How Many Calories in Skirt Steak?
Cooked skirt steak runs 220 calories per 100 g, which puts a 3 oz serving at 187 calories and a whole cooked pound at 998. The calories in skirt steak hardly move when you trim the fat off, and the package sitting in your cart is quoting a completely different number.
You'd need to walk about 37 minutes to burn the 187 calories in a 3 oz cooked serving.
How long does it take to burn off skirt steak?
A 3 oz cooked serving is 187 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 187 kcal |
|---|---|
| Walking, brisk | 37 min |
| Cycling, moderate | 23 min |
| Swimming, moderate | 27 min |
| Jogging | 22 min |
| Weight training, moderate | 42 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 (3 oz); change it to what you actually ate. BodyPal works this out from your steps automatically.
On this page
- Skirt steak quick facts
- The package says 161, USDA says 220
- Skirt steak calories by serving size
- Inside skirt vs. outside skirt
- Why trimming the fat barely helps
- Marinated fajita steak and the sodium it brings
- One pound of steak, two people
- How does skirt steak compare?
- Most popular skirt steak brands
- FAQ
Skirt steak quick facts
The reference on this page is USDA's inside skirt steak, separable lean and fat, trimmed to 0" fat, all grades, cooked, broiled (SR Legacy record 171787). That choice is deliberate. Butcher counters and grocery cases in the United States sell inside skirt almost exclusively, since outside skirt mostly goes to restaurant suppliers, and nobody carves the fat out of a skirt steak before eating it. Lean and fat together, cooked, is the steak that ends up on the plate.
| Nutrient | Per 100 g | Per 3 oz cooked (85 g) | % Daily Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calories | 220 | 187 | — |
| Total fat | 12.1 g | 10.2 g | 13% |
| Saturated fat | 4.7 g | 4.0 g | 20% |
| Carbohydrate | 0 g | 0 g | 0% |
| Dietary fiber | 0 g | 0 g | 0% |
| Total sugars | 0 g | 0 g | — |
| Protein | 26.1 g | 22.2 g | 44% |
| Sodium | 75 mg | 64 mg | 3% |
| Cholesterol | 60 mg | 51 mg | 17% |
| Potassium | 289 mg | 246 mg | 5% |
% 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 are missing on purpose. USDA's SR Legacy edition publishes no added sugars and no trans fat figure for any of its four skirt steak records, so those lines would be blank rather than zero, and a blank cell dressed up as a zero is worse than no cell at all. Total sugars carry no Daily Value under the FDA label rules, which is why that percentage is empty too.
Protein is the headline: 22.2 g in a 3 oz serving, 44% of the day, for 187 calories. Saturated fat is the counterweight at 20% of the day in the same serving, and the Dietary Guidelines for Americans put the ceiling under 10% of daily calories.
The package says 161, USDA says 220
Pick up a package of USDA Choice skirt steak and the panel will tell you something like 161 calories per 100 g, or 180 calories for a 4 oz serving. That is Certified Angus Beef's national label, and it is not wrong. It is describing raw meat.
Across the national skirt steak labels we track, the raw figures land between 143 and 214 calories per 100 g, which works out to 160 to 240 calories for the 4 oz serving printed on the tray. USDA's cooked record sits above all of them at 220.
Grilling does not create calories. It drives off water. A 4 oz raw steak from the case weighs roughly 3 oz once it comes off the heat, so the same calories are packed into fewer grams and the per-100 g number climbs.
That gives the comparison worth memorizing:
- 4 oz raw off the package: about 170 to 190 calories.
- 3 oz cooked on the plate: 187 calories.
Those two lines describe one piece of meat at two moments in its life, not two different steaks. The mistake that costs you is mixing them. Log a 1 lb raw package at the cooked rate of 220 per 100 g and you record 998 calories for something the label puts nearer 730 — that pound figure is our own scaling of a 161-per-100 g label across 453.6 g. One rule fixes it: weigh it raw, use the label; weigh it cooked, use 220.
Skirt steak calories by serving size
Every row below is cooked weight, scaled from record 171787.
| Cooked serving | Weight | Calories |
|---|---|---|
| 1 oz | 28 g | 62 |
| 3 oz (USDA serving) | 85 g | 187 |
| 4 oz | 112 g | 246 |
| 100 g | 100 g | 220 |
| 1 lb | 453.6 g | 998 |
The 3 oz row is the one nutrition labels are built around, and MyPlate counts it as 3 ounce-equivalents from the protein foods group. It is also small. Skirt steak gets sliced and piled into fajitas and tacos, and a plate holding six or seven slices is closer to 6 oz than 3, which is 374 calories on our own scaling, before a tortilla joins it.
Per ounce, the math is clean: 62 calories cooked. Multiply by however many ounces actually left the cutting board, not by what the package weighed.
Inside skirt vs. outside skirt
Both cuts come off the plate primal, both get sold under the same two words, and they are 35 calories per 100 g apart.
| Version | Per 100 g | Per 3 oz (85 g) | Protein | Fat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Inside, lean and fat | 220 | 187 | 22.2 g | 10.2 g |
| Outside, lean and fat | 255 | 217 | 20.0 g | 14.6 g |
| Inside, lean only | 205 | 174 | 22.7 g | 8.6 g |
| Outside, lean only | 233 | 198 | 20.6 g | 12.2 g |
Outside skirt is 16% richer, and the fat column explains it: 17.13 g per 100 g against 12.05 g for inside. It also gives back less protein, 23.51 g against 26.13 g. If a menu or a butcher's ticket specifies outside skirt, a 3 oz portion is 217 calories rather than 187, and a half-pound plate, our own scaling, is 578 rather than 499.
Nothing on a supermarket tray usually says which one you are holding. Grocery skirt steak is inside skirt by default; outside skirt tends to be a special order, a restaurant plate, or a cut that costs noticeably more per pound. Assume inside unless the label says otherwise.
Why trimming the fat barely helps
Here is where skirt steak breaks the rule people learned on ribeyes and strip steaks. Cutting the visible fat off a skirt steak saves almost nothing.
- Inside skirt: 220 calories per 100 g with the fat, 205 without. Fifteen calories.
- Outside skirt: 255 with, 233 without. Twenty-two.
On a 3 oz serving that is a saving of 13 calories on the inside cut, dropping 187 to 174. A New York strip or a ribeye carries a fat cap along one edge, a thick band you can lift off with a knife in one pass, and removing it can take 20% or more off the plate. Skirt steak has no such band. Its fat is threaded through the muscle, which is exactly why it stays tender at high heat and why a knife cannot reach most of it.
Saturated fat moves a little more in relative terms, from 4.67 g to 3.85 g per 100 g, an 18% cut. Worth doing if you are counting saturated fat closely. Not worth doing if calories are the target, and definitely not worth the texture you give up.
Marinated fajita steak and the sodium it brings
Plain cooked skirt steak carries 75 mg of sodium per 100 g, or 64 mg in a 3 oz serving. That is 3% of a 2,300 mg day, which is to say the meat is essentially sodium-free.
Then the marinade arrives. Packages sold pre-seasoned or labeled "for fajitas" run from 168 to 596 mg of sodium per 100 g on their raw panels, up to eight times the plain steak. At the top of that range, a 4 oz raw portion carries around 670 mg of sodium, 29% of the day, from a piece of beef that started at almost none.
Calories move much less. The marinated and fajita-cut labels sit at 170 to 186 calories per 100 g raw, or roughly 190 to 210 for a 4 oz serving, right in the middle of the plain raw range. Marinades built on citrus, spice and a little oil are cheap in calories.
Our take: buy the plain steak and season it yourself. You lose ten minutes and gain control over the only number that changes dramatically between the two packages. If the pre-marinated tray is what is in front of you, treat the sodium as the cost and the calories as unchanged.
One pound of steak, two people
Skirt steak is sold and cooked whole, and a full pound is a normal weekend purchase. Cooked, that pound is 998 calories, 118.5 g of protein and 54.7 g of fat.
Split evenly, two people each get 499 calories and 59 g of protein, which is a solid dinner centerpiece. Eaten alone, which happens more often than anyone admits when the steak is sliced and going into tortillas, the saturated fat is the number that gets loud: a full pound delivers 106% of the Daily Value for saturated fat in one sitting, along with 237% of the day's protein.
Protein at that level is harmless and simply gets used. Saturated fat at 106% has spent the whole day's allowance on one meal, and the Dietary Guidelines ceiling is a daily figure, not a per-meal one. That is the honest trade with this cut, and it is easier to manage by deciding the portion before cooking than by trimming afterward.
How does skirt steak compare?
Five cooked beef cuts, all from USDA's SR Legacy records, at the standard 3 oz serving. The calorie column is almost a flat line.
| Cut | Per 100 g | 3 oz cooked | Protein | Fat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Skirt steak, inside | 220 | 187 | 22.2 g | 10.2 g |
| Top sirloin, broiled | 219 | 186 | 24.7 g | 9.0 g |
| Brisket flat half, braised | 221 | 188 | 27.4 g | 7.9 g |
| Flat iron, grilled | 220 | 187 | 23.4 g | 10.4 g |
| Ribeye large end, lean only, roasted | 220 | 187 | 23.4 g | 9.7 g |
Skirt, flat iron and lean ribeye are indistinguishable on calories. Top sirloin and brisket are within two.
Our take: on calories alone this is a coin flip, so pick on protein instead, and skirt steak comes last of the five. Brisket returns 27.4 g of protein for the same 188 calories, nearly a quarter more than skirt steak's 22.2 g, and top sirloin is the best everyday swap at 24.7 g with the least fat of any cut here except brisket. Choose skirt steak because it cooks in four minutes and slices into fajitas better than anything else on that list, not because the numbers favor it. They do not, quite.
Most popular skirt steak 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) |
|---|---|
| Certified Angus Beef USDA Choice Beef Skirt Steak | 161 cal |
| Kroger Beef Skirt Steak | 149 cal |
| Signature Select Beef Skirt Steak Marinated for Fajitas | 177 cal |
| Best Choice Beef Skirt Steak for Fajitas | 170 cal |
| Full Circle Market Angus Beef Inside Skirt Steak | 214 cal |
| La Herencia Boneless Beef Inside Skirt Steak for Fajitas | 170 cal |
Brand popularity: BodyPal food database. Nutrition: manufacturer labels / USDA FoodData Central.
Skirt steak FAQs
How many calories are in skirt steak?
Cooked skirt steak is 220 calories per 100 g, so a 3 oz serving is 187 calories and a whole cooked pound is 998. Those figures are for inside skirt with the fat left on, which is what grocery stores sell. Raw package labels read lower, between 143 and 214 calories per 100 g.
How many calories in 3 oz of skirt steak?
187 calories for 3 oz (85 g) of cooked skirt steak, the standard USDA serving for meat. It brings 22.2 g of protein, 10.2 g of fat and 64 mg of sodium. Trimmed to lean only, the same serving drops to 174 calories, a saving of just 13.
How many calories in 4 oz of skirt steak?
About 246 calories if the 4 oz is weighed after cooking, at 220 calories per 100 g. If 4 oz is the raw serving printed on the package, the answer is 160 to 240 depending on the brand, since raw skirt steak labels run 143 to 214 calories per 100 g. Water loss is the whole difference.
How much protein is in a serving of skirt steak?
22.2 g of protein in a 3 oz cooked serving, which is 44% of the Daily Value for 187 calories. Per 100 g the cooked steak holds 26.1 g. A full cooked pound reaches 118.5 g of protein, more than twice the daily reference figure.
Inside or outside skirt steak, which has more calories?
Outside skirt, by 35 calories per 100 g: 255 against 220. On a 3 oz serving that is 217 calories versus 187. Outside skirt carries 17.13 g of fat per 100 g against 12.05 g and returns less protein, 23.51 g against 26.13 g. Supermarket skirt steak is almost always the inside cut.
Is skirt steak a lean cut of beef?
Moderately: cooked skirt steak holds 12.1 g of total fat and 4.7 g of saturated fat per 100 g, which is 20% of the saturated fat Daily Value in a 3 oz serving. Trimming barely changes it, since lean-only inside skirt is still 205 calories against 220. The fat sits inside the muscle rather than along the edge.
How many calories in marinated fajita skirt steak?
Marinated and fajita-cut packages read 170 to 186 calories per 100 g raw, or roughly 190 to 210 calories for a 4 oz serving. Calories stay close to plain raw steak; sodium does not. Those labels run 168 to 596 mg of sodium per 100 g against 75 mg for a plain cooked steak.
Are skirt steak calories different raw and cooked?
Per 100 g, yes: raw labels show 143 to 214 calories and the cooked USDA record shows 220. The steak gains nothing from the grill, it loses water, so the same calories occupy fewer grams. A 4 oz raw steak at about 180 calories is roughly the 3 oz cooked serving at 187.
Similar foods
- Hash Brown — 119 cal per patty
- Chuck Steak — 360 cal per steak
- Chile relleno — 326 cal per chile relleno
- Chicken Taco — 222 cal per taco
- Dosa — 326 cal per large dosa
- Flat iron steak — 391 cal per steak
Count it without the math
Point the camera at the cutting board and BodyPal handles the calories, the protein and the sodium, raw weight or cooked.
