How many calories are in chicken gravy?
A 1/4-cup serving of canned chicken gravy weighs 60 g and carries 29 calories. Per 100 g the sauce runs 48 calories, which makes it one of the lightest things you can pour over a plate. Calories are not the story here. Sodium is: that same small ladle brings 233 mg.
You'd need to walk about 6 minutes to burn the 29 calories in a 1/4-cup (60 g) serving.
How long does it take to burn off chicken gravy?
A 1/4-cup (60 g) serving is 29 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 29 kcal |
|---|---|
| Walking, brisk | 6 min |
| Cycling, moderate | 4 min |
| Swimming, moderate | 4 min |
| Jogging | 3 min |
| Weight training, moderate | 6 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 (60 g); change it to what you actually ate. BodyPal works this out from your steps automatically.
On this page
- Chicken gravy quick facts
- US servings, from two tablespoons to a full cup
- Canned, brand jars and the dry mix
- Chicken with gravy is a different food
- Sodium is the row that matters
- How does chicken gravy compare?
- Most popular chicken gravy brands
- Chicken gravy FAQs
Chicken gravy quick facts
When an American types this question, the jar or the can is usually already open. So the record on this page is SR Legacy 171566, "Gravy, chicken, canned or bottled, ready-to-serve" — the pourable sauce as it leaves the container, not a chicken dinner and not a packet of powder. The serving is the one printed on the label: 1/4 cup, 60 g.
That choice matters because "chicken gravy" splits into three very different foods in the USDA database. The ready-to-serve sauce is 48 calories per 100 g. The dry mix is 381. A plate of chicken with gravy on it is 129. All three get covered below, but the number in the answer box belongs to the thing in your hand.
| Nutrient | Per 100 g | Per 1/4 cup (60 g) | % Daily Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calories | 48 | 29 | — |
| Total fat | 2.62 g | 1.6 g | 2% |
| Saturated fat | 0.64 g | 0.4 g | 2% |
| Carbohydrate | 5.29 g | 3.2 g | 1% |
| Dietary fiber | 0.1 g | 0.1 g | 0% |
| Total sugars | 0.3 g | 0.2 g | — |
| Protein | 0.71 g | 0.4 g | 1% |
| Sodium | 389 mg | 233 mg | 10% |
% 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 →
There is no added sugars row above because SR Legacy does not publish added sugars for ready-to-serve sauces; the can in your pantry will list them, USDA does not. Cholesterol comes to 3 mg per serving (1% DV) and potassium to 25 mg (1% DV), both small enough to stay out of the table. Fiber is essentially zero — 0.1 g per 100 g is a rounding artifact of a starch-thickened broth.
US servings, from two tablespoons to a full cup
| Serving | Weight | Calories |
|---|---|---|
| 2 tbsp | 30 g | 14 kcal |
| 1 oz | 28 g | 13 kcal |
| 1/4 cup, label serving | 60 g | 29 kcal |
| 1/2 cup | 120 g | 58 kcal |
| 1 cup | 240 g | 115 kcal |
| Per 100 g | 100 g | 48 kcal |
Only the 1/4 cup is a manufacturer serving. The tablespoon, ounce, half cup and full cup rows are our own arithmetic from the USDA 100 g figure, not USDA servings, because SR Legacy carries no household portions for this record.
Here is the practical part. Almost nobody measures gravy. A restrained spoon over mashed potatoes is two tablespoons and 14 calories. A normal pour off a ladle is closer to a half cup, which is 58 calories. Thanksgiving-style, covering the whole plate, gets you to a cup and 115 calories. Even the heavy version is a small share of the plate — that is why gravy is one of the few sauces you can be generous with and barely move your day.
The trap is the cup, not the calorie. A full cup drags 934 mg of sodium along with those 115 calories, and that is the number that changes your day.
Canned, brand jars and the dry mix
| Version | Per 100 g | Typical serving | Calories |
|---|---|---|---|
| Canned, ready-to-serve | 48 kcal | 1/4 cup (60 g) | 29 kcal |
| Campbell's chicken gravy | 51 kcal | 1/4 cup (60 g) | 31 kcal |
| Heinz Home Style classic chicken | 46 kcal | 1/4 cup (60 g) | 28 kcal |
| Chicken gravy, dry mix | 381 kcal | 1 oz (28 g) | 107 kcal |
The jarred and canned brands sit within three calories of each other per serving, which is what you would expect from products built the same way: chicken broth, wheat flour, a little fat, salt. Heinz Home Style is the leanest of the three at 46 calories per 100 g, partly because its recipe carries no sugar at all, against 0.94 g per 100 g in the Campbell's record.
Retail labels shift over time, and this is worth knowing before you argue with a can. The USDA branded entry taken from a current Campbell's chicken gravy can reads 68 calories per 100 g, or 41 calories per 1/4 cup — a third more than the older SR Legacy analysis of the same brand. Store brands land in between: Great Value and Essential Everyday both come in at 67 calories per 100 g, or 40 per quarter cup, while Manischewitz chicken gravy is the outlier at 33 per 100 g, about 20 calories a serving.
The dry mix is the number people get wrong most often. At 381 calories per 100 g, powder looks like a disaster next to canned sauce — but 100 g of powder makes several cups of gravy. A 1 oz packet is 107 calories and, once whisked with water, pours out at roughly the same strength as the canned product. Compare mix to mix, or sauce to sauce, never one against the other.
Chicken with gravy is a different food
Search results blur two things: the sauce, and the dinner named after it. They are far apart.
| Dish | Per 100 g | US serving | Calories |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chicken with gravy | 129 kcal | 1 cup (244 g) | 315 kcal |
| Chicken or turkey and potatoes with gravy | 122 kcal | 1 cup (242 g) | 295 kcal |
A cup of chicken with gravy is 315 calories against 115 for a cup of the plain canned sauce. The gap is the meat, not the sauce: that same cup delivers 46 g of protein, where the sauce contributes under a gram. Add potatoes and the calories go slightly down per cup, because starch is less energy-dense than chicken meat, while protein falls to 18 g. If you are logging a plate, log the chicken and log the gravy separately; folding them into one entry is how a 315-calorie serving gets recorded as 29.
Sodium is the row that matters
Chicken gravy is the rare food where the calorie count is a distraction. A 1/4-cup serving is 29 calories — but 233 mg of sodium, or 10% of the FDA Daily Value of 2,300 mg. That is about a tenth of a teaspoon of table salt from a couple of spoonfuls of sauce.
Scale it up and the arithmetic gets loud. A half cup is 466 mg, a fifth of the day. A cup is 934 mg, roughly 41% — and the Dietary Guidelines for Americans set 2,300 mg as the ceiling for adults, a limit most people already pass. The dry mix concentrates it further: 4,152 mg of sodium per 100 g of powder, which is the honest number to read on the packet before the water goes in.
None of this makes gravy a food to avoid. It makes it a food to pour, not to ladle. If you are watching sodium, two tablespoons over chicken costs you 117 mg and 14 calories, and the plate still tastes finished.
How does chicken gravy compare?
| Food | Per 100 g | US serving | Calories |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chicken gravy, canned | 48 kcal | 1/4 cup, 60 g | 29 kcal |
| Chicken gravy, dry mix | 381 kcal | 1 oz, 28 g | 107 kcal |
| Chicken with gravy | 129 kcal | 1 cup, 244 g | 315 kcal |
| Chicken or turkey and potatoes with gravy | 122 kcal | 1 cup, 242 g | 295 kcal |
Our take: the canned sauce is the lightest thing on this table by a wide margin, at 48 calories per 100 g against 122 for the next lowest, so treat gravy as a free-ish flavor tool and spend your attention on what is under it. If you are cutting calories, the sauce is not the problem — a cup of chicken with gravy costs you almost three times a whole cup of gravy on its own. If you are watching salt instead, flip the advice: keep the pour to two tablespoons, because gravy is the saltiest ingredient per calorie on the plate.
Most popular chicken gravy 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) |
|---|---|
| Campbell's Chicken Gravy | 68 cal |
| Great Value Chicken Gravy | 67 cal |
| Essential Everyday Chicken Gravy | 67 cal |
| Giant Eagle Chicken Gravy | 64 cal |
| Food Club Homestyle Chicken Gravy | 58 cal |
| Manischewitz Chicken Gravy | 33 cal |
Brand popularity: BodyPal food database. Nutrition: manufacturer labels / USDA FoodData Central.
Chicken gravy FAQs
How many calories are in chicken gravy?
Canned, ready-to-serve chicken gravy is 29 calories per 1/4 cup (60 g) and 48 calories per 100 g. The calories stay low because the base is broth and starch rather than fat, with just 1.6 g of fat in a serving. Sodium, at 233 mg per quarter cup, is the number worth watching.
How many calories in 1/4 cup of chicken gravy?
29 calories for the label serving of 1/4 cup, which is 60 g of canned gravy. That quarter cup also carries 3.2 g of carbohydrate, 1.6 g of fat and 0.4 g of protein. Two of those ladles poured over mashed potatoes still land under 60 calories.
How many calories in a tablespoon of chicken gravy?
About 7 calories per tablespoon. That is our own arithmetic from the USDA figure of 48 calories per 100 g, since a tablespoon of gravy weighs roughly 15 g. Sodium works out near 58 mg per spoon. Four tablespoons over a chicken breast still cost under 30 calories.
Is chicken gravy high in sodium?
Yes. A 1/4-cup serving carries 233 mg of sodium, 10% of the Daily Value, while contributing only 29 calories. Pour a full cup over a plate and you reach 934 mg, roughly 41% of the 2,300 mg daily limit for adults. The dry mix is saltier still per 100 g.
How many calories in Campbell's chicken gravy?
31 calories per 1/4 cup in the USDA SR Legacy record, which lists the product at 51 calories per 100 g. The branded entry taken from a current can reads higher, 68 calories per 100 g, or 41 calories for the same quarter cup. Recipes and labels change over time.
How many calories in chicken gravy mix?
Dry chicken gravy mix is 381 calories per 100 g, or about 107 calories per ounce (28 g) of powder. That figure is for the packet before water goes in, so it is not comparable to canned sauce. The powder also carries 4,152 mg of sodium per 100 g.
Is chicken gravy keto friendly?
Chicken gravy holds 3.2 g of carbohydrate per 1/4 cup and 12.7 g in a full cup, because the sauce is thickened with flour or starch. A spoonful or two fits most low-carb budgets; a cup ladled over a plate does not. Fat is low too, at 1.6 g per serving.
How many calories in chicken with gravy?
A cup of chicken with gravy, meaning the dish rather than the sauce, is 315 calories at 129 calories per 100 g. Almost all of it comes from the meat: a cup of plain canned gravy is 115 calories. The dish also delivers 46 g of protein per cup.
Similar foods
- Clementine — 35 cal per clementine
- Tom yum soup — 191 cal per bowl
- Ceviche — 158 cal per cup
- Pomegranate — 72 cal for 1/2 cup arils
- Clam Chowder — 237 cal per cup
- Chinese Chicken and Broccoli — 206 cal per cup
Count it without the math
Point the camera at the plate and BodyPal counts the chicken and the gravy for you, pour and all.
