How many calories are in A1 sauce?
One tablespoon of A1 sauce, 17 grams, is 16 calories, and per 100 grams steak sauce runs 95 calories. That is the easy part. The harder number is the sodium: that same tablespoon carries 280 mg, 12% of a day's worth, which is where a steak sauce habit actually shows up.
On this page
- Steak sauce quick facts
- US servings, from a teaspoon to a dipping bowl
- Bottle by bottle, from A1 Original to Heinz 57
- Sodium is the row to watch
- How does A1 sauce compare?
- Most popular a1 sauce brands
- FAQ
Steak sauce quick facts
The numbers below come from the USDA FNDDS record 2709752, "Steak sauce", which sits in the tomato-based condiments group and is exactly the category A.1. defined. It is the row worth leading on for two reasons: it carries a full nutrient profile, and its household measure is the one people actually use, a level tablespoon of 17 grams.
The branded A.1. Original label reads a little lighter, 88 calories per 100 grams and 15 calories a tablespoon. That is a recipe difference between one manufacturer and the category average, not a disagreement between sources, and the sodium lands in the same place either way: 280 mg a spoonful.
| Nutrient | Per 100 g | Per 1 tablespoon (17 g) | % Daily Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calories | 95 | 16 | — |
| Total fat | 0.23 g | 0.0 g | 0% |
| Saturated fat | 0 g | 0.0 g | 0% |
| Carbohydrate | 22.04 g | 3.7 g | 1% |
| Dietary fiber | 1.5 g | 0.3 g | 1% |
| Total sugars | 9.82 g | 1.7 g | — |
| Protein | 1.25 g | 0.2 g | 0% |
| Sodium | 1647 mg | 280 mg | 12% |
% Daily Value is based on a 2,000-calorie diet.
Verified nutrition data
Numbers on this page come from USDA FoodData Central, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s food composition database, and from manufacturer labels where a branded product is named. Last verified September 2026. How we verify our data →
Two rows you would see on a bottle are missing here: added sugars and trans fat. USDA does not publish either value for this category record, so rather than guess at the split we leave them off. Cholesterol is zero, and potassium comes to 53 mg a tablespoon, about 1% of the Daily Value.
US servings, from a teaspoon to a dipping bowl
| Serving | Weight | Calories |
|---|---|---|
| 1 teaspoon | 5.7 g | 5 kcal |
| 1 tablespoon | 17 g | 16 kcal |
| 2 tablespoons | 34 g | 32 kcal |
| 1 oz | 28 g | 27 kcal |
| 1/4 cup, poured for dipping | 68 g | 65 kcal |
| Per 100 g | 100 g | 95 kcal |
Only the tablespoon is a USDA household measure. The teaspoon, the two-tablespoon pour, the ounce and the quarter cup are our own arithmetic from the USDA 100 gram figure, not USDA servings.
The quarter cup is the one to notice. Pour steak sauce into a ramekin instead of spooning it over the meat and you are looking at 65 calories, which nobody will feel, alongside 1,120 mg of sodium, which is 49% of the Daily Value. Calories are not the reason to keep the bottle in check here.
Bottle by bottle, from A1 Original to Heinz 57
| Version | Per 100 g | Label serving | Calories |
|---|---|---|---|
| A.1. Original Steak Sauce | 88 kcal | 1 Tbsp (17 g) | 15 kcal |
| A.1. Thick & Hearty | 133 kcal | 1 Tbsp (15 g) | 20 kcal |
| Heinz 57 Steak Sauce | 118 kcal | 1 Tbsp (17 g) | 20 kcal |
| Heinz Steak Sauce | 147 kcal | 1 Tbsp (17 g) | 25 kcal |
| Lea & Perrins Traditional | 133 kcal | 1 Tbsp (15 g) | 20 kcal |
| Jack Daniel's Original | 133 kcal | 1 Tbsp (15 g) | 20 kcal |
A.1. Original is the lightest of the six at 88 calories per 100 grams. Heinz Steak Sauce is the heaviest at 147, which works out to 25 calories a tablespoon against the original's 15 — a two-thirds jump from switching bottles.
Watch the serving size in the middle column, because it hides part of the gap. Thick & Hearty, Lea & Perrins and Jack Daniel's all sit at 133 calories per 100 grams and all declare 20 calories a serving, but their labeled tablespoon is 15 grams, not 17. Compared gram for gram, Thick & Hearty is more than half again as dense as the original, even though the label only moves from 15 calories to 20.
None of these swings matter much at one spoonful. They start to matter at the ramekin, where the same 68 grams runs 65 calories with the generic record and 100 with a 147-calorie-per-100-gram bottle.
Sodium is the row to watch
Steak sauce is a salt delivery system that happens to taste of tamarind and tomato. At 1,647 mg per 100 grams, a single tablespoon puts 280 mg on the plate, roughly an eighth of a teaspoon of table salt, and that is 12% of the FDA Daily Value of 2,300 mg.
Three passes over a sliced ribeye — a normal amount for anyone who likes the stuff — comes to 840 mg of sodium for under 50 calories. CDC guidance puts most adults under 2,300 mg a day, and most Americans are already over it before condiments enter the picture, so a third of the day's allowance from something that barely registers in a calorie log is worth knowing about.
The flip side is genuinely useful. If you are trying to make lean, dry cuts palatable without adding fat, steak sauce does that for almost nothing: 0.23 grams of fat per 100 grams and zero saturated fat, zero cholesterol. Compare that with a tablespoon of any creamy sauce or compound butter and the trade is obvious. Salt for calories.
How does A1 sauce compare?
| Condiment | Per 100 g | US serving | Calories |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steak sauce | 95 kcal | 1 tbsp (17 g) | 16 kcal |
| Ketchup | 109 kcal | 1 tbsp (17 g) | 19 kcal |
| Barbecue sauce | 172 kcal | 1 tbsp (17 g) | 29 kcal |
| Worcestershire sauce | 77 kcal | 1 tbsp (17 g) | 13 kcal |
Per-serving figures for all four are our own arithmetic from the USDA 100 gram records, scaled to a 17 gram tablespoon.
Our take: steak sauce is the sensible default of this group. Of the four, only Worcestershire is lighter, at 13 calories a tablespoon, and it is thin enough that people use more of it. Barbecue sauce is the one to demote if you are counting: 29 calories a tablespoon, almost double, and the reason is sugar — 33.24 grams per 100 grams against 9.82 grams here, more than three times as much. Ketchup sits in between at 19. If a squeeze of something is what gets a plain grilled chicken breast eaten, take the steak sauce and spend the attention on the sodium instead.
Most popular a1 sauce brands in the United States
Ranked by how widely each product appears among foods sold in the United States, from the BodyPal food database of over 3.3 million products. Calories are the figures printed on each Nutrition Facts label, checked against USDA FoodData Central.
| Product | Calories (per 100 g) |
|---|---|
| A.1. Original Steak Sauce | 88 cal |
| A.1. Thick & Hearty Steak Sauce | 133 cal |
| Heinz 57 Steak Sauce | 118 cal |
| Heinz Steak Sauce | 147 cal |
| Lea & Perrins Traditional Steak Sauce | 133 cal |
| Jack Daniel's Original Steak Sauce | 133 cal |
Brand popularity: BodyPal food database. Nutrition: manufacturer labels / USDA FoodData Central.
A1 sauce FAQs
How many calories are in a tablespoon of A1 sauce?
A tablespoon of steak sauce is 16 calories, based on the USDA FNDDS record at 95 calories per 100 grams. The A.1. Original label is slightly lower at 15 calories per tablespoon. Either way, one spoonful is a rounding error next to the steak it lands on.
How much sodium is in A1 steak sauce?
One tablespoon carries 280 mg of sodium, 12% of the FDA Daily Value, and 100 grams runs 1,647 mg. Three spoonfuls over a steak add 840 mg for under 50 calories. If you are watching sodium, that is the number to track here, not the calories.
Does A1 sauce have sugar?
Yes, 1.7 grams of total sugars per tablespoon and 9.82 grams per 100 grams. That is well under barbecue sauce, which carries 33.24 grams per 100 grams. USDA does not publish an added sugars figure for this category record, so the bottle label is the only place to see that split.
Is A1 sauce keto friendly?
One tablespoon holds 3.7 grams of carbohydrate, 1.7 of it sugars, so a single spoonful fits most low-carb plans. A 1/4-cup dipping bowl is a different story: 15 grams of carbs from the same bottle, our own arithmetic from the USDA 100 gram figure. Portion decides it.
How many carbs are in 2 tablespoons of steak sauce?
Two tablespoons weigh 34 grams and carry 7.5 grams of carbohydrate, of which 3.3 grams are sugars, plus 32 calories and 560 mg of sodium, 24% of the Daily Value. Those figures are our own arithmetic from the USDA 100 gram record, doubled from the single-tablespoon serving.
Is A1 sauce or ketchup lower in calories?
Steak sauce is lower: 95 calories per 100 grams against 109 for ketchup, or 16 calories a tablespoon against 19. The gap is carbohydrate, since ketchup packs 27.1 grams per 100 grams versus 22.04 here. On a plate, the difference is three calories a spoonful.
Is A1 sauce or barbecue sauce lower in calories?
Steak sauce, by a wide margin: 16 calories a tablespoon against 29 for barbecue sauce, or 95 per 100 grams against 172. Barbecue sauce carries 33.24 grams of sugar per 100 grams, more than three times the 9.82 grams here. That sugar is the whole difference.
Is A1 Thick and Hearty higher in calories than the original?
Yes — Thick & Hearty is 133 calories per 100 grams against 88 for A.1. Original, and its label serving of 20 calories per tablespoon beats the original's 15. Its tablespoon is listed at 15 grams rather than 17, so the density gap is wider than the serving numbers suggest.
Similar foods
- Wild Rice — 166 cal per cup, cooked
- Quinoa — 222 cal per cup cooked
- Milk — 149 cal per cup
- Rice — 205 cal per cup, cooked
- Pasta — 168 cal per cup penne
- Penne pasta — 169 cal per cup
Count it without the math
Point the camera at the plate and BodyPal counts the steak and the sauce on it together.
