How many calories are in spaghetti?
One cup of cooked spaghetti, loosely filled, is 124 g and 195 calories. Per 100 g the number is 157 calories. Press the noodles into the same cup and you get 151 g and 237 calories instead, which is the whole trick with pasta: the food is steady, the cup is not.
You'd need to walk about 39 minutes to burn the 195 calories in a 1-cup (124 g) cooked serving.
How long does it take to burn off spaghetti?
A 1-cup (124 g) cooked serving is 195 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 195 kcal |
|---|---|
| Walking, brisk | 39 min |
| Cycling, moderate | 24 min |
| Swimming, moderate | 28 min |
| Jogging | 23 min |
| Weight training, moderate | 43 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 (124 g); change it to what you actually ate. BodyPal works this out from your steps automatically.
On this page
- Spaghetti quick facts
- US servings, from one ounce to a packed cup
- Dry, whole wheat and the rest of the pasta aisle
- Carbs and protein land in the same place
- How does spaghetti compare?
- Most popular spaghetti brands
- Spaghetti FAQs
Spaghetti quick facts
The record behind this page is SR Legacy 169751, "Pasta, cooked, enriched, with added salt". It is the one that matches what most people are actually holding: dry spaghetti from a box, boiled in salted water, drained, no sauce yet. It is also the only USDA pasta record that publishes household measures for spaghetti specifically — a cup not packed and a cup packed — instead of a generic pasta cup.
Everything in the second column is that 100 g row scaled to the 124 g cup, which is USDA's own measure, not an estimate.
| Nutrient | Per 100 g | Per 1 cup, not packed (124 g) | % Daily Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calories | 157 | 195 | — |
| Total fat | 0.93 g | 1.2 g | 1% |
| Saturated fat | 0.18 g | 0.2 g | 1% |
| Carbohydrate | 30.59 g | 37.9 g | 14% |
| Dietary fiber | 1.8 g | 2.2 g | 8% |
| Total sugars | 0.56 g | 0.7 g | — |
| Protein | 5.8 g | 7.2 g | 14% |
| Sodium | 131 mg | 162 mg | 7% |
% 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 and no trans fat row here, because SR Legacy does not publish either value for this record. The 0.56 g of total sugars per 100 g comes from the wheat itself, not from anything stirred in. Cholesterol is 0 mg, as you would expect from flour and water, and potassium is 44 mg per 100 g, or 55 mg in the cup — about 1% of the Daily Value.
One footnote worth knowing: USDA's survey record for cooked pasta, FNDDS 2708357, lands on the same 157 calories per 100 g but reports 232 mg of sodium instead of 131 mg. That gap is not a disagreement about pasta. It is a disagreement about how heavily the water gets salted, and survey data averages in a lot of restaurant kitchens.
US servings, from one ounce to a packed cup
| Serving | Weight | Calories |
|---|---|---|
| 1 oz cooked | 28 g | 44 kcal |
| 1 cup spaghetti, not packed | 124 g | 195 kcal |
| 1 cup spaghetti, packed | 151 g | 237 kcal |
| 1 cup elbow macaroni, not packed | 120 g | 188 kcal |
| 2 oz dry, before cooking | 57 g | 211 kcal |
| Per 100 g cooked | 100 g | 157 kcal |
The two spaghetti cups and the elbow cup are USDA household measures attached to the cooked record. The 1 oz line and the 2 oz dry line are our own arithmetic from the USDA 100 g figures, not USDA servings.
Look at the two spaghetti cups again. Same cup, same noodles, 42 calories apart. Nobody logs "loosely filled" or "pressed down," which is why a cup is the least reliable unit in this whole food. If you want one number you can trust, the scale is the answer, and the easiest moment to use it is before the water boils: 2 oz of dry spaghetti is 57 g and 211 calories, and that figure cannot drift while it cooks.
Shape matters less than volume. A cup of penne is 107 g and 168 calories, a cup of elbows 120 g and 188, a cup of spaghetti 124 g and 195 — all the same pasta, just packing differently into the same measuring cup.
Dry, whole wheat and the rest of the pasta aisle
| Version | Per 100 g | Typical serving | Calories |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cooked, salted water | 157 kcal | 1 cup, not packed (124 g) | 195 kcal |
| Cooked, no salt added | 158 kcal | 1 cup, not packed (124 g) | 196 kcal |
| Whole wheat, cooked | 149 kcal | 1 cup (124 g) | 185 kcal |
| Protein-fortified, cooked | 164 kcal | 1 cup (124 g) | 203 kcal |
| Spinach spaghetti, cooked | 130 kcal | 1 cup (124 g) | 161 kcal |
| Brown rice pasta, cooked | 138 kcal | 1 cup (124 g) | 171 kcal |
| Dry, uncooked | 371 kcal | 2 oz (57 g) | 211 kcal |
Only the first two rows carry USDA's own 124 g cup. For the other cooked versions we applied that same 124 g to their 100 g figures, which is our arithmetic rather than a published serving, so treat those as close rather than exact.
The salt row is the one people get wrong most often. Salted and unsalted cooked spaghetti are 157 and 158 calories per 100 g — that single calorie is rounding, not seasoning. Sodium is where the salted water shows up: 131 mg per 100 g against 1 mg, or 162 mg against 1 mg in a cup.
Whole wheat saves about 10 calories a cup, which is not a reason to buy it. Fiber is. Whole wheat spaghetti has 3.9 g per 100 g against 1.8 g, more than double, and a 124 g cup works out to roughly 4.8 g of fiber — 17% of the Daily Value instead of 8%. Protein-fortified spaghetti runs the other direction: 164 calories per 100 g, but 8.86 g of protein, so a cup is about 11 g and 22% of the protein Daily Value. Spinach spaghetti is the lightest cooked version on the list at 130 calories per 100 g, mostly because it holds more water, not because spinach subtracts anything.
Dry is its own universe at 371 calories per 100 g. The boxes on US shelves sit close to that: Barilla and De Cecco spaghetti both list 357 calories per 100 g, Rummo 356, Garofalo No. 9 375 and Dreamfields 339. Where a 2 oz (56 g) dry serving is printed on those labels, it runs 190 to 210 calories.
Carbs and protein land in the same place
A cup of spaghetti gives 37.9 g of carbohydrate and 7.2 g of protein. Against the FDA Daily Values that is 14% for carbohydrate and, oddly, 14% for protein too. People think of pasta as pure starch, and by weight it mostly is — but the protein column keeps pace with the carbohydrate column in percentage terms, because the protein Daily Value is only 50 g.
Fiber is the row that lags. 2.2 g in a cup is 8% of the 28 g Daily Value, so three cups of regular spaghetti in a day would still leave you short. MyPlate suggests making at least half your grains whole grains, and swapping the box is the least disruptive way to do it here: same shape, same cook time, roughly double the fiber.
Fat is a non-issue. 1.2 g in a cup, 0.2 g of it saturated, is 1% of both Daily Values. Sodium at 162 mg is 7% — that is the salted cooking water, and it works out to less than a tenth of a teaspoon of table salt landing in the cup. What sits on top of the noodles will decide the fat and sodium of the meal far more than the pasta does.
How does spaghetti compare?
| Pasta | Per 100 g | US serving | Calories |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spaghetti, cooked | 157 kcal | 1 cup, not packed (124 g) | 195 kcal |
| Pasta, cooked (survey average) | 157 kcal | 1 cup, cooked (140 g) | 220 kcal |
| Pasta, dry, enriched | 371 kcal | 1 cup spaghetti, dry (91 g) | 338 kcal |
| Whole-wheat pasta, cooked | 149 kcal | 1 cup (124 g) | 185 kcal |
Our take: three of these four rows are the same food and the numbers still spread from 185 to 338, which tells you the calories live in the measuring, not in the pasta. The dry cup at 338 is the trap — it is a cup of hard sticks that will fill two bowls once cooked, so never log a dry cup as if it were dinner. Whole wheat is the only row here that is genuinely lighter, and only by 10 calories a cup — that 124 g cup is our own scaling of its 149 calories per 100 g, not a USDA serving. For weight loss, weigh 2 oz dry and stop negotiating with the cup; for staying full, take the whole wheat box and its extra fiber.
Most popular spaghetti 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) |
|---|---|
| Barilla Spaghetti | 357 cal |
| Barilla Spaghetti No. 5 | 357 cal |
| Garofalo Spaghetti No. 9 | 375 cal |
| De Cecco Spaghetti No. 12 | 357 cal |
| Rummo Spaghetti No. 5 | 356 cal |
| Dreamfields Spaghetti | 339 cal |
Brand popularity: BodyPal food database. Nutrition: manufacturer labels / USDA FoodData Central.
Spaghetti FAQs
How many calories are in a cup of cooked spaghetti?
One cup of cooked spaghetti, not packed, weighs 124 g and holds 195 calories, which works out to 157 calories per 100 g. Press the same cup full and it takes 151 g of noodles, or 237 calories. The cup is the measure that moves; the pasta itself does not change.
How many calories are in 2 oz of dry spaghetti?
Two ounces of dry spaghetti is 57 g and 211 calories, since dry pasta runs 371 calories per 100 g. That is close to what most US boxes print, where the label serving is 56 g and lands between 190 and 210 calories. Weigh it dry and you skip the water problem entirely.
How much does dry spaghetti weigh after cooking?
Dry spaghetti roughly triples in weight in the pot: 1 oz dry yields about 80 g cooked, so a 2 oz (57 g) serving lands near 160 g on the plate — our own arithmetic from USDA figures. The 211 calories do not change while it cooks, and 160 g is more than a packed 151 g cup.
How many carbs are in spaghetti?
A 124 g cup of cooked spaghetti carries 37.9 g of carbohydrate, 14% of the Daily Value, with 2.2 g of that as fiber and only 0.7 g as sugar. Per 100 g the figure is 30.59 g. Dry pasta reads 74.67 g per 100 g, because the water has not gone in yet.
Is whole wheat spaghetti lower in calories?
Whole wheat spaghetti runs 149 calories per 100 g, so a 124 g cup is about 185 calories against 195 for regular spaghetti — a 10-calorie gap. The real difference is fiber: 3.9 g per 100 g versus 1.8 g, more than double. Pick it for the fiber, not for the calorie saving.
Does salting the pasta water add calories?
Salt adds no calories. USDA lists cooked spaghetti with added salt at 157 calories per 100 g and without at 158, which is rounding. What changes is sodium: 131 mg per 100 g from salted water against 1 mg without, or 162 mg versus 1 mg once you scale it to a 124 g cup.
How many calories are in spaghetti with meat sauce?
Restaurant spaghetti with meat sauce is 121 calories per 100 g in USDA's records, so a 124 g portion is about 150 calories by our own arithmetic. That sits below plain spaghetti's 195 because the sauce is mostly water and tomato. Real restaurant plates are far bigger than a cup, which is where the calories come from.
Is spaghetti healthy for weight loss?
A 124 g cup at 195 calories, with 7.2 g of protein and 2.2 g of fiber, fits a normal calorie budget easily; even a packed 151 g cup at 237 does. Spaghetti is rarely the problem, portion drift is. Weigh 2 oz dry before cooking and the guessing stops.
Similar foods
- Eye of round steak — 135 cal for 3 oz cooked
- Roast Beef — 142 cal per 3 oz
- Shrimp Pad Thai — 294 cal per cup
- Steelhead trout — 143 cal for 3 oz cooked
- Toor Dal — 348 cal per cup
- Spaghetti And Meatballs — 961 cal per plate
Count it without the math
Point the camera at the plate and BodyPal counts the spaghetti for you, cup or no cup.
