How Many Calories in a Honey Bun?
A standard honey bun, the 3 oz (85 g) one in the cellophane wrapper, is 358 calories — 421 calories per 100 g. Little Debbie's own label reads 360 for that same size. Step up to a 4 oz (113 g) jumbo and you are at 480 calories, while a 34 g mini stops at 140.
You'd need to walk about 72 minutes to burn the 358 calories in a standard 3 oz (85 g) bun.
How long does it take to burn off a honey bun?
A standard 3 oz (85 g) bun is 358 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 358 kcal |
|---|---|
| Walking, brisk | 1 hr 12 min |
| Cycling, moderate | 45 min |
| Swimming, moderate | 51 min |
| Jogging | 42 min |
| Weight training, moderate | 1 hr 20 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 (85 g); change it to what you actually ate. BodyPal works this out from your steps automatically.
On this page
- Honey bun quick facts
- The fryer, not the frosting
- Every honey bun size, from mini to jumbo
- Iced, glazed or plain
- Saturated fat is the number to watch
- Sugar: what the label shows and what it hides
- The trans fat story is over
- How does a honey bun compare?
- Most popular honey bun brands
- FAQ
Honey bun quick facts
The reference bun here is one plain glazed honey bun, 85 g, which is exactly 3 oz — the size USDA measures as a 5" × 3½" honeybun and the size most single-serve wrappers hold.
| Nutrient | Per 100 g | Per 1 honey bun (85 g) | % Daily Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calories | 421 | 358 | — |
| Total fat | 22.7 g | 19.3 g | 25% |
| Saturated fat | 9.5 g | 8.0 g | 40% |
| Carbohydrate | 47.9 g | 40.7 g | 15% |
| Dietary fiber | 2.1 g | 1.8 g | 6% |
| Total sugars | 22.8 g | 19.3 g | — |
| Protein | 6.1 g | 5.2 g | 10% |
| Sodium | 316 mg | 269 mg | 12% |
% 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 carry the story. The calorie count is unremarkable for a pastry. The saturated fat is not: 40% of a day's allowance sits inside one small bun you can eat in four bites.
The fryer, not the frosting
USDA FoodData Central has no entry called "honey bun." It files them inside SR Legacy 172758, "Doughnuts, yeast-leavened, glazed, enriched (includes honey buns)" — and that parenthesis is the most useful thing on this page.
A honey bun is not a baked sweet roll. It is yeast dough, proofed, dropped into hot fat, then glazed. Same method as a glazed doughnut, same row in the database, same number: 421 calories per 100 g. USDA even keeps three honeybun measures inside that one record, at 65 g, 78 g and 85 g, so the generic figure and the serving size come from the same place rather than being stitched together.
Look at where the calories actually come from and the frying shows up immediately. An 85 g bun holds 19.3 g of fat. At 9 calories per gram that is 174 calories of the 358 — roughly 49% of the whole thing. Protein contributes about 21 calories and carbohydrate about 163.
For contrast, a brown-sugar-cinnamon toaster pastry (USDA 172801) carries a similar sugar-and-flour load in a 51 g piece but only 4.1 g of fat. Sugar is not what separates these two pastries. The fryer is.
Every honey bun size, from mini to jumbo
"Honey bun" describes a shape, not a portion. On an American shelf the same name covers a 34 g snack and a 142 g breakfast, and the calorie gap between them is more than four to one.
| Size | Weight | Calories |
|---|---|---|
| Mini honey bun (Great Value label) | 34 g / 1.2 oz | 140 |
| Small packaged bun (USDA 4" × 3") | 65 g | 274 |
| Mid-size bun (USDA 4½" × 3½") | 78 g | 328 |
| Standard bun (USDA 5" × 3½") | 85 g / 3 oz | 358 |
| Little Debbie honey bun, label figure | 85 g / 3 oz | 360 |
| Glazed jumbo (Hostess/Cloverhill label) | 113 g / 4 oz | 480 |
| Mrs. Freshley's jumbo | 142 g / 5 oz | 589 |
Here is what makes that table easy to use: per 100 g, honey buns barely differ. Sara Lee's glazed bun sits at 394 calories per 100 g, Great Value's at 420, Little Debbie's at 424, Hostess's jumbo at 425, and the highest label in the USDA branded set reaches 474. USDA's generic figure of 421 lands in the middle of that band.
One recipe, in other words, sold in six wrappers. If you want to know what a honey bun costs you, weigh it or read the net weight on the film. The brand name tells you almost nothing.
A useful anchor: 1 oz of honey bun is 119 calories. Multiply by the ounces printed on the package and you will be within a few calories of the truth for almost any brand.
Iced, glazed or plain
The white icing looks like the expensive part. It is not.
Take one brand and one weight, so nothing else moves. Little Debbie's 4 oz (114 g) plain honey bun is 461 calories; the iced version of the identical pastry is 480. That is a 19-calorie difference for a full coat of icing.
Now change the size instead and keep the icing out of it. Going from an 85 g bun to a 113 g jumbo adds 120 calories. The frosting costs you a sixth of what the extra ounce costs.
The one variant that does shift the numbers is the frosted cinnamon-style bun, which USDA lists separately as 167940, "Cinnamon buns, frosted (includes honey buns)" at 452 calories per 100 g. A 65 g bun of that type is 294 calories with 8.2 g of saturated fat, 41% of the Daily Value from a bun that weighs less than a standard honey bun.
Saturated fat is the number to watch
Calories bring people to this page. Saturated fat is the figure that should keep them here.
- Standard bun, 85 g: 8.0 g saturated fat, 40% DV
- Little Debbie label, 85 g: 10.0 g, 50% DV
- Glazed jumbo, 113 g: 13.0 g, 65% DV
- Mrs. Freshley's jumbo, 142 g: 17.0 g, 85% DV
The FDA sets the Daily Value for saturated fat at 20 g on a 2,000-calorie diet, and the Dietary Guidelines for Americans put the limit at less than 10% of daily calories. A 5 oz jumbo eaten in a parking lot at 8 a.m. uses 85% of that before the day has started, and it does so while reading as "only" 589 calories.
That gap between the calorie number and the saturated fat number is the honey bun's real signature. A 589-calorie sandwich would rarely do this. Frying dough in solid fat and glazing it does.
Sodium is the quiet counterweight: 269 mg in a standard bun, 12% of the day. That is modest for a packaged food, and it is the one column where a honey bun looks better than most savory breakfasts.
Sugar: what the label shows and what it hides
A standard 85 g bun holds 19.3 g of total sugars. There is no percentage next to that number anywhere on this page, and that is not an oversight — the FDA gives a Daily Value to added sugars, not to total sugars, so total sugars never carry a percent.
USDA's generic row cannot fill that gap. SR Legacy 172758 was measured before the added-sugars line existed on the Nutrition Facts label, so the record has no added-sugar value at all. Rather than estimate one, we leave the row out.
Brand labels do carry it, and they are blunt. The 4 oz glazed jumbo declares 24 g of added sugars — 48% of the Daily Value, from a single pastry. The 34 g mini declares 7 g, or 14%. So the honest version of the sugar answer is two sentences long: a standard bun has about 19 g of sugar in total, and where a manufacturer has actually measured the added portion, a jumbo covers roughly half a day.
The trans fat story is over
If you have read an older article about honey buns and partially hydrogenated oils, it no longer describes what is on the shelf.
USDA's SR row, measured before 2018, still shows 0.455 g of trans fat per 100 g. Every modern branded honey bun record we checked — fifteen of them, covering Little Debbie, Hostess/Cloverhill, Tastykake, Mrs. Freshley's, Duchess, Sara Lee, Great Value and Mrs. Baird's — declares 0.0 g. That change follows the FDA's determination on partially hydrogenated oils, which removed them from the food supply.
The saturated fat did not go anywhere. Only the trans fat did.
How does a honey bun compare?
| Item | Per 100 g | Typical serving | Calories | Protein / carbs / fat per serving |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Honey bun | 421 | 1 bun (85 g) | 358 | 5.2 / 40.7 / 19.3 g |
| Frosted cinnamon roll | 452 | 1 bun (65 g) | 294 | 2.9 / 31.6 / 17.3 g |
| Blueberry muffin | 375 | 1 medium (113 g) | 424 | 5.1 / 59.9 / 18.2 g |
| Butter croissant | 406 | 1 medium (57 g) | 231 | 4.7 / 26.1 / 12.0 g |
| Brown-sugar-cinnamon toaster pastry | 370 | 1 pastry (51 g) | 189 | 2.1 / 37.0 / 4.1 g |
Per 100 g the honey bun is mid-pack, lighter than a cinnamon roll and heavier than a muffin. Per item it lands second, because a commercial blueberry muffin is a 113 g object and a honey bun is an 85 g one.
Our take: if the goal is the smallest number on a gas station shelf, the toaster pastry wins outright at 189 calories with 4.1 g of fat, and it is not close. If you want the pastry that gives back the most for its calories, the croissant does — 231 calories and the best protein-to-calorie ratio in the group. The honey bun is the one to eat because you want a honey bun, and the way to keep it reasonable is the wrapper you pick, not the icing you avoid.
Most popular honey bun 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) |
|---|---|
| Little Debbie Honey Bun | 424 cal |
| Hostess Glazed Jumbo Honey Bun | 425 cal |
| Hostess White Iced Jumbo Honey Bun | 434 cal |
| Mrs. Freshley’s Jumbo Honey Buns Original | 415 cal |
| Tastykake Glazed Honey Bun | 408 cal |
| Duchess Honey Buns | 400 cal |
Brand popularity: BodyPal food database. Nutrition: manufacturer labels / USDA FoodData Central.
Honey bun FAQs
How many calories are in a honey bun?
358 calories in a standard 3 oz (85 g) bun, from the USDA row that covers glazed yeast pastries including honey buns, which runs 421 calories per 100 g. Little Debbie's label puts its own 85 g bun at 360. A 4 oz jumbo reaches 480.
How many calories in a Little Debbie honey bun?
360 calories for the 3 oz (85 g) pastry, straight off the label in USDA's branded database. The same brand's 4 oz (114 g) single bun is 461, and the iced version of that size is 480. Each 85 g bun carries 10 g of saturated fat, half a day's Daily Value.
How many calories in a jumbo honey bun?
480 calories for a 4 oz (113 g) glazed jumbo, per the Hostess/Cloverhill label. A 5 oz (142 g) Mrs. Freshley's jumbo is 589. Jumbo is a genuine size step rather than marketing: moving from an 85 g bun to a 113 g one adds about 120 calories.
How many calories in a mini honey bun?
140 calories for a 34 g (1.2 oz) mini, per the Great Value label, with 4 g of saturated fat and 7 g of added sugars. Mini is the only size that keeps a honey bun under 200 calories, and two of them still come in below one standard 85 g bun.
Is a honey bun healthier than a doughnut?
They are the same food in USDA's data. Honey buns sit inside the row for glazed yeast-leavened doughnuts at 421 calories per 100 g, so the difference is weight, not recipe. USDA lists honeybun portions of 65 g (274 calories), 78 g (328) and 85 g (358) inside that single record.
How much sugar is in a honey bun?
19.3 g of total sugars in a standard 85 g bun. USDA's generic row predates the added-sugars line on the Nutrition Facts label, so it carries no added-sugar figure; manufacturer labels do. A 4 oz glazed jumbo declares 24 g of added sugars, 48% of the Daily Value.
How much saturated fat is in a honey bun?
8.0 g in an 85 g bun, which is 40% of the Daily Value. Little Debbie's label reads higher at 10 g (50%), a 4 oz glazed jumbo hits 13 g (65%), and a 5 oz jumbo reaches 17 g, or 85% of a day's allowance from one pastry.
Are honey buns fried or baked?
Fried. USDA files them with yeast-leavened glazed doughnuts: the dough is proofed, cooked in hot fat and glazed afterward. The numbers show it. An 85 g bun holds 19.3 g of fat, which supplies about 174 of its 358 calories, close to half the total.
Similar foods
- Beignet — 188 cal per beignet
- Cake donut — 308 cal per large donut
- Crescent roll — 114 cal per crescent roll
- Apple Fritter — 455 cal per fritter
- Chocolate chip muffin — 523 cal per medium muffin
- Chocolate glazed donut — 303 cal per donut
Count it without the math
Point the camera at the wrapper and BodyPal logs the calories, the saturated fat and the sugar in one shot.
