How many calories are in chicken with broccoli?
A 1-cup serving of chicken with broccoli — chicken and green vegetables, no rice and nothing poured over them — is 191 calories, and the dish runs 118 calories per 100 g. That cup weighs 162 g and brings 15.6 g of protein for 4.7 g of carbohydrate. Sauce and rice move it from there.
You'd need to walk about 38 minutes to burn the 191 calories in a 1-cup (162 g) serving.
How long does it take to burn off 191 kcal of chicken and broccoli?
A 1-cup (162 g) serving is 191 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 191 kcal |
|---|---|
| Walking, brisk | 38 min |
| Cycling, moderate | 24 min |
| Swimming, moderate | 27 min |
| Jogging | 22 min |
| Weight training, moderate | 42 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 (162 g); change it to what you actually ate. BodyPal works this out from your steps automatically.
On this page
- Chicken with broccoli quick facts
- US servings from one ounce to a cup and a half
- Sauce changes the number more than the chicken does
- Rice, takeout boxes and the 1-cup trap
- Sodium is the row to watch
- How does chicken with broccoli compare?
- Most popular chicken with broccoli brands
- FAQ
Chicken with broccoli quick facts
USDA's FNDDS database holds more than fifty entries that mix chicken with vegetables, and they are not interchangeable. The one that matches the plate most people are actually holding is FNDDS 2706781, "Chicken or turkey and vegetables including carrots, broccoli, and/or dark-green leafy; no potatoes, no sauce": chicken and green vegetables, no rice or potatoes underneath, no sauce on top. Every figure in the table below is that single record.
Versions with gravy, soy sauce, cheese sauce or rice are a different dinner rather than a different reading of the same one, so they get their own records and their own section further down. Nothing here is averaged across sources.
| Nutrient | Per 100 g | Per 1 cup (162 g) | % Daily Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calories | 118 | 191 | — |
| Total fat | 7.78 g | 12.6 g | 16% |
| Saturated fat | 1.29 g | 2.1 g | 10% |
| Carbohydrate | 2.88 g | 4.7 g | 2% |
| Dietary fiber | 1.4 g | 2.3 g | 8% |
| Total sugars | 1.22 g | 2.0 g | — |
| Protein | 9.66 g | 15.6 g | 31% |
| Sodium | 386 mg | 625 mg | 27% |
% 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 packaged label are missing here: added sugars and trans fat. USDA does not publish either value for this mixed-dish record, so leaving them out is more honest than guessing them. Cholesterol and potassium do exist for it — 37 mg and 166 mg per 100 g, which works out to 60 mg of cholesterol (20% of the Daily Value) and 269 mg of potassium (6%) in a cup.
The shape of that column is the story. One cup covers 31% of a day's protein and 27% of a day's sodium while contributing 2% of the carbohydrate. This is a high-protein, low-carb, salty plate.
US servings from one ounce to a cup and a half
| Serving | Weight | Calories |
|---|---|---|
| 1 oz | 28.4 g | 33 kcal |
| 1/2 cup | 81 g | 96 kcal |
| 4 oz | 113 g | 133 kcal |
| 1 cup | 162 g | 191 kcal |
| 1 1/2 cups | 243 g | 287 kcal |
| Per 100 g | 100 g | 118 kcal |
Only one line there is a USDA household measure: the 1-cup, 162 g serving. The half cup, the cup and a half, the 4 oz plate portion and the single ounce are our own arithmetic from the USDA 100 g figure, not USDA servings.
That distinction matters more with this dish than with most, because a cup of chicken with broccoli is not a fixed weight. Cut the chicken smaller and the florets tighter and you fit more grams in the same measuring cup. Weighing the plate beats measuring it, and a kitchen scale settles the argument in three seconds.
For a practical target: a cup and a half at 287 calories is a full dinner portion for most people, and 4 oz at 133 calories is a side next to rice or a baked potato.
Sauce changes the number more than the chicken does
| Version | Per 100 g | Typical cup | Calories |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plain, no sauce | 118 kcal | 1 cup (162 g) | 191 kcal |
| Soy-based sauce, takeout style | 95 kcal | 1 cup (217 g) | 206 kcal |
| Tomato-based sauce | 113 kcal | 1 cup (249 g) | 281 kcal |
| Cheese sauce | 119 kcal | 1 cup (249 g) | 296 kcal |
| With rice, soy-based sauce | 131 kcal | 1 cup (217 g) | 284 kcal |
| With potatoes, no sauce | 129 kcal | 1 cup (162 g) | 209 kcal |
| Chicken a la king with broccoli | 187 kcal | 1 cup (241 g) | 451 kcal |
Read the first two rows together and you get the counterintuitive part. The soy-sauced takeout version is the lightest per 100 g of any row in that table at 95 calories, because the sauce is mostly water, and water has no calories. It still ends up heavier per serving than the plain plate, since the sauce also lets 217 g fit into the cup instead of 162 g.
Cheese sauce does something different. Calories barely move — 119 per 100 g against 118 — but saturated fat goes from 1.29 g to 3.49 g per 100 g, close to triple. Scaled to that 249 g cup by our own arithmetic, that is about 8.7 g of saturated fat, roughly 43% of the 20 g Daily Value, from a dish people order because it has broccoli in it.
Chicken a la king with broccoli is the outlier at 187 calories per 100 g and 451 calories a cup, 260 more than the plain version, almost entirely from the cream sauce's 13.8 g of fat per 100 g. A gravy version also exists in the same database at 112 calories per 100 g — gravy is thin enough that it lands near the plain dish.
Frozen entrees follow the same pattern in the freezer aisle. A Healthy Choice Cafe Steamers Chicken Broccoli Alfredo is 73 calories per 100 g and 189 for the 259 g meal, kept low by a large, watery portion, while a Big Y fully cooked chicken broccoli alfredo runs 129 calories per 100 g and 181 in a 5 oz (140 g) serving.
Rice, takeout boxes and the 1-cup trap
Chicken and broccoli with rice is FNDDS 2706695 at 131 calories per 100 g, 284 for a 217 g cup. The rice buys carbohydrate, not protein: 7.95 g of carbs per 100 g against 2.88 g in the plain dish, with protein essentially flat at 9.36 g versus 9.66 g. So the rice version costs 93 calories more per cup and gives back nothing on the protein side.
Now the trap. "One cup" is not one weight across these records. The plain dish's cup is 162 g. The sauced versions run 217 g, and the tomato and cheese versions 249 g — up to 87 g more food behind the same three words. Log "1 cup of chicken and broccoli" from memory after a takeout dinner and you can be off by the better part of a hundred calories before the sauce is even counted.
Restaurant portions make it worse in the other direction. A takeout container is rarely one cup; two to three cups is closer to normal, which puts a plain-style order somewhere around 380 to 570 calories by our own scaling from the USDA cup, and a sauced one higher. If you split the box in half and refrigerate the rest, you are back in the range the table above describes.
Sodium is the row to watch
Fat is not the constraint in this dish. Salt is. One cup carries 625 mg of sodium, 27% of the FDA Daily Value of 2,300 mg — about a quarter teaspoon of table salt — while total fat contributes 16% and saturated fat 10%.
The takeout version with soy-based sauce is saltier still at 413 mg per 100 g against 386 mg plain, and its cup weighs more, so the sodium in a single restaurant-style cup lands near 900 mg by our own scaling from the USDA 100 g figure. Two cups of that would use most of a day's allowance. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans put the same 2,300 mg limit in front of adults, and mixed restaurant dishes are one of the places it disappears fastest.
Cooking it at home flips that. The chicken and the broccoli bring almost none of the salt on their own — it comes from what is added — so if you are watching sodium, the home version with lemon and pepper is a genuinely different food from the same dish ordered out. On the protein side, one cup's 15.6 g fits neatly against MyPlate's protein-foods guidance for a main dish, and 31% of the Daily Value from a 191-calorie serving is one of the better protein-per-calorie trades in a mixed dinner dish.
How does chicken with broccoli compare?
| Dish | Per 100 g | US serving | Calories |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chicken with broccoli, no sauce | 118 kcal | 1 cup (162 g) | 191 kcal |
| With soy-based sauce | 95 kcal | 1 cup (217 g) | 206 kcal |
| With rice, soy-based sauce | 131 kcal | 1 cup (217 g) | 284 kcal |
| Chicken a la king with broccoli | 187 kcal | 1 cup (241 g) | 451 kcal |
Our take: for weight loss, the plain no-sauce version wins outright — 191 calories a cup with 15.6 g of protein and 2.3 g of fiber is hard to beat as a dinner base, and it leaves room for a starch you actually chose. For fullness on a bigger appetite, a cup and a half at 287 calories does more than a cup of the rice version at 284 for the same money. Chicken a la king is a cream dish with broccoli in it, not a light dinner, and the 451-calorie cup should be planned for rather than logged as "chicken and vegetables". The only number that should really change your ordering habit is the sodium.
Most popular chicken with broccoli 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) |
|---|---|
| Healthy Choice Cafe Steamers Chicken Broccoli Alfredo | 73 cal |
| Big Y Fully Cooked Chicken Broccoli Alfredo | 129 cal |
Brand popularity: BodyPal food database. Nutrition: manufacturer labels / USDA FoodData Central.
Chicken with broccoli FAQs
How many calories are in chicken with broccoli?
A 1-cup serving of chicken with broccoli and no sauce is 191 calories, and the dish runs 118 calories per 100 g. That cup weighs 162 g and carries 15.6 g of protein. Add a soy-based sauce and the same cup measure climbs to 206 calories, because the sauced version packs 217 g into the cup.
How many calories are in 1 cup of chicken and broccoli?
One cup is 191 calories at 162 g, which is the USDA household measure for the plain version. Half a cup is 96 calories and a cup and a half 287, both scaled by us from the 118-calories-per-100-g figure rather than taken from a USDA serving. Sauced versions fit more grams in the same cup.
How much protein is in chicken and broccoli?
A cup delivers 15.6 g of protein, 31% of the 50 g Daily Value, from 9.66 g per 100 g. That is the largest Daily Value share of any nutrient on this dish, just ahead of sodium at 27%. Adding rice does not help: the rice version holds 9.36 g of protein per 100 g, essentially the same.
Is Chinese chicken with broccoli healthy?
The takeout style with soy-based sauce is 95 calories per 100 g, lighter than the plain 118, because the sauce is mostly water. A 217 g cup is 206 calories with good protein. The catch is salt: 413 mg of sodium per 100 g against 386 mg plain, and takeout portions run two to three cups.
How many calories are in chicken and broccoli with rice?
Chicken and broccoli with rice is 131 calories per 100 g, and a 217 g cup comes to 284 calories. The rice adds carbohydrate rather than protein: 7.95 g of carbs per 100 g against 2.88 g in the no-sauce version, with protein flat. That is 93 calories more per cup than the plain dish.
Does chicken with broccoli have a lot of sodium?
One cup carries 625 mg of sodium, 27% of the 2,300 mg Daily Value, roughly a quarter teaspoon of table salt. The soy-sauce version is saltier at 413 mg per 100 g against 386 mg plain, and its cup is heavier. Sodium, not fat at 16%, is the limiting number in this dish.
Is chicken and broccoli good for weight loss?
At 118 calories per 100 g with 9.66 g of protein and only 2.88 g of carbohydrate, the plain version is one of the easier 200-calorie dinners to build. A 191-calorie cup leaves room for a starch you choose. If you are watching sodium, cooking it at home beats ordering the sauced version.
How many carbs are in chicken with broccoli?
A cup has 4.7 g of carbohydrate, 2% of the 275 g Daily Value, of which 2.3 g is fiber and 2.0 g sugars. Rice changes that completely: the rice version is 7.95 g of carbs per 100 g, about 17 g in a 217 g cup by our own arithmetic from the USDA figure.
Similar foods
- Ear of Corn — 99 cal per medium ear
- Sweet Potato — 103 cal per medium, baked
- Papaya salad — 190 cal per plate
- Potato wedges — 138 cal for 3 oz
- Carrot — 53 cal per cup chopped
- Onion — 46 cal per cup sliced
Count it without the math
Point the camera at the plate and BodyPal counts the chicken, the broccoli and the sauce for you.
