Puri calories
One puri rolled from about 13 g of atta and deep-fried has about 95 calories. Four puris come to about 385, and a large 36 g puri is about 140. Size matters most: a puri from 20 g of atta has half as much again. Halwai puris, bigger and fried in much-used oil, run about 95 to 155.
Puri is a small round of whole-wheat dough, deep-fried until it puffs. It's eaten with aloo sabzi as puri bhaji, with chole, or with shrikhand and aamras on festival days. Bengali luchi is the same idea made with maida.
Atta is about half of a puri's calories. Most of the other half is oil the dough takes up in the kadhai, so this page counts that oil from lab data.
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 puri?
| Portion | Cals | Protein | Carbs | Fat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 puri (about 13 g atta) about 25 g | 95 | 1 g | 9 g | 6 g |
| 1 large puri about 36 g | 140 | 2 g | 12 g | 9 g |
| 3 puris about 75 g | 285 | 4 g | 26 g | 19 g |
| 4 puris about 99 g | 385 | 6 g | 34 g | 25 g |
| 6 puris about 149 g | 575 | 8 g | 51 g | 37 g |
How does home puri compare with outside?
Puris from a halwai or a puri-bhaji stall are often larger than home ones, and they're fried in oil that's been used many times, which raises the fat a puri takes up.
A lab study of Indian fried foods, puri among them, found total fat rose by about a fifth between the first and the 32nd frying in the same oil. The range below uses that, and a puri up to the 36 g of USDA's puri.
| Version | Cals | Fat |
|---|---|---|
| Home | 95 | 6 g |
| Halwai or puri-bhaji stall | 95 to 155 | 6 to 11 g |
Calories in puri as a meal
| Portion | Cals | Protein | Carbs | Fat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 puris with aloo sabzi | 570 | 9 g | 55 g | 35 g |
What changes the calories in puri?
- Size matters most. A puri rolled from 20 g of atta has half as much again as one from 13 g.
- Oil that's been used many times leaves more fat in each puri: about a fifth more after 32 fryings, in one lab study.
- Ghee or oil kneaded into the dough adds about 45 calories per teaspoon across the batch.
- Masala puri, palak puri and Bengali luchi are close per gram. Kachori and bhatura have their own values: see bhatura.
How were these numbers worked out?
The puri is the poori in The Art & Science of Cooking (via the Indian Nutrient Databank): 80 g of whole-wheat atta with a teaspoon of ghee in the dough, deep-fried into 6, with IFCT 2017 values. The databank counts all the frying oil as eaten, far too high, so this page sets the oil taken up so that a puri matches the fat content of USDA's analysed puri, 24.9%, about 5 g of oil per puri. The same composition gives the cooked weight, about 149 g for 6, so one puri is a sixth of the batch, 95 calories, and the batch is 385 per 100 g. USDA's puri at 409 calories per 100 g agrees within 6%; ICMR-NIN's 80 calories per puri is 16% below, so the page shows a range. The halwai range runs the size up to USDA's 36 g puri and the fat up to 1.22 times, the rise Jain et al. measured in oil reused for 32 fryings. 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 |
| Ghee 1 teaspoon, in the dough | 5 g | IFCT 2017 T013 |
| Water 4 tablespoons, to make a stiff dough | 60 g | no calories |
| Groundnut oil Taken up in frying: a stated assumption, so a puri is about 25% fat | 31 g | IFCT 2017 T005 |
ICMR-NIN counts one puri at 80 calories, a little under this page's 95. Puris differ in size and in how much oil they take up, so a home puri usually comes to between about 80 and 95.
Sources
- ICMR-NIN, Indian Food Composition Tables 2017. Atta (A019), ghee (T013), 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 ASC107, poori
- USDA FoodData Central, FNDDS Bread, puri (2707714). 36 g per puri; 409 kcal, 24.9 g fat and 28 g water per 100 g
- ICMR-NIN, Dietary Guidelines for Indians: A Manual (2011). Annexure 8: puri 80 kcal
- Jain, Passi and Selvamurthy, Total fat and fatty acid profile of Indian fried foods, Journal of Food Science and Technology, 2024. Total fat in fried foods, 1st against 32nd frying cycle
Questions people ask
How many calories are in 1 puri?
A home puri made with about 13 g of atta has about 95 calories once fried. A large one, about 36 g, has about 140.
How many calories are in 4 puris?
About 385 for four home puris, before the sabzi. Three are about 285.
Which has more calories, puri or roti?
A puri has more for its size, because it takes up oil in frying. One small puri is about 95 calories; a medium roti with more than twice the atta is about 95.
How much oil does a puri absorb?
About 5 g, a little over a teaspoon, for a home puri fried in fresh oil, going by USDA's measured puri at about a quarter fat. Older oil and lower heat leave more.
Puri or bhatura, which has more calories?
A bhatura is bigger and made with maida, so one bhatura is about 185 calories against about 95 for a puri.
How many calories are in 4 puri with aloo sabzi?
About 570 calories: 4 puris at 385 and a 200 ml katori of aloo sabzi. The poori bhaji page has 2 and 6 puris, large puris and the halwai range.