How many calories are in a chocolate donut?

A standard chocolate-frosted cake donut weighs 75 g and carries 320 calories. Per 100 g the same donut runs 427 calories, which puts it near the top of the pastry case. The frosting is only part of the story: 17.6 g of fat and 19.5 g of sugar sit inside one ring.

You'd need to walk about 64 minutes to burn the 320 calories in one donut (75 g).

On this page

• Chocolate donut quick facts
• US servings, from one donette to the whole donut
• Frosted, glazed, cake or yeast
• Saturated fat is the row that moves first
• How does a chocolate donut compare?
• Most popular chocolate donut brands
• FAQ

Chocolate donut quick facts

When an American says "chocolate donut," the thing usually being held is a pale cake donut under a sheet of chocolate icing — the coffee-shop and grocery-case default. That is USDA record FNDDS 2708067, "Doughnut, cake type, chocolate icing", and it comes with a household measure already attached: 1 doughnut = 75 g. Everything below is built on that record.

Chocolate-dough donuts are a different food and get their own numbers further down. Averaging the two would hide the one thing worth knowing here, which is that the icing does more damage than the cocoa in the batter.

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

There is no added-sugars row and no trans fat row on this page because this edition of FNDDS does not publish either value for the record. Total sugars, 19.5 g per donut, is the number you have; almost all of it is added, but USDA will not certify how much, so no split is shown. Cholesterol is low for a pastry at 6 mg per donut (2% DV), and potassium comes to 110 mg (2% DV). The 314 mg of sodium is roughly a seventh of a teaspoon of table salt — small on the tongue, noticeable on the label at 14% of a day.

US servings, from one donette to the whole donut

Two of those lines are USDA household measures: the 75 g donut and the 15 g miniature, both listed on the FNDDS record itself. A donut stick or twist is also 75 g in USDA's portion list, so it counts the same as the ring. The 1 oz line and the three-donette line are our own arithmetic from the USDA 100 g figure, not USDA servings.

Weight is what moves this food, not shape. Six donuts on a tray for the office is 1,920 calories by the same scaling — more than a full day for plenty of people, out of a box that looks like a snack.

Frosted, glazed, cake or yeast

Look at the top four rows. At the same 75 g they span 310 to 320 calories — a spread of ten calories, which is nothing. Choosing chocolate dough over plain dough, or a yeast ring over a cake ring, does not change your day. Choosing a 60 g glazed donut over a 75 g frosted one does, by 70 calories, and the reason is grams on the plate rather than anything about the recipe.

Cocoa in the batter does buy one real thing: fiber. The chocolate-dough records carry 3.9 g and 3.7 g per 100 g against 1.5 g for the pale cake donut under icing — more than double, though 3.9 g per 100 g still only reaches 10% of the Daily Value in a 75 g piece.

Packaged supermarket versions sit a little heavier than the USDA generics, running 404 to 491 calories per 100 g in USDA's Branded set, with a protein-fortified outlier down at 182. Watch the label serving rather than the calorie number: one brand of mini chocolate donuts calls four donuts (53 g) a serving at 240 calories, another calls a single 23 g donut a serving at 101, and Entenmann's glazed chocolate donut is 280 calories for one 57 g piece.

Saturated fat is the row that moves first

Calories are the headline, but they are not the row that fills up fastest. One donut is 16% of a 2,000-calorie day and 37% of the FDA Daily Value for saturated fat, which is 20 g. Two donuts with coffee is 15.0 g of saturated fat, three quarters of the day, before lunch has happened.

That 20 g figure is not arbitrary. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans put the ceiling at less than 10% of daily calories from saturated fat, which is where the label number comes from. The chocolate coating is where most of it lives — the coated cake donut record is the fattiest of the group at 25.25 g fat per 100 g.

Protein is the mirror image: 3.4 g per donut, 7% of a day. That is why a donut leaves so little behind. If a donut is breakfast, the fix is not a smaller donut but something with protein next to it — MyPlate frames breakfast as a protein plus a fruit, and a donut supplies neither.

How does a chocolate donut compare?

Our take: the densest donut here, at 452 calories per 100 g, is also the smallest bill at 194 calories, because it is a 43 g medium rather than a 75 g bakery ring. That is the whole trap in one line — "one donut" is a range from 43 g to 75 g, and the number moves 126 calories across it. If you are logging and you did not weigh it, a shop donut the size of your palm is closer to 75 g and 320 calories, while a supermarket six-pack ring is closer to the 43 g to 60 g end. For counting purposes, pick by size, not by flavor.

Most popular chocolate donut 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.

Chocolate donut FAQs

Similar foods

• Chocolate Chip Cookie — 148 cal per medium cookie
• Steak — 368 cal per regular steak
• Eggnog — 112 cal for 1/2 cup
• Protein Shake — 156 cal per cup
• Bubble Tea — 239 cal per drink
• Apple cider — 114 cal per cup

Count it without the math

Point the camera at the plate and BodyPal counts the donut for you, icing and all.