How Many Calories Are in Roast Beef?

Three ounces carved off a roast — 85 g, the standard American meat serving — is 142 calories, and 100 g is 167. Two ounces of deli roast beef, the amount that lands on a sandwich, is 64. Between the roast on your counter and the slices in the fridge drawer, the calories in roast beef barely move. The sodium moves twelvefold.

You'd need to walk about 28 minutes to burn the 142 calories in 3 oz cooked (85 g).

On this page

• Roast beef quick facts
• Homemade or deli: the fork in the road
• US serving sizes
• Deli roast beef, slice by slice
• Where the 212-calorie number comes from
• Weigh it raw or weigh it cooked
• Calories in a roast beef sandwich
• Is roast beef healthy?
• How does roast beef compare?
• Most popular roast beef brands
• FAQ

Roast beef quick facts

The reference record is the cut Americans actually roast and carve: USDA SR Legacy 170228, "Beef, round, eye of round roast, boneless, separable lean and fat, trimmed to 0" fat, all grades, cooked, roasted." Meat and the fat that comes with it, out of the oven, sliced the way it leaves the carving board.

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

One row does most of the work. A single 3 oz serving carries 25.2 g of protein, half the FDA Daily Value, for 7% of a 2,000-calorie day.

You will not find a fiber row or a sugar row on this page. Roast beef has no carbohydrate at all — no fiber, no sugar — and three measured zeros in a row tell you nothing that the carbohydrate line has not already said. USDA publishes no added-sugars figure for plain meat either, so that row is absent rather than blank.

Cholesterol is the quiet number: 65 mg per serving, 22% DV, higher as a share of the day than anything except protein.

Homemade or deli: the fork in the road

"Roast beef" is two different foods sharing one name, and USDA keeps a separate record for each. Put them side by side and the pattern is not what most people expect.

The deli record is the lowest-calorie row on that list and the highest-sodium one by a distance. Sliced roast beef off the deli counter carries 12.7 times the sodium of the same beef roasted at home, while carrying a third fewer calories per gram.

The middle row is the honest one for most kitchens. USDA's survey record measures the roast as it is actually served — seasoned, basted, resting in its own fat — and lands 39 calories per 100 g above the lab cut, with 5.6 times the sodium. That gap is your salt shaker and your roasting pan, not a different animal.

The useful question, then, is not how many calories roast beef has. It is which roast beef is in your hand.

US serving sizes

Carved from your own roast, built on 167 calories per 100 g:

A whole eye of round roast is 578 calories of beef and 205% of the Daily Value for protein — a family dinner in one piece of meat.

Slices are the other way people measure. These come from the survey record for beef roast as it is eaten at home, so they carry the kitchen's salt with them:

Two thick slices land close to 370 calories, which is a dinner portion rather than a serving. A cup of diced roast beef stirred through a hash or a salad is 278.

Deli roast beef, slice by slice

The deli case runs on 115 calories per 100 g, and the standard label serving there is 2 oz — the amount every prepackaged tub in the country declares.

That last line is the number to sit with. One cup of deli roast beef is 161 calories and 52% of the day's sodium — half a day of salt in a food the calorie count says is lean protein. CDC puts most American sodium in packaged and restaurant food rather than in home cooking, and this is that principle in a plastic tub.

Against the rest of the deli case, though, roast beef holds up better than its reputation:

Roast beef is the most protein per calorie in the case: 10.4 g inside 64 calories, against 8.3 g in 59 for turkey and 6.1 g in 167 for bologna. Sliced turkey wins by five calories and loses by 25 mg of sodium, which is to say the two are the same sandwich. Bologna is a different food wearing the same wrapper.

Where the 212-calorie number comes from

Search for roast beef calories and half the internet will hand you 212 per 100 g. That number is real, and it is 45 calories too high for the meat you can buy today.

The 212 belongs to beef trimmed to 1/8 inch of exterior fat, the way meat was sold when that record was measured. American retail now trims to 0 inches, and USDA measured that separately. One phrase in a database description, three millimeters of fat, 45 calories per 100 g.

The grade on the label is nearly irrelevant next to it. Choice eye of round roasts at 171 calories per 100 g, Select at 162 — nine calories, about four on a 3 oz serving.

Trimming your own slices is even less rewarding. Lean and fat together is 167 calories per 100 g; lean only, with the fat cut away, is 163. Four calories. Cutting the edge off a slice of roast beef buys you almost nothing, because a round roast carries so little fat to begin with. Changing the cut is what moves the number, and it moves it a long way: chuck arm pot roast is 297 calories per 100 g and prime rib is 341, roughly 1.8 and 2 times the round.

Weigh it raw or weigh it cooked

A roast leaves the oven lighter than it went in, and USDA measured how much lighter three separate ways:

• A whole roast: 436 g raw came out at 346 g cooked, a 79.4% yield
• One pound of raw meat with refuse yields 333 g of cooked, edible beef, or 73.4%
• One ounce of raw meat yields 20 g cooked, or 70.5%

Call it a quarter of the weight gone, with medium-rare at the light end of the loss and well-done at the heavy end. No single yield figure covers a roast, so the range matters more than a decimal.

This is where "4 oz of roast beef" gets two correct answers. Four ounces raw off the butcher paper (113 g) is 140 calories by USDA's raw record. Roast that same piece, it shrinks to about 90 g, and priced through the cooked record it is 150. The ten-calorie difference is two USDA samples sitting next to each other, not energy the oven created. The calories barely move; only the water does.

The error that costs you runs the other way. Put 4 oz of cooked roast beef on the scale and you have really eaten about 5 oz of raw meat. Pick one state, raw or cooked, and stay in it.

Calories in a roast beef sandwich

A roast beef sandwich is not roast beef with a small bread tax. It is a different item entirely.

Three ounces of roast beef is 142 calories and 57 mg of sodium. The counter version of the same idea, SR 170695, is 364 calories and 973 mg — 42% of a day's sodium in one hand. The beef is under a third of those calories; bread, dressing and cured meat carry the rest. USDA's own analysis of an Arby's classic roast beef sandwich, record 170791, puts it at 361 calories for the same 149 g.

Building it at home with deli slices on white bread lands at 223 calories, 39% below the chain sandwich, for something that looks nearly identical. Wheat bread saves two calories and adds fiber; a slice of cheese costs 29. Go up to a 6-inch sub and you are at 340 calories and 1,129 mg of sodium, half a day of salt before the fries.

Is roast beef healthy?

By the numbers on a label, the plain roast does well. A 3 oz serving is 142 calories, 25.2 g of protein (50% DV), 1.4 g of saturated fat (7% DV) and 57 mg of sodium (2% DV), with no carbohydrate. MyPlate counts 3 oz of cooked lean beef as a large share of the day's protein foods, and round roast is about as lean as beef gets.

The variable is not the beef. It is what happened to the beef before it reached you. Per 100 g, deli roast beef holds 853 mg of sodium, corned beef brisket 973 mg and pastrami 1,078 mg. The home roast sits at 67 mg, close to a fiftieth of a teaspoon of table salt in a 3 oz serving — beef is essentially sodium-free until someone salts it.

Where roast beef surprises people is against chicken. Three ounces of roasted skinless chicken breast is 140 calories with 26.4 g of protein; 3 oz of round roast beef is 142 with 25.2 g. Beef is not the heavier meat if the cut is round.

How does roast beef compare?

All at the same 3 oz cooked serving (85 g), each from its own USDA record:

Eye of round and top round are the same answer wearing two labels — 142 against 136, both sold as roast beef in every American meat case. Treat them as one food.

Our take: if you are roasting beef with the calorie count in mind, a round roast is the only cut on that list worth buying, and it goes head to head with chicken breast at the same serving. If the roast is the occasion rather than the fuel, prime rib is honest about what it costs — 290 calories and 23.1 g of fat per 3 oz, twice the round.

Most popular roast beef 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.

Roast beef FAQs

Similar foods

• Steelhead trout — 143 cal for 3 oz cooked
• Spaghetti And Meatballs — 961 cal per plate
• BBQ Chicken — 149 cal per 3 oz
• Eye of round steak — 135 cal for 3 oz cooked
• Onigiri — 180 cal per onigiri
• Stuffed pepper — 265 cal for 1/2 pepper with filling

Count it without the math

Point the camera at the carving board and BodyPal logs the slice, the protein and the sodium in one shot.