Phulka calories
One phulka from about 24 g of atta, with no oil, has about 75 calories. Two phulkas come to about 155, and three to about 230. Ghee is the variable: half a teaspoon takes a phulka to about 100, and a full teaspoon adds about 45. Thali and tiffin phulkas arrive brushed with ghee, about 100 to 120 each.
A phulka is a thin whole-wheat roti, cooked briefly on the tawa and then held over an open flame until it puffs. There's no oil in the dough or on the tawa. It's the everyday bread in many Gujarati homes, where it's called rotli, and in Telugu homes, where it's pulka.
Because phulkas are small, most people count them by how many are on the plate. Each one is almost all atta, so the count and any ghee spread on top decide the total.
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 phulka?
| Portion | Cals | Protein | Carbs | Fat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 small phulka (20 g atta) about 27 g | 65 | 2 g | 13 g | 0 g |
| 1 phulka (about 24 g atta) about 32 g | 75 | 3 g | 15 g | 0 g |
| 1 phulka with ½ tsp ghee (2.5 g) about 32 g | 100 | 3 g | 15 g | 3 g |
| 1 phulka with 1 tsp ghee (5 g) about 32 g | 120 | 3 g | 15 g | 5 g |
| 2 phulkas about 64 g | 155 | 5 g | 31 g | 1 g |
| 3 phulkas about 95 g | 230 | 8 g | 46 g | 1 g |
| 4 phulkas about 127 g | 305 | 10 g | 62 g | 1 g |
How does home phulka compare with outside?
Phulkas from a thali restaurant or a tiffin service are usually about the size of home ones, but they often arrive brushed with ghee, even when you didn't ask for it.
No lab has measured a restaurant phulka, so the range below adds half to one teaspoon of ghee to the same phulka.
| Version | Cals | Fat |
|---|---|---|
| Home | 75 | 0 g |
| Thali restaurant or tiffin service | 100 to 120 | 3 to 5 g |
What changes the calories in phulka?
- The atta in each phulka sets its number. A small one made from 20 g of atta has about 65 calories; one made from 30 g, the size of a medium roti, about 95.
- Half a teaspoon of ghee adds about 20 calories, and a full teaspoon about 45.
- The dry atta used for dusting sticks to the phulka and adds a little, far less than ghee.
- Puffing over the flame drives off water. The calories stay the same.
- Bajra, jowar or multigrain atta shifts the number a little. Per 100 g, IFCT 2017 puts bajra at 348 calories and jowar at 334, against 320 for wheat atta.
How were these numbers worked out?
The phulka is the chapati in The Art & Science of Cooking (via the Indian Nutrient Databank): 80 g of whole-wheat atta kneaded with 4 tablespoons of water. The textbook makes four chapatis from it, the small phulka in the table; the standard phulka here is 24 g of atta, the size ICMR-NIN's 80 calorie phulka works out to, and the textbook's teaspoon of ghee is counted per phulka instead, because many homes skip it. Atta and ghee take IFCT 2017's values. The cooked weight comes from water content, as on the roti page: a phulka weighs 1.33 times its atta, so the batch is about 106 g and 240 calories per 100 g. NIN's 80 calorie phulka agrees with this page's 75 within 4%. No restaurant or tiffin phulka has been measured, so the outside range is the same phulka brushed with half to one teaspoon of ghee. Every dish on Slate is worked out the same way: how Slate counts calories.
| Ingredient | Raw | Values from |
|---|---|---|
| Wheat flour, atta | 80 g | IFCT 2017 A019 |
| Water 4 tablespoons, as in the textbook | 60 g | no calories |
Sources
- ICMR-NIN, Indian Food Composition Tables 2017. Wheat flour, atta (A019), ghee (T013), bajra (A003), jowar (A005); 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 ASC096, chapati
- ICMR-NIN, Dietary Guidelines for Indians: A Manual (2011). Annexure 8: phulka 80 kcal
- USDA FoodData Central, Bread, chapati or roti, plain (171844). Water content of cooked chapati, 33%
Questions people ask
How many calories are in 2 phulkas?
Two phulkas made with about 24 g of atta each have about 155 calories. Three have about 230, and four about 305.
How many calories are in a phulka with ghee?
About 100 with half a teaspoon of ghee, and about 120 with a full teaspoon. A plain phulka is about 75.
Are phulka and roti the same?
They're the same dough. A phulka is usually smaller, is puffed over an open flame and is made without oil, so one phulka counts for less than a medium roti at about 95 calories.
How much protein is in a phulka?
About 3 g in a phulka made from 24 g of atta, so 3 phulkas give about 8 g. Dal or curd on the side adds more.
How many calories are in 100 g of phulka?
About 240 calories per 100 g of cooked phulka. That's more than rice per 100 g, because a phulka holds much less water.