Chana dal calories
A 200 ml katori of home chana dal has about 180 calories, and a bowl cooked from 30 g of dry dal about 205. Raw chana dal has 329 calories per 100 g. Each teaspoon of oil or ghee adds about 40 to 45 calories. Dhaba chana dal, with more ghee, runs about 180 to 250.
Chana dal is split Bengal gram, the small brown chickpea with its skin removed. It holds its shape when cooked, so chana dal is usually thick, often cooked with lauki, and finished with an onion-tomato masala. Ground, it becomes besan.
Per gram, chana dal has a little more fat than other dals, about 5%. A katori of it is thicker than most dals too, which is why it comes out higher.
Typical values for a home kitchen, for the portion named next to each number. Other sites often show bigger numbers because they count a bigger serving or a restaurant recipe. Your own katori, roti and oil change the number; Slate adjusts for them.
How many calories are in chana dal?
| Portion | Cals | Protein | Carbs | Fat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 katori (150 ml) about 150 g | 135 | 5 g | 12 g | 7 g |
| 1 katori (200 ml) about 200 g | 180 | 7 g | 17 g | 10 g |
| 1 katori (250 ml) about 250 g | 225 | 8 g | 21 g | 12 g |
| Half a cup (100 ml) about 100 g | 90 | 3 g | 8 g | 5 g |
| 1 bowl (30 g dry dal) about 229 g | 205 | 7 g | 19 g | 11 g |
How does home chana dal compare with outside?
Dhaba chana dal is often cooked with more ghee and finished with a second tadka, and chana dal fry is fried in the masala for longer.
With no lab figure for restaurant chana dal, the range below allows up to twice the fat of this recipe.
| Version | Cals | Fat |
|---|---|---|
| Home | 180 | 10 g |
| Dhaba or restaurant | 180 to 250 | 10 to 17 g |
What changes the calories in chana dal?
- Each teaspoon of oil or ghee adds about 40 to 45 calories to the pot.
- Lauki (bottle gourd) in chana dal adds volume and very few calories: 50 g is about 5.
- Chana dal is usually cooked thick. A thinner one has less per katori.
- Roasted chana and besan are made from the same gram, and have their own values.
How were these numbers worked out?
The recipe is The Art & Science of Cooking's chana dal with lauki (via the Indian Nutrient Databank), without the lauki: 30 g of chana dal with 30 g each of onion and tomato, green chilli, ginger and 2 teaspoons of oil, cooked in half a cup of water, the oil counted as eaten, at IFCT 2017 values. The ingredients added together weigh about 229 g, so the pot is 90 calories per 100 g and a 200 ml katori at 1 g per ml is 180. Two checks agree within 11%: ICMR-NIN's half cup of plain dal at 100 calories, and the databank's open-source restaurant-style chana dal at 100 per 100 g. That open-source recipe uses less fat per gram of dal than this one, and restaurant versions vary widely, so the dhaba range runs to twice this page's oil. Every dish on Slate is worked out the same way: how Slate counts calories.
| Ingredient | Raw | Values from |
|---|---|---|
| Bengal gram dal (chana) Dry weight | 30 g | IFCT 2017 B001 |
| Water half a cup | 120 g | no calories |
| Onion, big | 30 g | IFCT 2017 G017 |
| Tomato, ripe, hybrid | 30 g | IFCT 2017 D075 |
| Chillies, green | 3.3 g | IFCT 2017 G008 |
| Ginger, fresh | 5 g | IFCT 2017 G014 |
| Turmeric powder | 0.75 g | IFCT 2017 G033 |
| Cumin seeds | 0.5 g | IFCT 2017 G025 |
| Groundnut oil 2 teaspoons | 9 g | IFCT 2017 T005 |
Sources
- ICMR-NIN, Indian Food Composition Tables 2017. Bengal gram dal (B001), red gram dal (B021), onion, tomato, green chilli, ginger, oil; values read from github.com/nodef/ifct2017
- Vijayakumar et al., Indian Nutrient Databank (INDB), Current Developments in Nutrition, 2024. The Art & Science of Cooking recipe ASC153, chana dal with lauki; open-source recipe OSR142, chana dal
- ICMR-NIN, Dietary Guidelines for Indians: A Manual (2011). Annexure 8: plain dal 100 kcal per half cup
Questions people ask
How many calories are in 1 katori of chana dal?
About 180 in a 200 ml katori of this thick chana dal, and about 135 in a 150 ml one.
How many calories are in 100 g of raw chana dal?
329 calories, with 21.6 g of protein and 5.3 g of fat, according to IFCT 2017.
How many calories are in 100 g of cooked chana dal?
About 90 for this dal. A drier chana dal, like the one served with puri, has more.
How much protein is in chana dal?
About 7 g in a 200 ml katori, and about 7 g in a bowl made from 30 g of dry dal.
Which has more calories, chana dal or toor dal?
Raw they're close: IFCT 2017 puts chana dal at 329 and toor dal at 331 per 100 g. Cooked, chana dal is usually thicker, so a katori has more. See toor dal.