How many calories are in dal?
A katori of home-style toor dal with a teaspoon of tadka is about 140-170 kcal. The dal itself is modest and fairly predictable. Nearly everything above 110 kcal in that bowl arrived in the tempering, which is why the range across versions of “dal” is wider than for almost any other everyday dish.
Per portion
| Portion | Calories | Protein | Carbs | Fat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dry toor (arhar) dal, 100 g | ~335 | 22 g | 57 g | 2 g |
| Cooked dal, no tadka, 1 katori, about 150 g | 100-120 | 7 g | 18 g | 1 g |
| Home toor dal, 1 tsp tadka, 1 katori | 140-170 | 7 g | 18 g | 5 g |
| Dal tadka with 1 tbsp ghee, 1 katori | 220-260 | 7 g | 18 g | 13 g |
| Restaurant dal fry, 1 katori | 230-300 | 8 g | 20 g | 14 g |
| Restaurant dal makhani, 1 katori | 330-450 | 9 g | 22 g | 25 g |
Every row assumes a standard 150 ml katori. Restaurant bowls are usually larger than that — often 250 g — so multiply the last two rows by about 1.6 for what actually lands on the table.
What changes the number
The tadka. One teaspoon of oil is about 40 kcal, a tablespoon of ghee 115. A restaurant tempering is two tablespoons plus a butter finish, which is 250 kcal of fat poured over a bowl that was 110 a moment earlier.
How thick it is. A katori might hold 25 g of dry dal or 40 g, which is 85 kcal against 135. Thin dals are not lighter food so much as less food.
The variety barely matters. Moong, masoor, toor, chana and urad all sit between 330 and 350 kcal per 100 g dry. Choosing one over another changes texture, cooking time and fibre, not calories. Sambar, being thinner and vegetable-led, runs 90-130 a katori.
Cream and butter. A tablespoon of cream is about 50 kcal, a tablespoon of butter 100. These belong to one dish in particular, below.
Where it fits in a deficit
Seven or eight grams of protein and 4-5 g of fibre for about 150 kcal is good value, and dal makes a plate feel like a meal cheaply. On the density ladder plain dal sits low, with soups.
The honest note is that one katori is not a protein serving, however often it is treated as one. Three bowls across a day is roughly 22 g. Use dal for volume, flavour and fibre, and take the bulk of your protein from curd, eggs, paneer, chicken or rajma. Keeping the tadka to a teaspoon is the single change that keeps dal cheap in calorie deficit terms — and it is the change nobody notices on the plate.
Home dal and dal makhani are different foods
Dal makhani is urad dal and rajma simmered for hours and then finished with butter and cream, sometimes with more butter stirred in at the table. At 330-450 kcal a katori, and 500-700 for the bowl a restaurant actually serves, it has more in common with a cream sauce than with the toor dal at home. Dal fry and dal tadka sit between the two.
None of that makes it a food to avoid. It does mean that “I only had dal” can describe a 150 kcal side or a 600 kcal main, and the word gives you no way to tell which. Eating out, ordering dal tadka rather than makhani is worth about 200 kcal a bowl. At home, the equivalent is the one-bowl route: khichdi built on a bigger dal share.
Figures are typical values and vary by variety, size and preparation. General information, not medical advice.