How Many Calories in a Taco Salad?
A medium taco salad is 564 calories: 315 g of lettuce, seasoned ground beef, cheese and tortilla pieces at 179 calories per 100 g. Order it small and you are at 424. Order it large and you are at 703. The measuring cup most apps offer instead is 122 g, and that comes to 218.
You'd need to walk about 113 minutes to burn the 564 calories in a medium taco salad (315 g).
How long does it take to burn off a taco salad?
A medium taco salad (315 g) is 564 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 564 kcal |
|---|---|
| Walking, brisk | 1 hr 53 min |
| Cycling, moderate | 1 hr 10 min |
| Swimming, moderate | 1 hr 21 min |
| Jogging | 1 hr 6 min |
| Weight training, moderate | 2 hr 5 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 (315 g); change it to what you actually ate. BodyPal works this out from your steps automatically.
On this page
- Taco salad quick facts
- Plate size beats every ingredient swap
- Why one cup is the wrong unit
- The shell is not in the number
- Chicken, meatless and the sour cream question
- Sodium arrives before the salsa
- How does taco salad compare?
- Most popular taco salad brands
- FAQ
Taco salad quick facts
The reference on this page is USDA's Taco or tostada salad with meat, FNDDS record 2708508: the generic homemade or deli version with seasoned ground beef, not one chain's menu item. Serving is one medium salad, which USDA weighs at 315 g.
| Nutrient | Per 100 g | Per 1 medium taco salad (315 g) | % Daily Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calories | 179 | 564 | — |
| Total fat | 9.32 g | 29.4 g | 38% |
| Saturated fat | 2.886 g | 9.1 g | 46% |
| Carbohydrate | 16.49 g | 51.9 g | 19% |
| Dietary fiber | 2.9 g | 9.1 g | 33% |
| Total sugars | 1.8 g | 5.7 g | — |
| Protein | 7.45 g | 23.5 g | 47% |
| Sodium | 319 mg | 1005 mg | 44% |
| Cholesterol | 15 mg | 47 mg | 16% |
| Potassium | 222 mg | 699 mg | 15% |
% 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 and neither is an oversight. USDA's FNDDS entry for taco salad reports no added sugars and no trans fat figure, so those lines are left out rather than guessed at. Total sugars carry no Daily Value under the FDA label rules, which is why that cell is empty as well.
What jumps off the table is the pair at the bottom of the fat block and the top of the mineral block. Saturated fat is 9.1 g, or 46% of the day in one plate. Sodium is 1,005 mg, 44%, before anyone reaches for salsa. Against that, fiber at 9.1 g (33% DV) and protein at 23.5 g (47% DV) are a genuinely strong return for 564 calories.
Plate size beats every ingredient swap
USDA lists six household servings for this one record, and the spread between them decides more than any choice you make at the counter.
| Serving | Weight | Calories |
|---|---|---|
| 1 small taco salad | 237 g | 424 |
| 1 medium taco salad | 315 g | 564 |
| 1 large taco salad | 393 g | 703 |
| 1 restaurant-size salad | 420 g | 752 |
| 1 cup | 122 g | 218 |
| 1 oz | 28 g | 50 |
Small to large is a swing of 279 calories off the same recipe. Switching the ground beef for chicken saves 30. Dropping the meat entirely saves 57. The plate in front of you is worth roughly five times as much as the protein decision, and it is the one variable nobody logs.
Everything else scales with it. A small plate carries 17.7 g of protein and 756 mg of sodium (33% DV). A large one carries 29.3 g of protein, 11.3 g of saturated fat (57% DV) and 1,254 mg of sodium (55% DV). Same salad, same kitchen, 498 mg of sodium apart.
If you eat taco salad out, the 420 g row is the honest default. That is 752 calories and 1,340 mg of sodium, which is what a restaurant bowl actually weighs when it arrives.
Why one cup is the wrong unit
Search for taco salad calories and a lot of the numbers you find sit somewhere near 218. That is USDA's cup measure: 122 g, and it is not a meal.
A cup of taco salad is 218 calories, 9.1 g of protein, 20.1 g of carbohydrate, 11.4 g of fat and 389 mg of sodium. Compare it with the medium plate and the cup is under 40% of the real portion. Log a cup when you ate a plate and you are short by roughly 346 calories, which is more than most people's entire afternoon snack budget.
Taco salad is a scoop-and-pile food. Nobody levels it into a measuring cup, and the greens make the volume unreliable anyway: press the lettuce down and the same cup holds noticeably more salad. Weigh it if you can, and if you cannot, pick small, medium or large and stay honest about which one is on the table.
The oz row has the same problem in the other direction. One ounce is 50 calories, a useful figure for topping up a log but meaningless as a serving.
The shell is not in the number
This one catches almost everybody. The USDA record covers the salad: greens, meat, cheese, rice, tomato, the tortilla strips mixed through it. It does not cover the fried tortilla bowl the salad often arrives in, and it does not cover folded shells stood up on top, the way they sit in the photo above.
Eat the bowl and you add a lot. A store-bought taco salad shell runs 477 calories per 100 g, and one shell weighs about 44 g, so the vessel alone is 210 calories — almost exactly one more cup of salad, and pure refined carbohydrate and frying fat.
That is the single biggest number missing from most taco salad entries. A 564-calorie medium salad eaten out of an edible bowl is a 774-calorie meal, and the difference is the part people think of as the plate.
The fix is not complicated. Order the salad in a plain bowl and the tortilla element you actually taste comes from the strips already counted in the 564. If you want the shell, count it as a side, not as tableware.
Chicken, meatless and the sour cream question
USDA publishes six separate records for taco salad rather than one recipe with adjustments, and the medium serving weight changes with each. That second detail is where the arithmetic goes wrong on other sites.
| Version (USDA record) | Per 100 g | Medium serving | Calories |
|---|---|---|---|
| With ground beef (2708508) | 179 | 315 g | 564 |
| With chicken (2708509) | 167 | 320 g | 534 |
| Meatless (2708510) | 163 | 311 g | 507 |
| With beef and sour cream (2708511) | 181 | 358 g | 648 |
| With chicken and sour cream (2708512) | 171 | 363 g | 621 |
| Meatless with sour cream (2708513) | 167 | 354 g | 591 |
Chicken saves 30 calories, about 5%, and gives you slightly more protein for the trouble: 25.1 g against 23.5 g. The bigger gain is saturated fat, which falls from 9.1 g to 7.3 g a plate.
Meatless is the fiber play. At 507 calories it is 57 below the beef version, and it carries 11.5 g of fiber in a medium plate, 41% of the Daily Value against 33%. Protein drops hard, though, from 23.5 g to 16.4 g, so it stops being the high-protein lunch the beef version is.
Now the sour cream, and this is the counterintuitive part. Per 100 g the beef-and-sour-cream salad is 181 calories against 179 — a difference of two, which reads as though sour cream is free. It is not. USDA weighs that medium serving at 358 g rather than 315 g, so you are eating 43 g more salad, and the plate lands at 648 calories. The cost is +84 calories, and it comes from the grams, not the density. Saturated fat goes with it, from 9.1 g to 13.8 g, which is 69% of the day.
Read the per-100-g column on its own and you would conclude sour cream costs nothing. Read the serving weight next to it and the picture changes completely. That trap repeats through all three sour cream rows.
Sodium arrives before the salsa
Calories bring people to a taco salad page. Sodium is the number that deserves the attention.
- 1 cup, 122 g: 389 mg (17% DV)
- 1 small salad, 237 g: 756 mg (33% DV)
- 1 medium salad, 315 g: 1,005 mg (44% DV)
- 1 large salad, 393 g: 1,254 mg (55% DV)
- Restaurant chain salad, 533 g: 1,935 mg (84% DV)
The FDA Daily Value is 2,300 mg, roughly a teaspoon of table salt across a whole day. A medium plate spends 44% of it, and that figure already assumes you add nothing. Taco seasoning, salsa, cheese and tortilla strips are each salty on their own, which is how a plate of greens reaches 44% of the day.
The chain figure is worth knowing on its own terms. USDA's SR Legacy record for a restaurant taco salad is a 533 g item at 170 calories per 100 g: 906 calories, 35.7 g of protein, 15.9 g of saturated fat (79% DV) and 1,935 mg of sodium. The recipe is no heavier per gram than a homemade one. It is 1.7 times the size.
Saturated fat is the second line to watch. A medium homemade plate holds 9.1 g, 46% of the Daily Value, and the Dietary Guidelines for Americans asks for saturated fat to stay under 10% of daily calories. Cheese and ground beef do most of that work, which means leaner meat or less cheese moves this number faster than anything else on the plate.
The vegetables underneath are doing real work too. Lettuce, tomato and beans put a taco salad squarely in two MyPlate groups at once, and 9.1 g of fiber in a single lunch is a third of the day.
How does taco salad compare?
| Food | Per 100 g | US serving | Calories | Protein |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Taco salad with ground beef | 179 | 1 medium salad (315 g) | 564 | 23.5 g |
| Taco salad with chicken | 167 | 1 medium salad (320 g) | 534 | 25.1 g |
| Taco salad, meatless | 163 | 1 medium salad (311 g) | 507 | 16.4 g |
| Beef and cheese taco, corn tortilla | 249 | 1 taco (105 g) | 261 | 16.2 g |
| Restaurant chain taco salad | 170 | 1 item (533 g) | 906 | 35.7 g |
Per 100 g the taco salads are the lightest things on that list, at 163 to 179 against 249 for a beef taco, and per plate they are among the heaviest. A single beef taco is 249 calories per 100 g, nearly 40% denser, and still lands at only 261 calories because it weighs 105 g.
Our take: if you want the lower-calorie lunch, two tacos at 522 calories — our doubling of USDA's 105 g taco — beat the medium salad at 564, and they beat it on protein per calorie as well: 6.2 g per 100 calories against 4.2 g. The salad wins on everything volume buys you: 9.1 g of fiber, a plate that takes twenty minutes to eat, and vegetables you would not otherwise get at lunch. Choose the chicken version if you want both, since 534 calories with 25.1 g of protein is the best ratio in the table that still looks like a salad.
Most popular taco salad 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) |
|---|---|
| Taylor Farms Taco Salad | 130 cal |
| Ready Pac Foods Chicken Taco Salad | 141 cal |
| Lunds & Byerlys Beef Taco Salad | 149 cal |
| Lunds & Byerlys Shrimp Taco Salad | 95 cal |
Brand popularity: BodyPal food database. Nutrition: manufacturer labels / USDA FoodData Central.
Taco salad FAQs
How many calories in a taco salad?
564 calories in one medium taco salad with ground beef, weighing 315 g, at 179 calories per 100 g. A small 237 g plate is 424 calories and a large 393 g plate is 703. A restaurant-size 420 g serving reaches 752.
How many calories in a cup of taco salad?
218 calories in 1 cup (122 g), with 9.1 g of protein, 20.1 g of carbohydrate, 11.4 g of fat and 389 mg of sodium. That is under 40% of a real medium plate, so logging a cup when you ate a plate undercounts by around 346 calories.
How many calories in a taco salad without the shell?
564 calories, because the USDA figure never included the shell. The record covers the salad only, tortilla strips included. A fried taco salad shell runs 477 calories per 100 g and weighs about 44 g, so eating the bowl adds roughly 210 calories on top.
How many calories in a taco salad with chicken?
534 calories in a medium 320 g plate, at 167 calories per 100 g. That saves 30 calories against ground beef, about 5%, while protein rises to 25.1 g and saturated fat drops from 9.1 g to 7.3 g.
How many calories in a meatless taco salad?
507 calories in a medium 311 g plate, at 163 calories per 100 g, which is 57 fewer than the beef version. Fiber climbs to 11.5 g, or 41% of the Daily Value, but protein falls to 16.4 g from 23.5 g.
How much protein is in a taco salad?
23.5 g in a medium plate, which is 47% of the Daily Value for 564 calories, or 7.45 g per 100 g. The chicken version gives 25.1 g, the meatless one 16.4 g, and a 533 g restaurant salad reaches 35.7 g.
How much sodium is in a taco salad?
1,005 mg in a medium 315 g plate, which is 44% of the 2,300 mg Daily Value. A small plate holds 756 mg, a large one 1,254 mg, and a 533 g restaurant salad reaches 1,935 mg, or 84% of the day.
Is taco salad healthy?
A medium plate gives 23.5 g of protein (47% DV) and 9.1 g of fiber (33% DV) for 564 calories, which is a good trade. The lines to manage are saturated fat at 9.1 g (46% DV) and sodium at 1,005 mg (44% DV), both driven by cheese, seasoning and the meat rather than the vegetables.
Similar foods
- Stuffed pepper — 265 cal for 1/2 pepper with filling
- Onigiri — 180 cal per onigiri
- BBQ Chicken — 149 cal per 3 oz
- Pork Chop — 220 cal per regular chop
- Gyro — 368 cal per sandwich
- Sloppy Joe — 342 cal per sandwich
Count it without the math
Point the camera at the plate and BodyPal reads the salad, the shell and the sodium in one shot.
