Dal tadka calories
A 200 ml katori of thin toor dal tadka has about 115 calories. Dal tadka with 2 rotis is about 305. Thickness matters most: a katori of thick dal holds twice the dal and twice the calories, and each teaspoon of ghee in the tadka adds about 45. Restaurant or dhaba dal runs about 170 to 225 a katori.
Dal tadka is toor (arhar) dal cooked soft and finished with a tadka: ghee heated with cumin, garlic, ginger and chilli, poured over at the end. The Gujarati version is thinner, often sweet and sour with jaggery and kokum. Punjabi dal tadka adds an onion and tomato masala and is usually thicker.
Two things decide the number in your katori: how much ghee went into the tadka, and how thick the dal is.
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 tadka?
| Portion | Cals | Protein | Carbs | Fat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 katori (150 ml) about 150 g | 85 | 3 g | 8 g | 5 g |
| 1 katori (200 ml) about 200 g | 115 | 4 g | 10 g | 6 g |
| 1 katori (250 ml) about 250 g | 140 | 5 g | 13 g | 8 g |
| Half a cup (100 ml) about 100 g | 55 | 2 g | 5 g | 3 g |
| 1 textbook bowl (30 g dry dal) about 351 g | 200 | 7 g | 18 g | 11 g |
How does home dal tadka compare with outside?
Restaurant and dhaba dal is usually thicker than everyday home dal, and it's often finished with a second spoon of ghee or butter at the table. Dal fry is cooked with its masala in ghee and tends to be richer again.
Published restaurant-style recipes use about as much ghee per gram of dal as this one, so the range below treats the difference as thickness: the same dal, 1.5 to 2 times as thick.
| Version | Cals | Fat |
|---|---|---|
| Home | 115 | 6 g |
| Restaurant or dhaba | 170 to 225 | 9 to 12 g |
Calories in dal tadka as a meal
| Portion | Cals | Protein | Carbs | Fat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dal tadka with rice (a katori of each) | 275 | 8 g | 45 g | 6 g |
| Dal tadka with 2 rotis | 305 | 10 g | 49 g | 7 g |
What changes the calories in dal tadka?
- Most of a thin dal is water. A katori of thick dal can hold twice as much dal, and twice the calories.
- Each teaspoon of ghee or oil in the tadka adds about 45 calories to the pot. A generous tadka is the biggest difference between one kitchen's dal and the next.
- Gujarati dal often has a spoon or two of jaggery, which adds about 20 calories a teaspoon to the pot.
- Onion, tomato and spices add a few calories a katori.
- Toor, moong and masoor dal are within a few percent of each other per gram in IFCT 2017, so switching dal matters less than the ghee.
How were these numbers worked out?
The recipe follows the tempered arhar dal in Basic Food Preparation (via the Indian Nutrient Databank), without its spinach: 30 g of toor dal cooked in 300 ml of water with 10 g of ghee, all counted as eaten, plus ginger, garlic, green chilli and cumin, at IFCT 2017 values. The ingredients added together weigh about 351 g, so this is a thin dal at 55 calories per 100 g, and a 200 ml katori at 1 g per ml is 115. The databank's figure for the dal with spinach agrees within 7%, but ICMR-NIN counts half a cup of plain dal at 100 calories, 76% above the same volume here, because NIN's dal is far thicker, so the page shows a range. Restaurant recipes use about the same ghee per gram of dal, so the dhaba range is 1.5 to 2 times the dal per katori. 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 | 300 g | no calories |
| Ghee 5 g cooked into the dal, 5 g in the tadka | 10 g | IFCT 2017 T013 |
| Ginger, fresh | 5 g | IFCT 2017 G014 |
| Chillies, green | 3.3 g | IFCT 2017 G008 |
| Cumin seeds | 2.1 g | IFCT 2017 G025 |
| Garlic | 0.6 g | IFCT 2017 G011 |
ICMR-NIN counts half a cup (100 ml) of plain dal at 100 calories, close to twice this page's 55 for the same volume. The difference is thickness: NIN's dal holds far more dal in each cup. Depending on how thick it is, a 200 ml katori of dal tadka can be anywhere from about 115 to about twice that.
Sources
- ICMR-NIN, Indian Food Composition Tables 2017. Red gram dal (B021), ghee (T013), spices; values read from github.com/nodef/ifct2017
- Vijayakumar et al., Indian Nutrient Databank (INDB), Current Developments in Nutrition, 2024. Basic Food Preparation recipe BFP172
- ICMR-NIN, Dietary Guidelines for Indians: A Manual (2011). Annexure 8: plain dal 100 kcal per half cup
- Swasthi, Dal tadka (Swasthi's Recipes). Restaurant-style fat per gram of dal (proportions only)
Questions people ask
How many calories are in 1 katori of dal?
A 200 ml katori of thin dal tadka has about 115 calories. A thick dal can be close to double, because the katori holds more dal and less water.
How much protein is in a katori of dal?
A 200 ml katori of this thin dal has about 4 g of protein. A thicker dal has more, in line with the extra dal.
How many calories does a ghee tadka add?
About 45 calories for each teaspoon of ghee, spread across everyone who eats from the pot. In this recipe the 10 g of ghee adds about 90 calories to a bowl.
Which has more calories, dal fry or dal tadka?
Usually dal fry, because the dal is cooked into an onion and tomato masala in ghee and is thicker. The dal is the same; the fat and the thickness are what change.
How many calories are in dal tadka with rice?
About 275 calories for a 200 ml katori of dal tadka with a 200 ml katori of rice; the dal chawal page has thick dal, bigger plates and ghee. With 2 medium rotis instead, about 305, with about 10 g of protein.