How Many Calories in Cauliflower?
An 80 g portion of boiled cauliflower carries 23 calories; raw, the vegetable is 30 kcal per 100 g. Half a head is about 90 — less than a Milky Way bar. Anyone asking how many calories in cauliflower usually means the Sunday version, though, and cauliflower cheese is a different animal at 194 a serving.
On this page
- Quick facts
- Cauliflower portions
- From plain veg to cauliflower cheese
- Cauliflower rice and roasting
- How cauliflower compares
- Most popular cauliflower brands
- Cauliflower FAQs
Quick facts
| Per 100 g (raw) | Amount | RI%* |
|---|---|---|
| Calories | 30 kcal / 126 kJ | 2% |
| Protein | 2.5 g | 5% |
| Carbohydrates | 4.4 g | 2% |
| Fat | 0.4 g | 1% |
| Fibre | 1.8 g | – |
| Sugar | 2.9 g | 3% |
| Salt | 0.02 g | 0% |
*Reference intake of 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 →
Boiling barely moves the needle: in the UK government's CoFID dataset, cooked cauliflower is 29 kcal per 100 g against 30 raw. For once, how you cook the vegetable itself changes nothing. What you pour over it changes everything.
Cauliflower portions
An 80 g serving of boiled cauliflower — one of your 5 A Day — is 23 calories. Half a head, around 300 g, is roughly 90. You could eat an entire large cauliflower and still not reach the calories in a portion of potato (130).
The fibre is the underrated part: 1.8 g per 100 g means half a head delivers over 5 g towards the 30 g a day the NHS recommends, for those 90 calories. Few foods buy fibre that cheaply.
From plain veg to cauliflower cheese
Homemade cauliflower cheese, made with semi-skimmed milk, is 97 kcal per 100 g — more than triple the plain vegetable. A typical 200 g serving lands at 194 calories. Supermarket ready-made versions average slightly less at 88 per 100 g, mostly through thinner sauce.
Be clear about what happened there: the cauliflower did not change. The flour, butter and cheese in the sauce are the actual dish, and the vegetable is the delivery vehicle. That is not a reason to skip it — 194 calories for a generous side is fair value at a roast — but log it as cauliflower cheese, never as cauliflower.
Cauliflower rice and roasting
Cauliflower rice is plain cauliflower blitzed small: the same 30 kcal per 100 g, no processing magic in either direction. As a stand-in for rice it is a big calorie cut per plate, which is the entire trick — the "rice" is doing nothing the whole vegetable would not do. The same logic covers cauliflower mash: blitzed boiled florets start from that 29 kcal per 100 g base, and whatever the finished bowl costs beyond that is the milk and butter you stirred in, not the vegetable.
Roasting is where quiet calories arrive. The cauliflower stays at 23 per 80 g portion, but a tablespoon of olive oil tossed through the tray adds about 124 calories to the batch. Roast by all means — just count the oil as the ingredient it is.
How cauliflower compares
| Vegetable or side | Portion | Calories |
|---|---|---|
| Cauliflower (boiled) | 80 g | 23 |
| Broccoli | 80 g | 22 |
| Potato | portion | 130 |
| Cauliflower cheese | 200 g serving | 194 |
Verdict: cauliflower and broccoli are calorie twins — pick whichever you will actually eat, and cabbage belongs in the same bargain bracket. The real decision on the plate is cauliflower versus cauliflower cheese: same vegetable, six portions' worth of difference once the sauce arrives.
Most popular cauliflower brands 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. The fresh vegetable sells unbranded — the cheese version is where labels appear.
| Product | Calories (per 100 g) |
|---|---|
| Tesco Cauliflower Cheese | 87 kcal |
Brand popularity: BodyPal food database. Nutrition: manufacturer labels.
Cauliflower FAQs
How many calories are in cauliflower cheese?
About 194 calories for a typical 200 g serving of homemade cauliflower cheese, at 97 kcal per 100 g. Supermarket versions average 88 per 100 g. The sauce accounts for most of it — plain boiled cauliflower is just 29 kcal per 100 g.
How many calories are in cauliflower rice?
30 kcal per 100 g — identical to whole raw cauliflower, because that is all it is, grated. Its value is as a swap: a plate of cauliflower rice costs a fraction of the same plate of cooked rice, with no other change to the meal.
Is cauliflower a carb?
Not in any meaningful sense: 4.4 g of carbohydrate per 100 g, about 2% of the daily reference intake. Compare a potato portion at 130 calories of mostly starch. Cauliflower sits firmly with the vegetables, which is why it stands in for rice and mash so well.
How many calories are in roasted cauliflower?
The cauliflower itself stays around 23 calories per 80 g portion — the oil sets the final number. A tablespoon of olive oil adds roughly 124 calories to the roasting tray, so a lightly oiled tray of roasted florets can double or triple the plain figure.
How many calories are in half a cauliflower?
About 90 calories for half a head (roughly 300 g). Eating that much is genuinely hard work for your jaw before it is any kind of problem for your calorie target — it is less than one chocolate bar.
Does boiling change cauliflower's calories?
Barely: 29 kcal per 100 g boiled versus 30 raw. Water-based cooking neither adds nor removes anything that matters. The additions that do matter come afterwards — cheese sauce at the top of the scale, a knob of butter somewhere in the middle.
Is cauliflower good for weight loss?
At 23 calories per 80 g portion with 1.8 g of fibre per 100 g, it is one of the cheapest ways to fill a plate. If you are cutting calories, using cauliflower to displace rice, mash or pasta shrinks the meal's total without shrinking the meal.
How much fibre is in cauliflower?
1.8 g per 100 g, so half a head contributes over 5 g towards the NHS guideline of 30 g a day. Fibre for 90 calories is the quiet argument for cauliflower over more glamorous sides — few foods deliver it at a lower calorie price.
Similar foods
- Broccoli — 22 kcal per 80 g portion
- Cabbage — 14 kcal per boiled portion
- Carrot — 27 kcal per medium carrot
- Pepper — 42 kcal per red pepper
- Onions — 53 kcal per medium onion
- Cucumber — 11 kcal per 5 cm piece
Weigh nothing, log everything
Photograph the plate — cheese sauce and all — and BodyPal logs the cauliflower with calories and macros sorted for you.
