How many calories are in prawns?
Six large peeled prawns, about 100 g (3.5 oz), come to roughly 85 kcal raw or 100 kcal cooked, with 20–24 g of protein. Per calorie, almost no food carries more protein. What matters happens in the pan afterwards.
Per portion
| Portion | Calories | Protein | Carbs | Fat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 medium peeled prawn, about 8 g | ~7 kcal | 1.6 g | 0 g | 0 g |
| 1 large peeled prawn, about 15 g | ~13 kcal | 3 g | 0 g | 0 g |
| 1 king prawn, about 25 g | ~21 kcal | 5 g | 0 g | 0 g |
| 100 g raw peeled prawns | ~85 kcal | 20 g | 0 g | 1 g |
| 100 g prawns, grilled or boiled plain | ~100 kcal | 24 g | 0 g | 1 g |
| 100 g prawns tossed in 1 tbsp butter | ~200 kcal | 24 g | 0 g | 12 g |
| 100 g breaded or tempura prawns, fried | 240–290 kcal | 15–18 g | 15–20 g | 14–18 g |
| 150 g prawns in a coconut curry, with gravy | 400–500 kcal | 32 g | 8–12 g | 30–38 g |
Counting by the piece is more useful here than per 100 g: prawns come in countable units and nobody weighs six of them.
What changes the number
Shell-on weight is not edible weight. Published figures are for peeled prawns. A kilogram bought head-on yields about 550–600 g of meat, so 100 g as purchased is nearer 50 kcal than 85. Frozen prawns add a second layer: many are glazed or brine-treated and carry 10–20% added water that thaws away.
Butter, batter and mayonnaise. Nothing you do to a prawn changes it much; everything you add does. A tablespoon of butter is about 100 kcal, a tablespoon of oil 120, two tablespoons of mayonnaise-based cocktail sauce 120–150. Breadcrumbs or tempura roughly triple the plate, mostly through the oil the coating absorbs.
Cooking shrinkage. Prawns lose about a fifth of their weight as water on the heat, so cooked prawns are denser per gram: 100 kcal per 100 g against 85 raw.
Not the variety. Tiger, king, white and school prawns differ negligibly per gram; size changes how many you eat, not what each costs.
Where it fits in a deficit
Prawns deliver roughly 24 g of protein per 100 kcal. That beats chicken breast at about 21, sits alongside lean white fish, and more than doubles firm tofu at 11. If you are eating fewer calories than you burn and want the protein target met cheaply, little else comes close per kcal.
The catch is that prawns do not fill a plate. Six is 100 kcal and looks like a garnish, which is why they work as the protein in a big vegetable dish and badly as the meal itself. They also go down fast: 300 g of garlic-butter prawns is a 700 kcal starter eaten in four minutes — worth putting through a calculator before you order it.
The cholesterol question
Prawns are genuinely high in dietary cholesterol — roughly 150–190 mg per 100 g, more than an egg. That earned them decades on the avoid list, and the reasoning has not held up: for most people dietary cholesterol has little effect on blood cholesterol, and saturated fat matters far more — of which prawns have almost none, about 0.2 g per 100 g.
Which puts the attention where it belongs: the prawns are not the problem in prawn butter masala or scampi, the butter and the batter are. If a doctor has advised otherwise for your own situation, follow that.
Figures are typical values and vary by variety, size and preparation. General information, not medical advice.