How many calories in peanut butter?
90–105 kcal
One tablespoon of peanut butter is about 90–105 calories. The word “tablespoon” is doing a lot of work here — the spoon most people actually use holds closer to two.
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 tbsp (~16 g) | 90–105 |
| 2 tbsp (~32 g) | 180–200 |
| Per 100 g | 580–620 |
| 1 heaped spoon, unmeasured | 130–180 |
Per one tablespoon: 4 g protein · 3 g carbs · 8 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.
- The spoon. A level tablespoon is 16 g. A heaped kitchen spoon is often 25–30 g, which is nearly double.
- Added sugar and oil. Sweetened varieties run slightly higher and are less filling for the calories.
- Natural or regular. Barely differs in calories. The ingredient list differs; the energy does not.
- Straight from the jar. The spoonfuls that never touch bread are the ones that go unlogged.
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 — "peanut butter 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
Is peanut butter good for weight loss?
It is filling and a decent protein source, but it is 600 calories per 100 g and very easy to over-serve. Weighing it once teaches you what a real tablespoon looks like, and after that estimating is fine.
How much protein is in peanut butter?
About 4 g a tablespoon, or 25 g per 100 g. Useful as an addition rather than as a primary protein source.
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.
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