Vada pav calories
One vada pav has about 335 calories, about 200 of it the batata vada. With a teaspoon of butter it's about 370; 2 vada pav are about 665. Butter adds about 35 a teaspoon, a slice of cheese about 60 to 70. Street vada pav, fried in oil used all day, runs about 335 to 465.
Vada pav is Mumbai's everyday street food: a spiced potato vada dipped in besan batter and deep-fried, tucked into a soft pav with dry garlic chutney, green chutney and a fried green chilli. It's eaten standing at stalls outside stations and offices all day.
The fried vada is a little over half of the calories and the pav most of the rest. Butter on the pav, or a second vada, adds to it.
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 vada pav?
| Portion | Cals | Protein | Carbs | Fat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 batata vada, without pav | 200 | 4 g | 16 g | 14 g |
| 1 vada pav (43 g pav) | 335 | 8 g | 37 g | 16 g |
| 1 vada pav with 1 tsp butter | 370 | 8 g | 37 g | 20 g |
| 2 vada pav | 665 | 17 g | 74 g | 33 g |
How does home vada pav compare with outside?
Street vadas are fried in oil that's used all day, and stall sizes vary from small to large. Some stalls brush the pav with butter or add cheese.
A lab study found fried foods took up about a fifth more fat after 32 fryings in the same oil. The range below uses that, with a vada pav up to 1.3 times this size.
| Version | Cals | Fat |
|---|---|---|
| Home | 335 | 16 g |
| Street stall | 335 to 465 | 16 to 25 g |
What changes the calories in vada pav?
- Butter on the pav adds about 35 calories a teaspoon, and a slice of cheese about 60 to 70.
- Dry garlic chutney has coconut, peanuts or sesame in it and adds a little; green chutney adds almost nothing.
- A bigger vada, or oil that's been used many times, means more fat in each vada.
- Without the pav, the vada alone is about 200.
How were these numbers worked out?
The vada follows the potato bonda in The Art & Science of Cooking (via the Indian Nutrient Databank): 100 g of potato, 20 g of peas, onion, ginger, green chilli and cashew, coated in a batter of 2 tablespoons of besan and 2 teaspoons of rice flour. The textbook makes 4 small bondas; a Mumbai vada is bigger, so this page makes 2, at IFCT 2017 values with rice flour and the pav from USDA. The databank counts all the frying oil as eaten; this page instead sets the oil taken up so that the textbook's bonda comes to ICMR-NIN's 100 calories, about 10 g per vada. One vada pav is half the recipe plus a 43 g pav, valued as USDA's soft dinner roll: 335 calories. The street range assumes a vada pav up to 1.3 times as big with fat up to 1.22 times, Jain et al.'s measured rise for reused frying oil. Every dish on Slate is worked out the same way: how Slate counts calories.
| Ingredient | Raw | Values from |
|---|---|---|
| Potato, brown skin, big | 100 g | IFCT 2017 F006 |
| Peas, fresh | 20 g | IFCT 2017 D061 |
| Onion, big | 15 g | IFCT 2017 G017 |
| Chillies, green | 3.3 g | IFCT 2017 G008 |
| Ginger, fresh | 5 g | IFCT 2017 G014 |
| Cashew nut | 2.5 g | IFCT 2017 H005 |
| Besan (ground Bengal gram dal) 2 tablespoons, for the batter | 15 g | IFCT 2017 B001 |
| Rice flour 2 teaspoons, for the batter | 5 g | USDA FDC 169714 |
| Turmeric powder | 0.4 g | IFCT 2017 G033 |
| Groundnut oil 1 teaspoon, for the tempering | 4.5 g | IFCT 2017 T005 |
| Groundnut oil Taken up in frying: set so the recipe matches ICMR-NIN's potato bonda, 100 kcal each | 20.2 g | IFCT 2017 T005 |
Sources
- ICMR-NIN, Indian Food Composition Tables 2017. Potato, peas, onion, green chilli, ginger, cashew (H005), Bengal gram dal (B001) as besan, turmeric, 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 ASC360, potato bonda; open-source recipe OSR112 for pav weight
- ICMR-NIN, Dietary Guidelines for Indians: A Manual (2011). Annexure 8: potato bonda 200 kcal for 2
- USDA FoodData Central, Rolls, dinner, plain, commercially prepared (172793). Pav, 310 kcal per 100 g
- USDA FoodData Central, Rice flour, white (169714). Rice flour in the batter
- 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 vada pav?
About 335 for a vada pav made at home with a 43 g pav, and about 370 with a teaspoon of butter.
How many calories are in vada pav without pav?
About 200 for the batata vada on its own.
How many calories are in 2 vada pav?
About 665 for two.
How much protein is in vada pav?
About 8 g, from the pav, the besan and the peas.
Which has more calories, vada pav or samosa?
A vada pav, because of the pav. A home samosa is about 165, against about 335 for a vada pav.