How many calories are in a slice of cheddar cheese?

One 1-ounce slice of sharp cheddar weighs 28 g and carries 115 calories. Per 100 g the cheese runs 410 calories, one of the highest numbers in the dairy case. A slice is also 6.8 g of protein and 5.4 g of saturated fat, which is the line that ends up mattering most.

You'd need to walk about 23 minutes to burn the 115 calories in one 1-ounce slice (28 g).

On this page

• Cheddar slice quick facts
• US servings, from a thin slice to two ounces
• Sharp, block, low-sodium and colby slices
• Saturated fat is the row that moves
• How does a cheddar slice compare?
• Most popular cheddar cheese slice brands
• FAQ

Cheddar slice quick facts

The row behind every number here is SR Legacy 170899, "Cheese, cheddar, sharp, sliced". That is the only USDA entry for cheddar that has already been cut into slices, and a slice from a packet is what almost everyone is holding when they look this up. Shredded and block records exist too, and they differ by a few calories because of moisture and cut, not because the cheese is different.

USDA lists a 1-ounce slice as a household measure at 28 g, so the serving column below is a real USDA serving rather than a scaled estimate.

% Daily Value is based on a 2,000-calorie diet.

There is no added sugars row because the SR Legacy edition does not carry that field at all, and cheddar has no added sugar to report anyway. The 0.27 g of total sugars per 100 g is residual lactose. Cholesterol works out to 28 mg per slice, 9% of the Daily Value, and potassium to 21 mg, which rounds to 0%. Daily Values follow the FDA nutrition label reference amounts.

US servings, from a thin slice to two ounces

The word "slice" is doing a lot of unmarked work in the dairy case. USDA itself lists three of them for the same cheese, and they are not close together.

The first three lines are USDA household measures. The two-slice line is our own arithmetic from the USDA 100 g figure, not a USDA serving, and so is the flat ounce: a true avoirdupois ounce is 28.35 g, which comes to 116 calories rather than 115.

Here is the trap. A 2/3-ounce slice and a 1-ounce slice are both called "1 slice" on the front of a pack, and the second one is 47% more energy than the first for the identical word in your food log. If you log slices instead of grams, you are logging a label decision made by whoever packed the cheese.

Cutting your own from a block is a different problem in the same family. A hand-cut piece is almost always thicker than a machine slice, so a plate of home-cut cheddar tends to run past the 28 g assumption. Weigh it once, remember the shape, and you will not need the scale again.

Sharp, block, low-sodium and colby slices

Five rows, and the spread from the lightest to the heaviest is 6 calories per ounce. Choosing between sharp cheddar, mild colby and gruyère is a flavor decision, not a calorie decision. What actually changes your day is how many ounces land on the sandwich.

Sodium is the one place where the choice is real. USDA's low-sodium cheddar or colby record exists precisely because the recipe is reformulated, and it saves nothing worth counting on calories: 111 against 115 per ounce.

Store labels tell the same story with different weights. Ultra-thin sharp cheddar slices are labeled at 3 slices for 32 g and 130 calories, which is 130 calories of cheese for what feels like triple the portion, while a single medium white cheddar slice at 28 g is listed at 120. Slimmer packs cut the slice to 21 g and land at 80 calories each. None of these is a lighter cheese; they are lighter slices.

Saturated fat is the row that moves

One slice is 5.4 g of saturated fat, 27% of the Daily Value. Two slices in a grilled sandwich are 10.8 g, or 54% — more than half a day's allowance for 230 calories. The FDA sets that Daily Value at 20 g, and the Dietary Guidelines for Americans put the limit at under 10% of calories, which lands in the same place for most people.

That ratio is unusual. Very few foods hand you half a day's saturated fat inside a portion this small, and cheese does it while looking like a garnish. If you are watching saturated fat, the useful move is dropping from two slices to one rather than switching brands, since the per-ounce numbers across cheddar, colby and gruyère barely differ.

On the other side of the ledger, the same slice delivers 6.8 g of protein, 14% of the Daily Value, and counts toward the dairy group in MyPlate. Sodium sits at 180 mg per slice, less than a tenth of a teaspoon of table salt, which is modest until the sandwich also has deli meat and bread.

How does a cheddar slice compare?

Our take: four USDA rows, and they span 5 calories per ounce, from 110 to 115. Treat sliced cheddar, block cheddar and colby as the same food for counting purposes and stop optimizing between them. If you are cutting calories, cut the second slice — that is worth 115, more than twenty times the gap between the cheeses. If you are eating cheese for protein and satiety, the sharp sliced and low-sodium rows tie at the top with 6.8 g per ounce, and the low-sodium version is the pick when the milligrams matter more than the flavor.

Most popular cheddar cheese slice 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.

Brand popularity: BodyPal food database. Nutrition: manufacturer labels / USDA FoodData Central.

Cheddar slice FAQs

Similar foods

• Oat flour — 105 cal for 1/4 cup
• Cheese — 113 cal per slice
• Thousand Island Dressing — 216 cal per dipping-size container
• Gouda cheese — 75 cal per slice
• Condensed Milk — 122 cal per 2 tbsp
• Honey — 64 cal per tablespoon

Count it without the math

Point the camera at the plate and BodyPal counts the cheese for you, slice by slice.