How many calories are in broccoli?
A 200 g (7 oz) side serving of steamed broccoli is about 70 kcal. Raw or cooked, broccoli sits near 34–35 kcal per 100 g, and each of those 100 g brings roughly 3 g of protein and 2.6 g of fibre — one of the better trades in the vegetable aisle for the price.
Per portion
| Portion | Calories | Protein | Carbs | Fat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100 g raw | ~34 kcal | 2.8 g | 6.6 g | 0.4 g |
| 100 g steamed or boiled | ~35 kcal | 2.4 g | 7 g | 0.4 g |
| 1 cup florets, raw (90 g) | ~30 kcal | 2.5 g | 6 g | 0.3 g |
| 200 g side, steamed | ~70 kcal | 5 g | 14 g | 0.8 g |
| 1 medium head, raw (550 g) | ~190 kcal | 15 g | 36 g | 2 g |
| 200 g stir-fried in 1 tbsp oil | ~190 kcal | 5 g | 14 g | 14 g |
| 250 g broccoli with 100 g cheese sauce | ~240 kcal | 11 g | 20 g | 14 g |
What changes the number
Steaming versus boiling changes nutrients, not energy. A long boil leaches vitamin C, folate and some glucosinolates into the water — losses of a quarter to a half of the vitamin C are normal — while the energy moves by a kilocalorie or two at most. Steaming and microwaving retain more. If you do boil, keeping the water for a soup keeps most of what left the florets.
Oil, which broccoli is unusually good at holding. All that surface area means a stir-fry absorbs almost everything in the pan: one tablespoon of oil is about 120 kcal, which nearly triples a 200 g serving. Roasting is the same arithmetic plus evaporation — a tray of roast broccoli reads higher per gram simply because it weighs less coming out than going in.
Cheese sauce, the usual culprit. A classic cheese sauce runs 130–180 kcal per 100 g, so a baked broccoli-cheese side lands near 240–400 kcal for a portion that would have been 90 steamed. Butter melted over the top is about 75 kcal per 10 g.
Variety and the stalk. Calabrese, purple sprouting and broccolini are within a few kilocalories of each other. The stalk is roughly the same energy per gram as the florets and makes up around a third of the head’s weight, so binning it throws away a third of the food — grated or sliced thinly, it behaves like any other brassica.
Where it fits in a deficit
Among the most satiating things you can put volume into. A 300 g plate is about 105 kcal and brings nearly 8 g of fibre, which slows gastric emptying, so the fullness lasts in a way that watery vegetables like carrot sticks or cucumber do not manage. That combination — bulk, fibre, chewing time — is the core of eating well in a calorie deficit and the reason brassicas appear on every list of high-volume foods.
The honest caveat is tolerance rather than calories. Broccoli’s fibre includes raffinose, which ferments in the large intestine, and large raw portions leave a lot of people uncomfortable. Cooked florets are easier, and building up gradually works better than a 400 g plate on day one.
The “more protein than steak” claim
It is wrong twice over, and it circulates anyway. Broccoli has about 2.8 g of protein per 100 g; steak has around 27 g — nearly ten times as much. The usual defence is to switch to a per-calorie comparison, and the claim fails there too: broccoli carries roughly 8 g of protein per 100 kcal against about 13 g for cooked steak.
What is true is narrower and still worth knowing. Broccoli is a good protein source for a vegetable, slightly behind spinach per calorie, and that protein arrives with almost no fat attached. What it cannot do is carry the total: reaching 25 g of protein from broccoli alone means close to a kilogram of it, and the amino acid profile is less complete than an animal source’s. It is a useful contributor to your daily protein, never the foundation.
Figures are typical values and vary by variety, size and preparation. General information, not medical advice.