How many calories are in lentil soup?
A 1-cup serving of lentil soup weighs 255 g and carries 153 calories. Per 100 g the soup runs 60 calories, which makes it one of the denser bowls in the soup aisle and one of the few that shows up with 9.7 g of protein and 9.4 g of fiber attached. Thickness is what moves the number.
You'd need to walk about 31 minutes to burn the 153 calories in a 1-cup (255 g) serving.
How long does it take to burn off lentil soup?
A 1-cup (255 g) serving is 153 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 153 kcal |
|---|---|
| Walking, brisk | 31 min |
| Cycling, moderate | 19 min |
| Swimming, moderate | 22 min |
| Jogging | 18 min |
| Weight training, moderate | 34 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 (255 g); change it to what you actually ate. BodyPal works this out from your steps automatically.
On this page
- Lentil soup quick facts
- Cup, half cup, and the big bowl
- Canned, reduced sodium, meat and ham
- Sodium is the row that costs you
- How does lentil soup compare?
- Most popular lentil soup brands
- Lentil soup FAQs
Lentil soup quick facts
The row behind this page is FNDDS 2707462, "Soup, lentil" — prepared lentil soup at ordinary thickness, the kind that comes out of a pot at home or arrives in a bowl at a lunch counter. That is the soup most people are actually holding when they look up the calories, which is why it leads instead of the narrower canned record. Its 60 calories per 100 g also sits in the middle of what American cans declare on the label, a range that runs from 41 to 71 per 100 g.
| Nutrient | Per 100 g | Per 1 cup (255 g) | % Daily Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calories | 60 | 153 | — |
| Total fat | 0.69 g | 1.8 g | 2% |
| Saturated fat | 0.1 g | 0.3 g | 1% |
| Carbohydrate | 10.2 g | 26.0 g | 9% |
| Dietary fiber | 3.7 g | 9.4 g | 34% |
| Total sugars | 1.72 g | 4.4 g | — |
| Protein | 3.82 g | 9.7 g | 19% |
| Sodium | 244 mg | 622 mg | 27% |
| Cholesterol | 0 mg | 0 mg | 0% |
| Potassium | 203 mg | 518 mg | 11% |
% 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 can are missing here on purpose. USDA does not publish added sugars or trans fat for this record, so they are left out rather than written in as zero. The 4.4 g of total sugars in a cup are the natural sugars of lentils, carrot and onion, and total sugars carry no Daily Value of their own — that limit belongs to added sugars, which is a different measurement entirely.
The fiber row is the one worth staring at. One cup covers 34% of the day's fiber against the FDA Daily Values, and it does it for the calorie cost of a large banana and change.
Cup, half cup, and the big bowl
| Serving | Weight | Calories |
|---|---|---|
| 1 oz | 28 g | 17 kcal |
| 1/2 cup | 128 g | 77 kcal |
| 1 cup | 255 g | 153 kcal |
| 1 1/2 cups | 383 g | 230 kcal |
| 1 bowl (2 cups) | 510 g | 306 kcal |
| Per 100 g | 100 g | 60 kcal |
The 1-cup line is a USDA household measure. The rest are our own arithmetic from the USDA 100 g figure, not USDA servings — a cup of soup is a heavy cup at 255 g, so scaling up is honest but the ladle in your hand is not a measuring cup.
That last point is the trap. A restaurant bowl of lentil soup is rarely one cup; two cups is the normal restaurant pour, and that is 306 calories before the bread arrives. If you logged "a bowl" and picked the one-cup entry, you undercounted by roughly a whole snack. Half a cup, on the other side, is what a side portion next to a sandwich looks like: 77 calories, barely a rounding error in the day.
Ounces are the other place people slip. Soup is sold by fluid ounce and logged by weight ounce, and those are not the same thing for a thick soup. An 8 fl oz cup weighs about 255 g, which is closer to 9 weight ounces than 8.
Canned, reduced sodium, meat and ham
| Version | Per 100 g | Serving | Calories | Sodium |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prepared, standard thickness | 60 kcal | 1 cup (255 g) | 153 kcal | 622 mg |
| Canned | 43 kcal | 1 cup (255 g) | 110 kcal | 673 mg |
| Canned, reduced sodium | 43 kcal | 1 cup (255 g) | 110 kcal | 479 mg |
| With meat | 78 kcal | 1 cup (255 g) | 199 kcal | 635 mg |
| With ham, canned | 56 kcal | 1 cup (248 g) | 139 kcal | 1319 mg |
| French lentil, pouch | 53 kcal | 1 pouch (283 g) | 150 kcal | 371 mg |
Canned lentil soup lands 43 calories under the homemade cup, and the reason is water, not virtue. The canned record is a thinner soup: more broth per ladle, fewer lentils. You pay for that in fiber, where a canned cup gives 6.4 g against 9.4 g from the thicker version, and in protein, 6.3 g against 9.7 g. Sodium goes the wrong way at the same time.
Adding meat is the biggest single move on the table. The with-meat record runs 78 calories per 100 g, so a cup is 199 calories with 15.1 g of protein — a genuine main course. Fiber only climbs to 8.2 g, though, so the calories rise faster than the part of the soup you were eating it for. The canned ham version sits lower at 139 calories a cup because the can is thinner again, and its sodium is in a category of its own.
Store brands scatter across the same band. Progresso's Vegetable Classics lentil is 71 calories per 100 g, or 171 for its 1-cup (241 g) label serving — the richest of the common cans. 365 Everyday Value sits at the other end, 41 per 100 g and 100 calories per 1-cup (245 g) serving. Dr. McDougall's lower-sodium can is 140 per cup, Health Valley's no-salt-added version 139. Between the lightest and the heaviest supermarket can there is a 71-calorie gap per cup, which is more spread than most people assume exists inside one soup category. The sodium spread between them is larger still.
Sodium is the row that costs you
Calories are not the interesting number in lentil soup. Sodium is. One cup of the standard prepared soup carries 622 mg, or 27% of the Daily Value — about a quarter teaspoon of table salt. Eat two cups as a meal and you are at 1,244 mg, more than half the day's 2,300 mg limit, from a food that most people file under "light lunch."
Canned goes higher: 673 mg per cup, 29% DV. The reduced-sodium can is the one real fix on the shelf, at 479 mg per cup, or 21% DV, for exactly the same 110 calories. Canned lentil soup with ham is the outlier — 1,319 mg in a single 248 g cup, 57% of the day, from 139 calories. That is the sharpest calorie-to-sodium mismatch anywhere in this food.
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans put the ceiling at 2,300 mg a day for adults, and soup is one of the top contributors to that number in the American diet. If you are watching sodium, the reduced-sodium can and the no-salt-added labels are the better pick, and the difference costs you nothing in calories.
On the other side of the ledger, lentils earn their place. A cup delivers 9.7 g of plant protein, 19% DV, which is why MyPlate counts beans, peas and lentils in the protein group as well as the vegetable group. Fat is close to irrelevant here: 1.8 g a cup, 0.3 g of it saturated, and no cholesterol at all in the meatless versions.
How does lentil soup compare?
| Soup | Per 100 g | US serving | Calories | Protein |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lentil soup | 60 kcal | 1 cup (255 g) | 153 kcal | 9.7 g |
| Bean soup, canned | 47 kcal | 1 cup (255 g) | 120 kcal | 6.2 g |
| Chicken noodle, canned | 42 kcal | 1 cup (255 g) | 107 kcal | 6.1 g |
| Minestrone | 40 kcal | 1 cup (255 g) | 102 kcal | 4.4 g |
Protein per cup for the three neighbors is our own arithmetic from their USDA 100 g figures, not USDA serving data.
Our take: lentil soup is the heaviest of these four per cup, and it should be. It carries more protein than any of the other three, 3.5 g more than the next best, and it is the only one of the four that eats like a meal instead of a starter. If you want the lowest number on the tray, minestrone wins at 102 calories a cup. If you want the bowl that keeps you out of the vending machine at three o'clock, pay the extra 51 calories for the lentils. Chicken noodle lands in between — 107 calories a cup for 6.1 g of protein, a hair under bean soup's 6.2 g at 120 calories.
Most popular lentil soup 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) |
|---|---|
| Progresso Vegetable Classics Lentil Soup | 71 cal |
| Cento Lentil Soup | 68 cal |
| Sclafani Homestyle Lentil Soup | 57 cal |
| Dr. McDougall's Lower Sodium Lentil Soup | 57 cal |
| Health Valley Organic No Salt Added Lentil Soup | 58 cal |
| 365 Everyday Value Lentil Soup | 41 cal |
Brand popularity: BodyPal food database. Nutrition: manufacturer labels / USDA FoodData Central.
Lentil soup FAQs
How many calories are in a cup of lentil soup?
153 calories in a 1-cup serving weighing 255 g, based on the USDA record for prepared lentil soup at 60 calories per 100 g. That cup also brings 9.7 g of protein, 9.4 g of fiber and 622 mg of sodium. A restaurant bowl is usually two cups, or 306 calories.
How many calories in canned lentil soup?
110 calories per 1-cup (255 g) serving, at 43 calories per 100 g. The can is thinner than a homemade pot, so it is 43 calories lighter per cup but also gives you less: 6.4 g of fiber instead of 9.4 g, and 6.3 g of protein instead of 9.7 g.
How much protein is in lentil soup?
9.7 g of protein in a 1-cup (255 g) serving, which is 19% of the Daily Value. Per 100 g that is 3.82 g. Canned versions run lower at about 6.3 g a cup, while lentil soup made with meat reaches 15.1 g a cup, the highest of any version here.
How much fiber is in a bowl of lentil soup?
18.8 g of fiber in a two-cup (510 g) restaurant bowl, which is 67% of the 28 g Daily Value. A single 1-cup serving holds 9.4 g, or 34%. Canned lentil soup gives less, 6.4 g a cup, because there is more broth and fewer lentils in the same volume.
Why is canned lentil soup so high in sodium?
673 mg per cup, 29% of the Daily Value, because salt is the main preservative and flavor carrier in shelf-stable soup. The reduced-sodium can drops to 479 mg for the identical 110 calories. Canned lentil soup with ham is the extreme at 1,319 mg per 248 g cup, 57% of the day.
Is lentil soup good for weight loss?
153 calories a cup with 9.4 g of fiber and 9.7 g of protein makes it a strong option if you are counting calories, since both nutrients are the ones tied to fullness. Watch the pour, though: a two-cup bowl is 306 calories, and bread on the side doubles the meal again.
How many calories in lentil soup with ham?
139 calories in a canned 1-cup (248 g) serving, at 56 calories per 100 g. It is lighter than the homemade cup because the can is thinner, but it carries 1,319 mg of sodium, 57% of the Daily Value. That is the worst calorie-to-sodium trade in this food.
How many calories in half a cup of lentil soup?
77 calories in a half cup, weighing 128 g — our own arithmetic from the USDA 100 g figure rather than a USDA serving. That side portion next to a sandwich brings 4.7 g of fiber and 311 mg of sodium, so it stays small on calories but not on salt.
Similar foods
- Milk — 149 cal per cup
- Wild Rice — 166 cal per cup, cooked
- Quinoa — 222 cal per cup cooked
- Rice — 205 cal per cup, cooked
- Pasta — 168 cal per cup penne
- Penne pasta — 169 cal per cup
Count it without the math
Point the camera at the bowl and BodyPal counts the soup for you, ladle size and all.
