Dal fry calories
A 200 ml katori of home dal fry has about 180 calories; it's thicker than dal tadka, so a katori holds more dal. With 2 rotis it's about 370, with a katori of rice about 340. Each teaspoon of ghee in the masala adds about 45 calories. Dhaba dal fry, with extra ghee, runs about 180 to 325.
Dal fry is toor dal, cooked soft and then stirred into onion, tomato, green chilli and spices fried in ghee, with a jeera tempering. In dhabas and on restaurant menus it sits next to dal tadka; the difference is that the masala is cooked into the dal rather than poured over at the end, and dal fry is usually thicker.
Most of the calories come from two things in roughly equal parts: the dal and the ghee.
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 dal fry?
| Portion | Cals | Protein | Carbs | Fat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 katori (150 ml) about 150 g | 135 | 5 g | 13 g | 7 g |
| 1 katori (200 ml) about 200 g | 180 | 6 g | 17 g | 9 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 228 g | 205 | 7 g | 19 g | 11 g |
How does home dal fry compare with outside?
Dhaba dal fry is often thicker than home dal fry and finished with an extra spoon of ghee or butter, sometimes a second tadka with dry red chillies.
No lab has measured a dhaba dal fry, so the range below assumes a katori up to 1.5 times as thick, with up to half as much ghee again.
| Version | Cals | Fat |
|---|---|---|
| Home | 180 | 9 g |
| Dhaba or restaurant | 180 to 325 | 9 to 21 g |
Calories in dal fry as a meal
| Portion | Cals | Protein | Carbs | Fat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dal fry with rice (a katori of each) | 340 | 10 g | 52 g | 10 g |
| Dal fry with 2 rotis | 370 | 13 g | 55 g | 10 g |
What changes the calories in dal fry?
- Each teaspoon of ghee or oil in the masala or the tempering adds about 45 calories to the pot.
- Thickness decides how much dal is in a katori. This dal fry is about half water by weight; a runnier one has fewer calories per katori.
- Onion and tomato add little: under 15 calories for the whole bowl here.
- Dal fry made with moong or masoor is within a few percent of toor per gram in IFCT 2017, so the fat and thickness matter more than the dal.
How were these numbers worked out?
No standard textbook has a single dal fry recipe, so Slate's combines three from Basic Food Preparation (via the Indian Nutrient Databank): 30 g of toor dal as in its arhar dal, its onion-tomato masala (20 g of onion, 15 g of tomato, 5 g of ghee) and its jeera tempering (another 5 g of ghee), all the ghee counted, at IFCT 2017 values. The water is 150 ml, half the dal tadka page's, for a thicker dal, an assumption; the cooked weight is the ingredients added together, about 228 g, so the pot is 90 calories per 100 g and a 200 ml katori at 1 g per ml is 180. ICMR-NIN's half cup of plain dal agrees within 12%, but USDA's survey dal is 62% above because it is thicker, so the page shows a range. The dhaba range assumes up to 1.5 times the dal per katori and up to 1.5 times the ghee. Every dish on Slate is worked out the same way: how Slate counts calories.
| Ingredient | Raw | Values from |
|---|---|---|
| Red gram dal (toor, arhar) | 30 g | IFCT 2017 B021 |
| Water Half the water of the dal tadka page, for a thicker dal: an assumption | 150 g | no calories |
| Onion, big | 20 g | IFCT 2017 G017 |
| Tomato, ripe, hybrid | 15 g | IFCT 2017 D075 |
| Chillies, green | 1.7 g | IFCT 2017 G008 |
| Ghee Onion-tomato masala | 5 g | IFCT 2017 T013 |
| Ghee Jeera tempering | 5 g | IFCT 2017 T013 |
| Cumin seeds half a teaspoon | 1 g | IFCT 2017 G025 |
Dal thickness varies more than anything else here. ICMR-NIN counts half a cup of plain dal at 100 calories, close to this page's 90, while USDA's survey value for dal is about 145 per 100 g. A 200 ml katori of dal fry can be anywhere from about 180 to 290, depending on how thick it is.
Sources
- ICMR-NIN, Indian Food Composition Tables 2017. Red gram dal (B021), onion (G017), tomato (D075), green chilli (G008), ghee (T013), cumin (G025); values read from github.com/nodef/ifct2017
- Vijayakumar et al., Indian Nutrient Databank (INDB), Current Developments in Nutrition, 2024. Basic Food Preparation recipes BFP172 (arhar dal), BFP168 (onion tomato baghar), BFP167 (cumin baghar)
- ICMR-NIN, Dietary Guidelines for Indians: A Manual (2011). Annexure 8: plain dal 100 kcal per half cup
- USDA FoodData Central, FNDDS Dal (2707427). 145 kcal per 100 g
Questions people ask
How many calories are in 1 bowl of dal fry?
A bowl made from 30 g of dry toor dal with 10 g of ghee has about 205 calories. A 200 ml katori is about 180.
What's the difference between dal fry and dal tadka?
In dal fry the onion-tomato masala is cooked into the dal; in dal tadka a ghee tempering is poured on at the end. Dal fry is usually thicker, so a 200 ml katori is about 180 calories here against about 115 for dal tadka.
How much protein is in dal fry?
About 6 g in a 200 ml katori, and about 7 g in a bowl made from 30 g of dry dal.
How many calories are in 100 g of dal fry?
About 90 calories per 100 g of this dal fry. A thinner dal has less, a thicker one more.
How many calories are in dal fry and rice?
A 200 ml katori of dal fry is about 180, and a 200 ml katori of plain rice about 160.