Samosa calories
A home aloo samosa has about 165 calories, and 2 samosas about 335. A large Punjabi samosa, half as big again, is about 250. Oil taken up in frying is the biggest part, and draining well keeps it lower. Street samosas measured in a lab, oilier and in two sizes, ran about 160 to 285 each.
A samosa is a maida pastry, kneaded with ghee or oil, filled with spiced potato and peas, and deep-fried. Punjabi samosas are large with a thick, ajwain-spiced crust; Bengal's singara is smaller.
Most of a samosa's calories come from oil: some in the dough, and more taken up in the kadhai. The potato and pea filling adds comparatively little.
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 samosa?
| Portion | Cals | Protein | Carbs | Fat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 samosa | 165 | 2 g | 13 g | 12 g |
| 1 large samosa (1.5 times) | 250 | 3 g | 19 g | 18 g |
| 2 samosas | 335 | 5 g | 25 g | 24 g |
How does home samosa compare with outside?
A peer-reviewed study weighed and tested street samosas from vendors in Delhi and a nearby village. They held about 29 g of fat per 100 g, against about 18 g in a fresh home samosa. Oil that's used again and again, and a thicker crust, are common reasons.
The range below uses those measured samosas: a small one of about 47 g and a large one of about 79 g.
| Version | Cals | Fat |
|---|---|---|
| Home | 165 | 12 g |
| Street or shop | 160 to 285 | 13 to 24 g |
What changes the calories in samosa?
- Oil taken up in frying is the biggest single part of a samosa's calories. Frying at the right heat and draining well keeps it lower.
- More ghee or oil in the dough makes a flakier crust and adds about 45 calories per teaspoon to the batch.
- A large Punjabi samosa can be half as big again as a small one.
- ICMR-NIN counts a tablespoon of tamarind chutney with jaggery at about 60 calories. Samosa chaat with curd, chole and sev is a meal of its own.
- Dry fried snacks are richer per gram: a 21 g mathri is about 115 and an 18 g chakli about 90. A sweet gujiya from the same kind of pastry is about 130.
How were these numbers worked out?
The samosa is the potato samosa in The Art & Science of Cooking (via the Indian Nutrient Databank): 60 g of maida with 2 teaspoons of ghee, 150 g of potato, 75 g of peas and 12 g of oil in the filling, making 6, with IFCT 2017 values. The frying oil is the hard part: the databank counts all of it as eaten, far too high, so this page sets the oil taken up so that a fresh home samosa is about 18% fat, the figure for lab-fried samosas (18.3%) and USDA's samosa (17.5%), about 8 g per samosa. One samosa is a sixth of the batch, 165 calories. ICMR-NIN's 200 calories per samosa is 19% above, so the page shows a range. The street range is calibrated to the vendor samosas Gupta et al. weighed and analysed in 2016, which held more fat in a smaller or larger piece. Every dish on Slate is worked out the same way: how Slate counts calories.
| Ingredient | Raw | Values from |
|---|---|---|
| Wheat flour, refined (maida) | 60 g | IFCT 2017 A018 |
| Ghee 2 tsp, in the dough | 9 g | IFCT 2017 T013 |
| Water | 45 g | no calories |
| Potato, brown skin, big | 150 g | IFCT 2017 F006 |
| Peas, fresh | 75 g | IFCT 2017 D061 |
| Groundnut oil For the filling | 12 g | IFCT 2017 T005 |
| Groundnut oil Taken up in frying: a stated assumption, so the samosa is about 18% fat | 50 g | IFCT 2017 T005 |
ICMR-NIN counts one samosa at 200 calories, a little above this page's 165. Street samosas are measured as fattier, so a samosa can reasonably be anywhere from about 165 to 285 calories.
Sources
- ICMR-NIN, Indian Food Composition Tables 2017. Maida (A018), potato, peas, ghee, 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 ASC361
- Gupta et al., Unhealthy fat in street and snack foods, Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, 2016. Measured samosa weight and fat
- Sakhale et al., oil uptake in samosa, Journal of Food Science and Technology, 2011. Oil content of lab-fried samosa, 18.34%
- USDA FoodData Central, FNDDS Samosa (58124500). 17.47 g fat per 100 g
- ICMR-NIN, Dietary Guidelines for Indians: A Manual (2011). Annexure 8: samosa, tamarind chutney
Questions people ask
How many calories are in 1 samosa?
A home aloo samosa has about 165 calories. A street samosa is usually 160 to 285, depending on its size and the oil.
How much fat is in a samosa?
A home samosa has about 12 g of fat. Street samosas measured in a Delhi study had about 14 to 23 g each.
Do baked or air-fried samosas have fewer calories?
Yes, because they don't take up frying oil. The crust and filling stay the same, so the difference is roughly the oil, about 8 g in a home samosa here, or about 70 calories.
How many calories are in samosa with chutney?
Add the chutney: ICMR-NIN counts a tablespoon of tamarind chutney with jaggery at about 60 calories, and a tablespoon of green chutney at very little.