How many calories in chicken curry?
250–450 kcal
A home-style chicken curry serving runs roughly 250–450 calories. The chicken itself is a small and fairly predictable part of that; the oil and any cream or cashew paste are the rest.
By serving
Serving by serving.
Ranges rather than single numbers. Home cooking has no standard serving, and the same dish made in two kitchens genuinely differs by this much — a single figure would be false precision.
| Serving | Calories |
|---|---|
| 1 katori, home style (~150 g) | 250–400 |
| 1 restaurant portion | 400–700 |
| Butter chicken, 1 restaurant portion | 450–700 |
| Per 100 g, home style | 150–250 |
Per one home-style katori: 20–26 g protein · 5–10 g carbs · 15–28 g fat
Why the range
What moves this number.
If you want a better estimate than the table gives, these are the things worth paying attention to. Everything else is noise by comparison.
- Cooking oil. The largest variable by far. A home curry might use a tablespoon; a restaurant gravy uses three or four, plus butter to finish.
- Cream, cashew or coconut. A makhani or korma base can add 150–250 calories a serving before anything else is counted.
- On the bone or boneless. A portion by weight contains less meat when it includes bone, so the same serving size carries fewer calories and less protein.
- Skin on. Chicken cooked with the skin runs meaningfully higher in fat than skinless.
Logging it
You do not need this table every day.
Looking a number up works once. Doing it for every item of every meal is the reason most people stop tracking within a fortnight.
BetterCal has no database to search. Say or type the meal the way you would describe it to a person — "chicken curry and dal" — and it is logged with calories and macros in one go. If your version differs from the estimate, correct it once and it remembers, so over a few weeks the numbers converge on your kitchen rather than an average of everyone else's.
Frequently asked questions
How many calories in a bowl of chicken curry?
Roughly 250–400 for a home-style katori and 400–700 for a restaurant portion. The gap is almost entirely cooking fat and cream rather than more chicken.
Is chicken curry good for a calorie deficit?
It can be very good — it is one of the more protein-dense Indian dishes, and protein is the most filling macro. Cook it with a measured spoon of oil and it fits a deficit comfortably.
How much protein is in chicken curry?
About 20–26 g in a standard home-style serving, depending on how much chicken is actually in the bowl versus gravy. Restaurant portions often have proportionally more gravy.
Why is this a range and not one number?
Because the honest answer is a range. Serving sizes are not standardised and cooking fat varies enormously between kitchens. A single confident figure would be more convenient and less true. See how accurate calorie estimates really are.
Do I need to weigh food to track it properly?
No. Weighing improves precision that you mostly do not need — being consistently within 10% is enough to lose or gain weight predictably. The easiest way to track calories covers the method.
Start today
Log it in one sentence.
Free to start on iPhone and Android.
