Masala dosa calories
A home masala dosa with a teaspoon of oil has about 255 calories, and about 335 with a tablespoon. With sambar it makes a meal of about 455. Fat on the tawa matters most: each teaspoon of oil, ghee or butter adds about 40 to 45. Restaurant dosas, bigger and often ghee roast, run about 300 to 515.
Masala dosa is a thin, crisp crepe of fermented rice and urad dal batter, cooked with oil or ghee on a hot tawa and folded around a spiced potato and onion filling. Mysore masala dosa adds a red chutney inside; Udupi-style restaurants made it a breakfast staple across India.
Most of the difference between one masala dosa and the next is the oil or ghee on the tawa. The batter and filling vary much less.
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 masala dosa?
| Portion | Cals | Protein | Carbs | Fat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 masala dosa, 1 tsp oil on the tawa | 255 | 6 g | 39 g | 8 g |
| 1 masala dosa, 2 tsp oil on the tawa | 295 | 6 g | 39 g | 12 g |
| 1 masala dosa, 1 tbsp oil on the tawa (textbook) | 335 | 6 g | 39 g | 17 g |
| 1 plain dosa, 1 tsp oil, no filling | 180 | 5 g | 28 g | 5 g |
How does home masala dosa compare with outside?
Restaurant dosas are often larger, and ghee roast and butter masala dosas are cooked with a lot more fat on the tawa. Sambar and chutney come on the side.
No lab has measured a single restaurant dosa, so the range below assumes a dosa up to half as big again with 1 to 3 teaspoons of butter or ghee.
| Version | Cals | Fat |
|---|---|---|
| Home | 255 | 8 g |
| Restaurant, butter or ghee | 300 to 515 | 13 to 26 g |
Calories in masala dosa as a meal
| Portion | Cals | Protein | Carbs | Fat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A masala dosa with sambar | 455 | 13 g | 61 g | 17 g |
What changes the calories in masala dosa?
- Each teaspoon of oil, ghee or butter on the tawa adds about 40 to 45 calories. Ghee roast and butter dosas can carry several.
- A restaurant dosa can use half as much batter again as a home one.
- More potato in the filling adds about 35 calories per 50 g; the onion and spices add little.
- Sambar and chutney are separate dishes. ICMR-NIN counts a cup of sambar at about 110 calories and 2 tablespoons of coconut chutney at about 120.
How were these numbers worked out?
The masala dosa is the one in The Art & Science of Cooking (via the Indian Nutrient Databank): 60 g of parboiled rice and 20 g of urad dal for the batter, with 100 g of potato, 75 g of onion and a teaspoon of oil in the filling, making 2 dosas, at IFCT 2017 values. No cooked weight is used; each dosa is half the batter and filling plus the oil on the tawa, counted in full. The textbook fries each dosa in a tablespoon of oil and many homes use far less, so the table shows a teaspoon (255 calories), two teaspoons and a tablespoon (335). The databank's figure for the tablespoon version agrees within 3%, but ICMR-NIN's 200 calories per masala dosa is 22% below, so the page shows a range. The restaurant range assumes a dosa up to 1.5 times the size with 1 to 3 teaspoons of butter or ghee. Every dish on Slate is worked out the same way: how Slate counts calories.
| Ingredient | Raw | Values from |
|---|---|---|
| Rice, parboiled, milled | 60 g | IFCT 2017 A014 |
| Black gram dal (urad) | 20 g | IFCT 2017 B003 |
| Water | 120 g | no calories |
| Potato, brown skin, big | 100 g | IFCT 2017 F006 |
| Onion, big | 75 g | IFCT 2017 G017 |
| Groundnut oil 1 tsp, for the filling | 4.5 g | IFCT 2017 T005 |
| Mustard seeds | 1.7 g | IFCT 2017 H013 |
ICMR-NIN counts a masala dosa at 200 calories. The textbook's dosa, with a tablespoon of oil, works out to about 335. Most of the gap is oil on the tawa, and some is size, so a masala dosa can reasonably be anywhere from about 200 to 335 at home.
Sources
- ICMR-NIN, Indian Food Composition Tables 2017. Parboiled rice (A014), black gram dal (B003), potato, onion, oil, mustard seeds; 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 ASC146
- ICMR-NIN, Dietary Guidelines for Indians: A Manual (2011). Annexure 8: masala dosa, sambar, coconut chutney
- USDA FoodData Central 171411, soybean oil. Teaspoon 4.5 g, tablespoon 13.6 g
Questions people ask
How many calories are in 1 masala dosa?
A home masala dosa has about 255 calories with a teaspoon of oil on the tawa, and about 335 with a tablespoon. Restaurant dosas with butter or ghee run higher, about 300 to 515.
How many calories are in a plain dosa?
A plain dosa with a teaspoon of oil and no filling has about 180 calories.
Does masala dosa with sambar and chutney have more calories?
Yes. They're counted on their own: about 110 calories for a cup of sambar and about 120 for 2 tablespoons of coconut chutney, per ICMR-NIN.
How much protein is in a masala dosa?
A home masala dosa has about 6 g of protein, mostly from the urad dal and rice.
How many calories are in masala dosa with sambar?
About 455 calories for one masala dosa and a 200 ml katori of sambar.