How many calories are in garlic?
Three raw cloves weigh 9 g and carry 13 calories. Per 100 g raw garlic runs 149 calories, which sounds high for a vegetable until you notice that nobody eats 100 g of it. The gap between the clove you crush and the cup you'd have to peel is where garlic's calorie math actually lives.
On this page
- Garlic quick facts
- US servings, from one clove to a full cup
- Raw, cooked and powdered garlic
- Garlic bread is a different food
- The row that actually moves is sodium
- How does garlic compare?
- Most popular garlic brands
- Garlic FAQs
Garlic quick facts
The record behind this page is SR Legacy 169230, "Garlic, raw". It is the only USDA entry for fresh garlic with a complete label panel and US household measures attached — cloves, teaspoons and cups — which is exactly what someone standing over a cutting board needs. A newer Foundation analysis (1104647) puts the same food at 143 calories per 100 g, but it reports no sugars, no saturated fat and no sodium, so it cannot fill a Nutrition Facts table on its own.
The serving column below is three cloves, because that is what recipes ask for and what people log. One clove alone is 3 g.
| Nutrient | Per 100 g | Per 3 cloves (9 g) | % Daily Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calories | 149 | 13 | — |
| Total fat | 0.5 g | 0.0 g | 0% |
| Saturated fat | 0.09 g | 0.0 g | 0% |
| Carbohydrate | 33.06 g | 3.0 g | 1% |
| Dietary fiber | 2.1 g | 0.2 g | 1% |
| Total sugars | 1 g | 0.1 g | — |
| Protein | 6.36 g | 0.6 g | 1% |
| Sodium | 17 mg | 2 mg | 0% |
% 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 here because raw garlic has none to declare — the 1 g of sugar per 100 g is what grew in the bulb. Trans fat is 0 g and so is cholesterol. Potassium is the one mineral worth naming: 401 mg per 100 g, which is 9% of the FDA Daily Value, though three cloves bring only 36 mg of it.
US servings, from one clove to a full cup
| Serving | Weight | Calories |
|---|---|---|
| 1 clove | 3 g | 4 kcal |
| 1 tsp, freshly minced | 2.8 g | 4 kcal |
| Three cloves, a normal recipe amount | 9 g | 13 kcal |
| 1 oz | 28 g | 42 kcal |
| 1 cup, peeled cloves | 136 g | 203 kcal |
| Per 100 g | 100 g | 149 kcal |
The clove, the teaspoon and the cup are USDA household measures attached to record 169230. The ounce row is our own arithmetic from the USDA 100 g figure, not a USDA serving, and it exists because US recipes and scales still speak in ounces.
Look at the two ends of that table. A cup of peeled cloves holds roughly 45 cloves, and it is 203 calories with about 45 g of carbohydrate — again our own scaling from the 100 g row. One clove is 4. Nothing else on this page matters as much as which of those two you are actually eating, and for almost everyone the honest answer is the clove.
That is also why garlic is one of the few foods where rounding to zero is defensible. Six cloves through a press, a heavy hand by any standard, is 18 g and 27 calories — our own scaling from the USDA 100 g row. If your day is off by 27 calories, garlic is not the reason.
Raw, cooked and powdered garlic
| Version | Per 100 g | Typical piece | Calories |
|---|---|---|---|
| Raw garlic, survey record | 143 kcal | 1 cup (135 g) | 193 kcal |
| Cooked garlic | 142 kcal | 1 clove (3 g) | 4 kcal |
| Garlic powder | 331 kcal | 1 oz (28.35 g) | 94 kcal |
Cooking does not move the calories. USDA's cooked garlic sits at 142 per 100 g against 143 for the survey version of raw — a gap narrower than the difference between two heads from the same braid. Roasting a head until it turns to paste changes texture and sweetness, not energy, which is why there is no separate roasted record to point at.
Powder is a different story, and the reason is water. Drying strips it out and leaves the carbohydrate concentrated, so 100 g of powder is 331 calories, more than double fresh. That number scares people who see it out of context. Nobody measures garlic powder by the ounce.
Jarred minced garlic behaves like the fresh clove, not the powder. US Branded labels from Badia, Spice World, Signature Farms and Wellsley Farms all declare 100 calories per 100 g and 5 calories in a 5 g teaspoon. One outlier is worth flagging: Gilroy Farms lists 300 per 100 g, triple its shelf neighbors, which is what a dehydrated or oil-packed product looks like once it reaches a label.
Garlic bread is a different food
| Version | Per 100 g | Typical slice | Calories |
|---|---|---|---|
| Garlic bread, NFS | 349 kcal | 1 medium slice (79 g) | 276 kcal |
| Garlic bread, from frozen | 350 kcal | 1 medium slice (74 g) | 259 kcal |
| Garlic bread with parmesan | 351 kcal | 1 medium slice (79 g) | 277 kcal |
Search "calories in garlic" and plenty of the results quietly answer for garlic bread instead. They are not close. One medium slice is 276 calories — more than 60 raw cloves would give you. The three bread records land within 2 calories of each other per 100 g, so the frozen loaf is not the light option; its slice is only smaller.
The useful way to read this is by what carries the calories. Garlic bread is 16.58 g of fat per 100 g. Raw garlic is 0.5 g. The butter and the crumb are the meal; the garlic is a seasoning that happens to be in the name.
The row that actually moves is sodium
Raw garlic has 17 mg of sodium per 100 g, less than 1% of the 2,300 mg Daily Value even if you ate the whole bulb. USDA's cooked garlic record has 248 mg per 100 g — a fifteenfold jump that comes from the salt added in the pan, not from the vegetable.
Garlic bread pushes it further. At 620 mg per 100 g, a 79 g slice works out to about 490 mg of sodium by our own arithmetic from the 100 g figure, or 21% of the Daily Value. That is roughly a fifth of a teaspoon of table salt in one slice, before anything else on the plate.
Protein is the opposite case. Per 100 g garlic looks respectable at 6.36 g, but three cloves deliver 0.6 g — 1% of the Daily Value. Garlic is a flavor ingredient in the vegetable group, and MyPlate counts it there, but it will not carry a meal's protein.
How does garlic compare?
| Food | Per 100 g | US serving | Calories |
|---|---|---|---|
| Garlic, raw | 149 kcal | 3 cloves, 9 g | 13 kcal |
| Garlic, cooked | 142 kcal | 1 clove, 3 g | 4 kcal |
| Garlic powder | 331 kcal | 1 oz, 28.35 g | 94 kcal |
| Garlic bread, NFS | 349 kcal | 1 medium slice, 79 g | 276 kcal |
Our take: per 100 g, garlic looks like a mid-range starchy food, and per serving it is one of the cheapest things you can add to a plate. If you are counting calories, cook with as much fresh garlic as you like and log it as 4 calories a clove — the arithmetic will never catch up to you. Powder is fine too, since a shake is a fraction of a gram. The only garlic worth budgeting for is the kind that arrives on bread, and at 276 calories a slice you should count that as bread, not as a vegetable.
Most popular garlic 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) |
|---|---|
| Badia Minced Garlic in Olive Oil | 100 cal |
| Signature Farms Minced Garlic | 100 cal |
| Wellsley Farms Minced Garlic | 100 cal |
| Gilroy Farms Minced Garlic | 300 cal |
| 4Earth Organic Garlic | 150 cal |
| Spice World Minced Garlic | 100 cal |
Brand popularity: BodyPal food database. Nutrition: manufacturer labels / USDA FoodData Central.
Garlic FAQs
How many calories are in one clove of garlic?
One average clove weighs 3 g and carries 4 calories, based on the USDA raw garlic record at 149 calories per 100 g. Three cloves, the amount a recipe usually calls for, come to 13 calories. That is small enough that most people can log garlic as a rounding error and stay accurate.
How many calories are in a cup of garlic?
A cup of peeled cloves weighs 136 g and comes to 203 calories, plus about 45 g of carbohydrate by our own arithmetic from the USDA 100 g figure. That cup holds roughly 45 cloves, so it is a cooking quantity rather than a serving. Whole roasted heads squeezed onto bread are the one dish that gets close.
Does cooking garlic change its calories?
Barely — USDA lists cooked garlic at 142 calories per 100 g against 143 for the raw survey record, a difference smaller than the variation between two heads. What does change is sodium: 17 mg per 100 g raw against 248 mg cooked, because the cooked record is seasoned in the pan rather than measured plain.
How many carbs are in garlic?
Three cloves hold 3.0 g of carbohydrate, of which 0.2 g is fiber and 0.1 g is sugar. Per 100 g raw garlic carries 33.06 g, a figure that looks alarming until you weigh what you actually use: even six cloves is 18 g of garlic and about 6 g of carbohydrate, scaled from the USDA 100 g row.
Is garlic keto friendly?
At about 1 g of carbohydrate per 3 g clove, garlic fits a low-carb day without much trouble; three cloves are 3.0 g of carbohydrate against 0.2 g of fiber. The catch is quantity, not the clove. A full cup of peeled cloves is 136 g and roughly 45 g of carbohydrate, which no low-carb plan absorbs quietly.
How many calories in a teaspoon of minced garlic?
A teaspoon of freshly minced garlic weighs 2.8 g and is 4 calories. Jarred minced garlic is close: US Branded labels from Badia, Spice World, Signature Farms and Wellsley Farms all list 100 calories per 100 g, which is 5 calories in their 5 g teaspoon serving. Either way it rounds to almost nothing.
How many calories in garlic powder?
Garlic powder is 331 calories per 100 g, more than double raw garlic, because drying removes the water and concentrates the carbohydrate. The USDA measure of one ounce (28.35 g) works out to 94 calories, but an ounce of powder is a jar's worth of shaking, not a serving anyone puts on a plate.
How many calories in a slice of garlic bread?
One medium slice weighs 79 g and is 276 calories, from a USDA record that runs 349 calories per 100 g. That is a single slice against more than 60 raw cloves for the same calories. The butter and the crumb do the work; the garlic contributes flavor and almost nothing measurable.
Similar foods
- Shrimp Pad Thai — 294 cal per cup
- Toor Dal — 348 cal per cup
- Eye of round steak — 135 cal for 3 oz cooked
- Lasagna — 286 cal per piece
- Chicken Chow Mein — 288 cal per cup
- Half And Half — 20 cal per tbsp
Count it without the math
Point the camera at the plate and BodyPal counts it for you, cloves, bread and all.
