How many calories are in a chicken thigh without skin?

A medium roasted chicken thigh eaten without the skin is 125 calories at 70 g of edible meat. Per 100 g that meat runs 178 calories, with 24.61 g of protein and no carbohydrate at all. Push the skin to the side of the plate and the same cut drops from 231 calories per 100 g to 178.

You'd need to walk about 25 minutes to burn the 125 calories in one medium thigh (70 g).

On this page

• Skinless chicken thigh quick facts
• US servings, from one ounce to a cup of diced meat
• The cooking method moves the number more than the cut does
• Protein at 34 percent DV, sodium at 10 percent
• How does a skinless chicken thigh compare?
• FAQ

Skinless chicken thigh quick facts

The row behind this page is FNDDS 2706030, "Chicken thigh, baked, broiled, or roasted, skin not eaten, from raw". That is the thigh most people are actually holding: bought raw, cooked with the skin on for browning, then eaten with the skin left behind. It is not the "NS as to cooking method" record, which blends in frying and reads higher, and it is not the raw fillet, which has not lost any water yet.

Weights here are cooked, boneless, edible meat. A bone-in thigh on the counter weighs more than the 70 g in the table; the bone and the discarded skin are not food.

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

Two rows you will not find above: added sugars and trans fat. USDA does not publish either value for this record, and plain roasted meat has no sugar to add, so the lines are dropped rather than filled with a guess. The 235 mg of sodium in one thigh is roughly a tenth of a teaspoon of table salt, most of it seasoning rather than the meat itself. Daily Values come from the FDA nutrition label reference.

US servings, from one ounce to a cup of diced meat

The thigh sizes and the cup are USDA household measures for this record. The ounce line and the flat 100 g line are our own arithmetic from the USDA 100 g figure, not USDA servings.

The cup is where logging goes sideways. A cup of diced cooked thigh is 135 g and 240 calories — near enough to two medium thighs stacked into one measure. People who chop a couple of thighs into a salad and log "one cup of chicken" often mean the cup loosely, and a heaping cup holds noticeably more than a level one. If the meat is already cut up, the scale beats the cup every time.

Size spread matters too. Supermarket thighs are not uniform, and the gap between a small 65 g portion and a large 90 g one is 44 calories, which is nearly 40 percent more food for the same word on your plate.

The cooking method moves the number more than the cut does

Roasting and stewing sit at the bottom of the cooked methods, 178 and 175 per 100 g. The grill reads higher at 192, not because anything was added but because more water leaves the meat over direct heat, so what is left is denser. That is the same reason the raw fillet looks so light at 144.07 per 100 g.

Sauce is the sneaky one. Grilled with BBQ sauce lands at 191 calories per 100 g, essentially the same as grilled plain, so the sauce is not a calorie problem. It is a sodium and sugar problem: 575 mg of sodium per 100 g against 336 mg for the plain roasted thigh, plus 5.94 g of sugars where the plain meat has none. If you are watching sodium, brush the sauce on at the table instead of glazing through the cook.

Two more records round out the picture. A thigh fried in a coating you then peel off still reads 192 calories per 100 g with 9.93 g of fat — removing the crust does not remove everything the crust delivered. And USDA's catch-all "cooking method not specified" row sits at 193, because it averages in the fried and pan-cooked versions. Picking your actual method is worth 15 calories per 100 g over that average.

Protein at 34 percent DV, sodium at 10 percent

One medium thigh delivers 17.2 g of protein, 34 percent of the 50 g Daily Value, while spending only 10 percent of the sodium allowance and 8 percent of the saturated fat allowance. Very few whole foods hand over a third of a day's protein for 125 calories.

The cholesterol row surprises people: 92 mg in one thigh, 31 percent DV. Dark meat carries more cholesterol than white, and current Dietary Guidelines advice on protein foods is built around variety and lean choices rather than a hard cholesterol cap. The row worth watching for most people here is sodium, especially once sauce or brine enters the picture.

Because carbohydrate is flat zero, this cut is entirely protein and fat. That makes it easy to fit: for a lighter dinner, two thighs and vegetables run 250 calories of protein food; if you want the meal to hold you until morning, the same two thighs with the skin eaten cost 323 calories for the equivalent weight of meat, and the extra is pure fat.

How does a skinless chicken thigh compare?

Our take: the skin is the only decision on this list that changes the calories in a meaningful way. Eating it adds 53 calories per 100 g and nearly doubles the fat, from 8.1 g to 14.62 g, while protein barely moves — 23.12 g against 24.61 g. The whole leg reads lower than the thigh alone at 168 per 100 g because the drumstick is leaner meat, so if you buy legs whole, log them as legs rather than assuming thigh numbers. And the raw row is a measurement artifact, not a lighter food: it is the same meat before the water leaves.

Skinless chicken thigh FAQs

Similar foods

• Stuffed pepper — 265 cal for 1/2 pepper with filling
• Taco Salad — 564 cal per medium taco salad
• Onigiri — 180 cal per onigiri
• BBQ Chicken — 149 cal per 3 oz
• Pork Chop — 220 cal per regular chop
• Gyro — 368 cal per sandwich

Count it without the math

Point the camera at the plate and BodyPal counts the thigh for you, skin on or off.