Toor dal calories
A bowl of plain toor dal cooked from 30 g of dry dal has about 100 calories before any ghee, and a 200 ml katori about 75. A teaspoon of ghee on top adds about 45, taking it to about 145. Thali dal, with ghee poured on at the table, runs about 125 to 145.
Toor dal (arhar, tuvar) is split pigeon pea, the everyday dal across Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra. It's eaten plain as varan or pappu with rice and ghee, sweet and sour as Gujarati dal with jaggery and kokum, and as the base of sambar and dal tadka.
Cooked dal is mostly water, so the useful number is the dry dal that went into the pot. ICMR-NIN's standard pulse portion is 30 g of dry dal, and that's the bowl this page counts.
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 toor dal?
| Portion | Cals | Protein | Carbs | Fat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 bowl (30 g dry dal, about 270 ml) about 271 g | 100 | 7 g | 17 g | 1 g |
| 1 bowl with 1 tsp ghee (5 g) about 271 g | 145 | 7 g | 17 g | 6 g |
| 1 bowl Gujarati dal, 1 tsp jaggery and ghee tadka about 271 g | 165 | 7 g | 21 g | 6 g |
| 1 katori (150 ml), plain about 150 g | 55 | 4 g | 9 g | 0 g |
| 1 katori (200 ml), plain about 200 g | 75 | 5 g | 13 g | 0 g |
| 1 katori (250 ml), plain about 250 g | 95 | 6 g | 16 g | 0 g |
How does home toor dal compare with outside?
In a Gujarati or Maharashtrian thali, plain dal or varan usually comes with ghee poured on at the table, and Gujarati thali dal is often sweeter than home dal. The dal itself is much the same.
We found no lab figure for thali dal, so the range below adds half to one teaspoon of ghee to the same bowl.
| Version | Cals | Fat |
|---|---|---|
| Home | 100 | 1 g |
| Thali restaurant | 125 to 145 | 3 to 6 g |
What changes the calories in toor dal?
- A teaspoon of ghee on top adds about 45 calories, almost half the bowl again.
- Gujarati dal adds jaggery, about 18 calories a teaspoon, and often a ghee tadka with mustard, methi and curry leaves.
- The water doesn't change the bowl's total, only how many katoris it fills. Count by the dry dal when you can.
- Dal cooked with vegetables, as in sambar or dal palak, adds a little for the vegetables. See sambar.
How were these numbers worked out?
The bowl is ICMR-NIN's standard pulse portion, 30 g of dry toor dal, cooked in a cup (240 ml) of water with a quarter teaspoon of turmeric, the pattern of the plain dals in The Art & Science of Cooking; the bowl itself has no fat, and the ghee and Gujarati tadka rows add theirs on top. IFCT 2017 gives raw toor dal 331 calories, 21.7 g of protein and 1.6 g of fat per 100 g. The ingredients added together weigh about 271 g with no water boiled off, so the bowl is 100 calories and the katori rows, at 1 g per ml, are for a thin dal. NIN's half cup of plain dal at 100 calories holds the same 30 g of dal and agrees within 1%. No restaurant plain dal has been analysed, so the thali range adds half to one teaspoon of ghee. Every dish on Slate is worked out the same way: how Slate counts calories.
| Ingredient | Raw | Values from |
|---|---|---|
| Red gram dal (toor, arhar) Dry weight | 30 g | IFCT 2017 B021 |
| Water 1 cup | 240 g | no calories |
| Turmeric powder a quarter teaspoon | 0.75 g | IFCT 2017 G033 |
Sources
- ICMR-NIN, Indian Food Composition Tables 2017. Red gram dal (B021), green gram dal (B010), turmeric (G033), ghee (T013), jaggery (I001); 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 ASC151 (plain dal pattern: 30 g dal, 1 cup water)
- ICMR-NIN, Dietary Guidelines for Indians: A Manual (2011). Annexure 8: plain dal 100 kcal per half cup
Questions people ask
How many calories are in 100 g of raw toor dal?
331 calories, with 21.7 g of protein, according to IFCT 2017.
How many calories are in 100 g of cooked toor dal?
About 35 for a thin dal made with 30 g of dal in a cup of water. A thick dal can be twice that, because it holds less water.
How much protein is in a bowl of toor dal?
About 7 g in a bowl made from 30 g of dry dal. Two bowls a day give about twice that.
How many calories are in Gujarati dal?
About 165 for a bowl with a teaspoon of jaggery and a teaspoon of ghee in the tadka.
Which has more calories, toor dal or moong dal?
They're close. Raw, IFCT 2017 puts toor dal at 331 and moong dal at 326 calories per 100 g. See moong dal.