How many calories are in beef cubes?
A full cup of beef cubes weighs 135 grams and carries 252 calories. Per 100 grams that is 187 calories, from the USDA record for cube steak. One inch-sized cube is only 32. The protein is the headline here: 38.9 grams in that cup, with zero carbs.
You'd need to walk about 50 minutes to burn the 252 calories in a 1-cup (135 g) serving.
How long does it take to burn off beef cubes?
A 1-cup (135 g) serving is 252 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 252 kcal |
|---|---|
| Walking, brisk | 50 min |
| Cycling, moderate | 32 min |
| Swimming, moderate | 36 min |
| Jogging | 30 min |
| Weight training, moderate | 56 min |
Times are for a 155 lb adult at a steady pace; change the weight to see yours. The amount is set to the portion in the text (135 g); change it to what you actually ate. BodyPal works this out from your steps automatically.
On this page
- Beef cube quick facts
- US servings, from one cube to a full cup
- Cube steak vs cube roll, raw vs roasted
- Bouillon cubes are a different food
- Protein is the headline, sodium is the catch
- How do beef cubes compare?
- Most popular beef cubes brands
- FAQ
Beef cube quick facts
The record behind every number on this page is FNDDS 2705826, "Beef, steak, cube", from the 2021–2023 survey release. It is the only USDA entry for beef eaten as cubes, and it is already in the cooked, as-served state — exactly the browned, ready-to-eat pieces you scoop out of a skillet. That makes it the right line for stew beef, kebab cubes and sliced cube steak alike, since all three land on the plate as cooked beef of the same lean-to-fat balance.
Two other families of records use the word "cube" and are not this food. Cube roll is the New Zealand butchery name for ribeye, a fattier cut with its own raw and roasted numbers. A beef bouillon cube is dried seasoning, not meat. Both get their own sections below rather than being blended into the main figure.
| Nutrient | Per 100 g | Per 1 cup (135 g) | % Daily Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calories | 187 | 252 | — |
| Total fat | 7.1 g | 9.6 g | 12% |
| Saturated fat | 2.12 g | 2.9 g | 14% |
| Carbohydrate | 0 g | 0 g | 0% |
| Dietary fiber | 0 g | 0 g | 0% |
| Total sugars | 0 g | 0 g | — |
| Protein | 28.83 g | 38.9 g | 78% |
| Sodium | 379 mg | 512 mg | 22% |
| Cholesterol | 83 mg | 112 mg | 37% |
| Potassium | 417 mg | 563 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 might expect are missing. Added sugars and trans fat are not published for this record in the FNDDS release, so rather than guess at them we leave them out. With carbohydrate at a flat zero, added sugars would read zero anyway. The Daily Values used above come from the FDA nutrition label reference.
US servings, from one cube to a full cup
Beef cubes are one of the few foods where the household measures are genuinely useful, because a cube is a unit you can count. USDA publishes a cubic-inch weight of 17 grams, a generic piece or slice at 30 grams, a cup at 135 grams and a whole regular cube steak at 160 grams.
| Serving | Weight | Calories |
|---|---|---|
| 1 cubic inch | 17 g | 32 kcal |
| 1 piece or slice, any size | 30 g | 56 kcal |
| 1 oz | 28 g | 53 kcal |
| 1 cup | 135 g | 252 kcal |
| 1 regular cube steak | 160 g | 299 kcal |
| Per 100 g | 100 g | 187 kcal |
The cubic inch, the piece, the cup and the cube steak are all USDA household measures. The 1 oz line is our own arithmetic from the USDA 100 g figure, not a USDA serving, because ounces are how most American kitchen scales read and because meat is sold that way.
Here is the part worth internalizing: a cup is about eight inch-sized cubes. Eight bites, 252 calories, and you have eaten a full protein portion. People who log "a few cubes" while the pan rests are usually logging four of them, which is 128 calories that never make it into the app.
Store-brand frozen cubes sit higher than the USDA cooked line. The one branded product USDA lists, PYCCKUU KPAU Beef Cubes, reads 273 calories per 100 grams with a 55-gram label serving at 150 calories — a fattier trim than the survey record. If your package has a Nutrition Facts panel, log the panel.
Cube steak vs cube roll, raw vs roasted
Cube roll is ribeye, and USDA carries four versions of it: lean only or lean and fat, raw or fast roasted. The spread between the mildest and the richest is enormous — 161 calories per 100 grams up to 286 — and every bit of it comes from trim and from water loss in the oven.
| Version | Per 100 g | Typical piece | Calories |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cube roll, lean only, raw | 161 kcal | 4 oz (113 g) | 182 kcal |
| Cube roll, lean and fat, raw | 225 kcal | 4 oz (113 g) | 254 kcal |
| Cube roll, lean only, roasted | 239 kcal | 3 oz (85 g) | 203 kcal |
| Cube roll, lean and fat, roasted | 286 kcal | 3 oz (85 g) | 243 kcal |
| Cube steak, as served | 187 kcal | 1 cup (135 g) | 252 kcal |
Raw and roasted are the same beef. Lean cube roll climbs from 161 to 239 per 100 grams in the oven, an increase of nearly half, and nothing was added. Water left, the calories stayed, and what is left weighs less per bite. This is the single most common logging error with beef: weighing raw, then logging cooked, or the reverse.
The rule of thumb that actually works is 4 ounces raw to roughly 3 ounces on the plate. So 113 grams of raw lean cube roll at 182 calories becomes about 85 grams of roasted meat — and the roasted record puts that at 203 calories. The gap is not a contradiction; it is trim variation between two separate USDA samples. Weigh at the stage you eat, and use the record that matches.
The 3 oz roasted lean-and-fat figure of 243 calories is our own arithmetic from the USDA 100 g value rather than a published serving.
Bouillon cubes are a different food
Search for beef cube calories and you will hit bouillon results. They belong to a different category entirely. A dry beef broth cube weighs about 3.6 grams and is 6 calories. Dissolved in water, the finished broth is 3 calories per 100 grams, or 7 calories in a 240-gram cup.
| Form | Per 100 g | Serving | Calories |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beef bouillon cube, dry | 170 kcal | 1 cube (3.6 g) | 6 kcal |
| Beef broth from a cube, prepared | 3 kcal | 1 cup (240 g) | 7 kcal |
Calorie-wise this is nothing. Sodium-wise it is the loudest item on the page: one dry cube delivers 864 mg, which is 38% of the Daily Value out of 3.6 grams of powder. Drop two into a stew alongside a pound of beef and the seasoning contributes more sodium than the meat does.
Protein is the headline, sodium is the catch
A cup of cooked beef cubes carries 38.9 grams of protein, 78% of the Daily Value, in a serving of 252 calories. That density is the reason beef cubes anchor so many dinners: nothing on the MyPlate protein foods list does the same job in fewer calories except very lean poultry and fish. Per inch cube it works out to about 4.9 grams, so five cubes add roughly 24.5 grams.
Saturated fat is milder than beef's reputation suggests. The cup holds 2.9 grams, 14% of the Daily Value, which leaves plenty of room for the rest of the day under the Dietary Guidelines limit of under 10% of calories from saturated fat. A fattier cut moves this sharply: roasted cube roll with the fat on runs 7.01 grams of saturated fat per 100 grams, more than triple the cube steak record.
Sodium is where the survey record surprises people. Cooked cube steak reads 379 mg per 100 grams, and 512 mg in the cup — 22% of the day. Raw cube roll reads 43 to 45 mg per 100 grams. The difference is the seasoning that goes on during cooking, captured in the survey data. If you are watching sodium, salting the pan yourself and skipping the bouillon is the lever that matters, not switching cuts.
Cholesterol lands at 112 mg per cup, 37% of the Daily Value, and potassium at 563 mg, 12%.
How do beef cubes compare?
| Beef cut | Per 100 g | US serving | Calories |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beef cubes (cube steak) | 187 kcal | 1 cup, 135 g | 252 kcal |
| Beef, steak, round | 166 kcal | 3 oz, 85 g | 141 kcal |
| Beef roast | 206 kcal | 3 oz, 85 g | 175 kcal |
| Beef, steak, chuck | 225 kcal | 3 oz, 85 g | 191 kcal |
Our take: cube steak is the leanest of these four per gram apart from round steak, and it beats chuck by 38 calories per 100 grams while carrying almost three grams more protein. If you are building a dinner around beef and want the most protein per calorie, round is the pick at 29.72 grams per 100 grams and only 166 calories. If you want the cube shape and the texture that comes with it, cube steak costs you 21 calories per 100 grams over round — a rounding error on a full plate. Chuck is the one to portion carefully: at 225 calories per 100 grams it is a third heavier than round for slightly less protein.
The serving sizes above are our own arithmetic from the USDA 100 g figures, scaled to the 3 oz portion Americans actually cook.
Most popular beef cubes 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) |
|---|---|
| PYCCKUU KPAU Beef Cubes | 273 cal |
Brand popularity: BodyPal food database. Nutrition: manufacturer labels / USDA FoodData Central.
Beef cube FAQs
How many calories are in beef cubes?
Beef cubes run 187 calories per 100 grams and 252 calories in a full cup, using the USDA cube steak record. A single inch-sized cube of 17 grams is 32 calories. There are no carbs at all, so almost every calorie comes from 28.83 grams of protein and 7.1 grams of fat.
How many calories in 1 cup of beef cubes?
A 1-cup serving of beef cubes weighs 135 grams and carries 252 calories. That cup also brings 38.9 grams of protein, 78 percent of the Daily Value, plus 512 milligrams of sodium. It is roughly eight inch-sized cubes, which is why a cup fills a dinner plate section fast.
How many calories in one 1-inch beef cube?
One cubic inch of beef weighs 17 grams and comes to 32 calories. That is a USDA household measure, not our estimate. Eat four while the pan cools and you have added 128 calories before the meal starts. Eight of them equal the 135-gram cup at 252 calories.
Is cube steak the same as beef cube roll?
No, cube steak is 187 calories per 100 grams and is beef that has been mechanically tenderized. Cube roll is the New Zealand name for ribeye and runs 161 calories per 100 grams raw and lean, 286 with the fat left on and roasted. Different cuts, different numbers.
How much protein is in beef cubes?
A cup of beef cubes holds 38.9 grams of protein, 78 percent of the Daily Value in one serving. Per 100 grams the figure is 28.83 grams. A single inch cube gives about 4.9 grams, so five of them add roughly 24.5 grams to your day.
Are beef cubes high in sodium?
Moderately, a cup of beef cubes carries 512 milligrams of sodium, 22 percent of the 2,300-milligram Daily Value, and 100 grams carries 379 milligrams. The real sodium load is the bouillon cube: 864 milligrams from 3.6 grams of dry powder, 38 percent of a day in one small block.
Raw vs cooked beef cubes: which number do I log?
Log the cooked number when the cubes are cooked. Raw cube roll lean is 161 calories per 100 grams; roasted lean is 239, because water leaves and the calories concentrate. Four ounces raw, 113 grams, is 182 calories and shrinks to roughly three ounces on the plate.
How many calories in a beef bouillon cube?
One dry beef bouillon cube weighing 3.6 grams is 6 calories, so it barely registers in a food log. Sodium is another story: 864 milligrams, 38 percent of the Daily Value. Dissolved in a cup of water, the finished broth is 7 calories per 240-gram cup.
Similar foods
- Beef Cube Steak — 299 cal per steak
- Turkey Sandwich — 215 cal plain, 433 loaded
- Shrimp Shumai — 180 cal for 6 pieces
- Shrimp Fajita — 227 cal per cup
- Sloppy Joe — 342 cal per sandwich
- Gyro — 368 cal per sandwich
Count it without the math
Point the camera at the skillet and BodyPal counts the cubes for you, cup or single bite.
