Calories in Chicken Breast, and Every Other Cut on the Bird

The calories in chicken breast come to 147 per 100 g grilled, so a typical ~130 g fillet lands at 191. Strip the skin off before cooking and the figure barely moves: 148. The gap people fear is one calorie, and the rest of the bird is where the real differences live.

You'd need to walk about 29 minutes to burn the 147 calories in 100 g grilled breast.

On this page

• Chicken breast nutrition at a glance
• UK portions, from a drumstick to a roast plate
• The skin myth: 147 with, 148 without
• Thigh, leg and wing: the dark-meat premium
• A whole chicken, raw and roasted
• Nuggets are a different food
• How does chicken breast compare?
• Most popular chicken brands
• FAQ

Chicken breast nutrition at a glance

*%RI = percentage of the reference intake for an average adult (2,000 kcal; 70 g fat, 260 g carbohydrate, 90 g sugars, 50 g protein, 6 g salt).

One fillet covers 77% of an adult's daily protein reference intake for a tenth of the day's energy. That ratio is the whole reason this cut sits in every meal-prep container in the country.

Saturated fat is 0.9 g per 100 g, and the salt is 0.15 g before you touch the grinder. Seasoning, marinades and shop-bought coatings are what move chicken up the NHS salt arithmetic, not the meat.

UK portions, from a drumstick to a roast plate

The fillet and the thigh sit ten calories apart on the plate, which surprises people who think of thigh as the indulgent cut. It is, per gram. A thigh simply weighs less than a fillet, so the portion maths forgives it.

The roast serving is worth reading twice: 140 g of mixed roast meat is 248 kcal on its own, before the potatoes, stuffing or anything from our full English breakfast school of plate-building arrives alongside it.

The skin myth: 147 with, 148 without

Here is the line that breaks most diet folklore. Chicken breast grilled with the skin on, skin then left on the plate, is 147 kcal per 100 g. The same breast grilled without any skin is 148.

Higher, without the skin. The reason is water. Cooking bare meat drives off more moisture, so every 100 g of skinless breast is slightly more concentrated: 32 g of protein against 29.8, and 2.2 g of fat against 3.1. The skin acts as a lid during cooking, and its fat mostly stays in the skin.

Eating the skin is the actual decision. Breast with the skin eaten is 173 kcal per 100 g, which turns a 130 g fillet from 191 into roughly 225. That is a 34-calorie choice, not a catastrophe, and crisp skin is arguably the best thing the bird produces. Log it honestly and have it when it is worth it.

Thigh, leg and wing: the dark-meat premium

The pattern is fat, and it runs top to bottom. Dark meat carries more of it than breast, and the skin carries more than the meat, so the cuts that keep both, thigh, leg and wing, cost 30 to 60% more per 100 g than the fillet.

Drumstick meat on its own is the quiet exception at 152. Most of a drumstick's reputation comes from what clings to it: the skin, and whatever glaze it was roasted in.

Wings deserve their own caution. At 193 kcal per 100 g raw, meat and skin, they start close to thigh territory, and almost nothing served as a wing arrives without a coating or a sauce. The same logic applies to takeaway spits: the numbers on our doner kebab page show what stacked, fat-basted meat does to a portion.

A whole chicken, raw and roasted

Chicken meat averages 108 kcal per 100 g raw and 177 per 100 g roasted. Nothing was added in the oven. Roughly a third of the water cooked off, so the same protein and fat now sit in fewer grams.

That is why raw and cooked weights cannot share a diary entry. Weigh the meat after cooking and use the cooked figure, or weigh it raw and use 108; mixing the two overstates a portion by a third. For a whole bird, the total depends entirely on its weight, so weigh the meat you actually carve rather than guessing from the label on the bag.

One kitchen habit worth dropping: the Food Standards Agency advises against washing raw chicken, since splashing spreads bacteria around the sink. It does nothing to the calories either.

Nuggets are a different food

Chicken nuggets average 307 kcal per 100 g, with 15.9 g of protein, 14.9 g of carbohydrate and 20.4 g of fat. Set that against the fillet's 147 and the label "chicken" is doing a lot of work: the coating and the frying oil contribute roughly half the energy, and the protein density drops by half.

Nuggets belong in the same mental folder as any other coated, fried food. If the goal is chicken's protein at chicken's price, the fillet, the drumstick and the roast bird are the versions that deliver it.

How does chicken breast compare?

The verdict: chicken breast keeps the lowest per-100 g figure on the table, but turkey delivers more protein for almost the same energy, 35 g against 29.8, and less fat. If protein per calorie is the game, turkey edges it; the full head-to-head is in our chicken vs turkey comparison. Eggs win on cost per unit and lose on protein density.

Most popular chicken 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. These are ready-to-eat cooked slices; the grilled breast figures above are for plain meat.

Brand popularity: BodyPal food database. Nutrition: manufacturer labels.

Frequently asked questions

Similar foods

• Chicken chow mein — 588 kcal a takeaway box
• Chinese takeaway — 147 kcal per 100 g chow mein
• Indian takeaway — 145 kcal per 100 g chicken curry
• Spaghetti bolognese — ~680 kcal a plate
• Turkey — 155 kcal per 100 g breast
• Chicken tikka masala — ~546 kcal the curry alone

Count it without the maths

Snap the plate and BodyPal logs the fillet, the roast slices and whatever came with them from one photo, so the cut-by-cut arithmetic stays out of your head.