How Many Calories in Cabbage?
Cabbage barely registers: 26 calories per 100 g raw, and an 80 g boiled portion is just 14 kcal. Anyone asking how many calories in cabbage can shred a quarter of a head — around 225 g — for 59 kcal. Boiling drops the number further still, not up.
You'd need to walk about 5 minutes to burn the 26 calories in 100 g raw.
How long does it take to burn off cabbage?
100 g raw is 26 kcal. Enter your weight and the amount you ate to see how long it takes you to burn that off:
lb
| Activity | Time to burn 26 kcal |
|---|---|
| Walking, brisk | 5 min |
| Cycling, moderate | 3 min |
| Swimming, moderate | 4 min |
| Jogging | 3 min |
| Weight training, moderate | 6 min |
Times are for a 154 lb (11 st) adult at a steady pace; change the weight to see yours. The amount is set to the portion in the text (100 g); change it to what you actually ate. BodyPal works this out from your steps automatically.
On this page
- Quick facts
- Portions
- Raw vs boiled
- Red, white and Savoy
- The coleslaw exception
- How does cabbage compare?
- The cabbage soup diet
- Most popular cabbage products
- FAQ
Quick facts
| Per 100 g (raw) | Amount | RI%* |
|---|---|---|
| Calories | 26 kcal (109 kJ) | 1% |
| Protein | 1.8 g | 4% |
| Carbohydrates | 4.4 g | 2% |
| Fat | 0.2 g | <1% |
| — of which saturates | 0.02 g | <1% |
| Fibre | 3.5 g | – |
| Sugar | 4.4 g | 5% |
| Salt | 0.02 g | <1% |
*RI = reference intake for an average adult (2,000 kcal a day).
Verified nutrition data
Numbers on this page come from CoFID, the UK government’s Composition of Foods Integrated Dataset, and from manufacturer labels where a branded product is named. Last verified August 2026. How we verify our data →
Portions
- 80 g boiled portion (side serving) — 14 kcal
- Quarter of a head, raw (~225 g) — 59 kcal
An 80 g serving is also what the NHS counts as one of your 5 A Day. Fourteen calories for a full tick on that scorecard is about the best exchange rate on the plate.
Raw vs boiled
Raw cabbage is 26 kcal per 100 g; boiled, it falls to 17. Nothing is lost in the pan — the leaves take on water, so each 100 g of cooked cabbage is simply more water and less leaf.
That has a practical upside. Weigh cabbage cooked and the number can only flatter you. Very few foods work this way round; most concentrate calories as they cook.
Red, white and Savoy
Colour doesn't change the story. Red, white, sweetheart and Savoy all sit in the same few-calories-per-handful territory as the average figure above, and the fibre — 3.5 g per 100 g — travels with all of them.
Pick by texture and price, not by numbers. The dense white keeps longest and shreds finest for slaw; Savoy wilts sweetly into butter — which, it's worth saying, is where the calories arrive.
The coleslaw exception
The one place cabbage gets heavy is the tub of coleslaw, and the cabbage is innocent. Shredded raw cabbage brings its 26 kcal per 100 g; the mayonnaise it's folded through brings many times that. A creamy deli coleslaw is a dressing dish with vegetable garnish.
If you love slaw, make it lean: the cabbage, carrot and onion are a rounding error, so the entire calorie decision is how much dressing you stir in.
How does cabbage compare?
| Food | Typical portion | kcal per portion | kcal per 100 g |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cabbage (raw) | 80 g boiled portion | 14 | 26 |
| Cauliflower | – | – | 30 |
| Broccoli | 80 g portion | 22 | – |
| Lettuce | side salad | 3 | – |
| Carrot | one carrot | 27 | – |
The verdict: cabbage undercuts cauliflower, broccoli and even a single carrot, and only lettuce goes lower. For a side salad or a pile of greens you actually chew through, cabbage gives the most food per calorie of the proper vegetables here.
The cabbage soup diet
The 1980s classic keeps resurfacing, so here are the facts. Cabbage soup is genuinely low in calories — the main ingredient runs at 17–26 kcal per 100 g, so a big bowl stays small. Any weight lost on a week of it comes from eating very little, not from the cabbage doing anything special.
It's also a diet built from one low-protein vegetable, which is exactly what the NHS Eatwell Guide advises against building meals around long-term. Enjoy the soup; skip the mythology.
Most popular cabbage products in the United Kingdom
Ranked by how widely each product appears among foods sold in the United Kingdom, from the BodyPal food database of over 3.3 million products. Calories are the figures printed on each label. Fresh heads sell unbranded; the jars carry sugar with the vinegar.
| Product | Calories (per 100 g) |
|---|---|
| Sainsbury's Red Cabbage with Bramley Apple | 71 kcal |
| Kühne Pickled Red Cabbage | 54 kcal |
Brand popularity: BodyPal food database. Nutrition: manufacturer labels.
Cabbage FAQ
How many calories in boiled cabbage?
17 kcal per 100 g, and a standard 80 g side portion is 14 kcal. Boiled cabbage is lower per gram than raw (26) because the leaves absorb water in the pan. Butter is the multiplier to watch — a knob stirred through can triple the plate.
How many calories in red cabbage?
The same territory as the 26 kcal per 100 g average for raw cabbage — red, white and Savoy all sit within a couple of calories of each other. Braised red cabbage recipes are different: added sugar, apple and fat can push a portion several times higher.
Does the cabbage soup diet work?
The soup is about as low-calorie as food gets — cabbage runs 17–26 kcal per 100 g — so a week of it means eating very little, and short-term loss follows from that. It's not a balanced way to eat, and the NHS recommends gradual changes built on varied meals instead.
Is cabbage good for weight loss?
At 26 kcal per 100 g with 3.5 g of fibre, cabbage is one of the cheapest ways to add bulk to a meal — a plateful of the stuff barely dents a day's budget. That makes it a useful filler in a calorie deficit, though what it's cooked in decides the final number.
How many calories in coleslaw?
The cabbage contributes almost nothing — 26 kcal per 100 g raw — so a coleslaw's total is set by its dressing. Creamy, mayonnaise-based tubs are many times the calories of the vegetables inside; a vinegar-dressed slaw stays close to the cabbage's own numbers.
How many carbs are in cabbage?
4.4 g of carbohydrate per 100 g raw, all of it naturally occurring sugars, alongside 3.5 g of fibre. An 80 g portion carries about 3.5 g of carbs, which is why shredded cabbage stands in for noodles and rice in low-carb cooking.
Does cabbage count towards 5 A Day?
Yes — 80 g of cooked cabbage counts as one portion under NHS 5 A Day guidance, and it costs you 14 kcal. Only a side of lettuce gets you a tick more cheaply, and there's far less eating in it.
How many calories in a quarter of a cabbage?
59 kcal for a quarter of an average head, about 225 g raw. Shred the whole thing — the full head — and you're still only around 235 kcal: roughly one bagel's worth of energy spread across four generous meals of vegetables.
Similar foods
- Pepper — 42 kcal per red pepper
- Broccoli — 22 kcal per 80 g portion
- Cauliflower — 23 kcal per 80 g portion
- Carrot — 27 kcal per medium carrot
- Onions — 53 kcal per medium onion
- Cucumber — 11 kcal per 5 cm piece
Count the plate, not the leaves
Cabbage is easy; the butter, dressing and everything beside it is where logging gets fiddly. Photograph the plate and BodyPal logs the lot in one go.
