.
Fat in the pan is different, and one comparison isolates it because both sides are skinless. Roasted is 165 calories (693 kJ) per 100 g, pan-fried with no coating 187 calories (785 kJ). That is 22 calories (92 kJ) more, with fat rising from 3.6 g to 4.6 g.
The coated rows stack three things at once. Flour-dredged with skin is 222 calories (932 kJ) per 100 g, battered and deep fried with skin 260 calories (1,092 kJ), the latter carrying 12.9 g of fat and 8.9 g of carbohydrate from the batter. Skin, coating and frying fat all sit inside those figures, so the 165 to 187 pair is the one that isolates frying.
Battered and fried against roasted skinless is about 58% more per 100 g. Unlike everything else on this page, that gap is added energy rather than a shifted denominator.
A coating and a pan of oil are the only things here that changed the food’s energy at all. Everything else was water moving around. Knowing which is which is a different thing from being told what to cook.
FAQ
Should I weigh chicken breast before or after cooking?
Either, as long as the weight and the calorie figure match each other. USDA keeps raw and cooked chicken breast as separate food entries because they are different weights of the same food. The error is weighing raw and logging cooked, or the reverse.
How many calories are in one whole chicken breast?
A medium raw skinless breast, 6 to 7 oz (170 to 200 g), is about 204 to 240 calories (857 to 1,008 kJ). Those size bands come from retail sources rather than USDA, so treat them as approximate. Roasting does not change the total.
How much weight does chicken breast lose when cooked?
USDA puts the mean yield for baked or roasted breast at 72%, a 28% loss, with a measured range of 61 to 82% yield. Poaching or simmering loses less: 77% mean yield, range 70 to 88%. Both come from the USDA Table of Cooking Yields for Meat and Poultry.
Why do two chicken breast calorie figures online disagree so much?
Almost always one of three unstated variables: raw or cooked, skin on or off, and which cooking method. A figure that does not state all three is not a complete figure. One of the databases ranking for this search publishes a headline 100 g number without saying whether it is raw or cooked.
Is grilled chicken breast lower in calories than roasted?
Per 100 g it reads lower, 151 calories (634 kJ) against 165 calories (693 kJ), but that is the denominator again. The same 180 g raw breast is about 216 calories (907 kJ) cooked either way. Neither method adds or removes energy.
Does chicken breast have more protein when it is cooked?
No. Per 100 g it reads 22 g raw and 31 g cooked, but 100 g of raw breast becomes about 72 g roasted, and 72 g at 31 g per 100 g is about 22 g. Same protein, less water.