How Many Calories in a Top Sirloin Steak?

The calories in a top sirloin steak come to 413 for a 6 oz cooked steak (170 g), or 243 per 100 g. That is the steak as it reaches the plate: broiled, fat cap still on. Cut the fat edge away and the same steak falls to 303. Weigh it before it hits the heat and an 8 oz raw steak reads 456.

You'd need to walk about 83 minutes to burn the 413 calories in a 6 oz cooked steak (170 g).

On this page

• Top sirloin steak quick facts
• The 8 oz steak that arrives as 6 oz
• Serving sizes, raw and cooked
• What the knife takes off
• Grill, broiler or skillet
• Protein, sodium and the saturated fat line
• How top sirloin compares with other steaks
• Most popular top sirloin steak brands
• Top sirloin steak FAQs

Top sirloin steak quick facts

The reference here is a top sirloin steak trimmed to a 1/8-inch fat cap, broiled, lean and fat eaten together — the way almost everyone actually eats one.

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

Two numbers in that column deserve a second look, and they pull in opposite directions. Protein is 92 % of the day in one steak. Saturated fat is 48 % — close to half the daily allowance, from a single piece of meat. The zeros are real zeros, not missing data: beef carries no carbohydrate, no fiber and no sugar at all.

The headline figure comes from USDA record 168727, and a second database backs it. USDA's survey data, built from what Americans report eating rather than from lab-trimmed cuts, lists sirloin steak at 239 calories per 100 g — two percent off the 243. Two independently built datasets landing that close is about as much agreement as food data ever gives you.

The 8 oz steak that arrives as 6 oz

Here is the number nobody puts on the menu. Beef loses roughly a quarter of its weight on the grill, and USDA measured it directly: 505 g of raw steak yielded 375 g cooked, 518 g yielded 384 g, 532 g yielded 393 g. That is a shrink to about 74 %, three times over.

Restaurants quote the weight before cooking. So the 8 oz sirloin on the menu is 227 g of raw beef that arrives at your table as roughly 168 g — a hair under 6 oz.

This is why raw and cooked calorie figures must never be added together, and why the two numbers look strange side by side:

• 8 oz raw steak, 227 g: 456 calories (201 per 100 g)
• The same steak cooked, ~170 g: 413 calories (243 per 100 g)

The 43-calorie gap is not a rounding error and it is not shrinkage of the meat. It is fat that ran into the pan. Raw, that steak holds 28.9 g of fat; cooked, it holds 24.2 g. Roughly 4.7 g of fat left the meat, which is about 42 calories. Protein barely moves: 46.1 g raw against 45.8 g cooked.

The rule is simple. Weigh it once. Either weigh it raw and use 201 calories per 100 g, or weigh it cooked and use 243. Doing both double-counts the same steak.

Serving sizes, raw and cooked

Cooked weights, from the broiled reference record at 243 calories per 100 g:

Raw weights, from the same cut uncooked at 201 calories per 100 g. Use this column if you weighed the steak in its package:

The 3 oz row is the one federal guidance is built around; MyPlate counts a 3 oz cooked portion as a standard serving of protein food. Almost nobody eats a sirloin that size. A 6 oz steak is two servings, and the 12 oz cut sold as a single steak in the meat case is four.

One more conversion worth having: a 6 oz raw steak cooks down to about 126 g, which comes out at 306 calories. The words "six ounce steak" can mean 413 or 342 depending on which side of the grill you weighed it.

What the knife takes off

Nothing else on this page saves calories as fast as cutting off the fat cap.

The USDA records run in a ladder, all of them cooked, all of them the same cut, per 100 g:

• Lean and fat, 1/8-inch trim: 243
• Lean and fat, trimmed flush to 0 inches: 212
• Lean only, fat cap removed: 178

For a 6 oz steak that is 413 calories down to 303. A hundred and ten calories, five seconds of knife work, no change to how much meat you eat.

The trade is better than it sounds, because protein moves the other way. Lean and fat runs 26.96 g of protein per 100 g; lean only runs 29.42 g. You are removing pure fat, so what remains is denser in the thing you bought the steak for.

Grade matters too, and it matters more than most people expect. Choice top sirloin comes in at 257 calories per 100 g cooked; select, from leaner carcasses, at 230. The all-grades average of 243 sits between them. That is a 27-calorie spread per 100 g decided by a stamp on the box.

Supermarket labels stretch the range further still. Packaged top sirloin sold in the US runs anywhere from about 107 to 219 calories per 100 g raw — a two-fold spread on one cut. Grass-fed marketing is not the reason. The reason is how much of the fat cap the butcher left on: the low labels are effectively USDA lean-only beef at 131 calories per 100 g raw, the high ones are lean-and-fat at 201. Check the fat line on the package. Under 5 g per 4 oz means you bought a trimmed steak.

USDA's own newer sampling agrees. Raw top sirloin analyzed in recent Foundation Foods work carries 5.71 g of fat per 100 g, against 12.71 g in the older reference record. Today's meat case is genuinely leaner than the tables built in the 1990s.

Grill, broiler or skillet

Same steak, same grade, two cooking methods, and USDA measured both.

Ninety-five calories, decided by the equipment. Over a grate or under a broiler, rendered fat drips away and leaves the meat. In a skillet the steak sits in that fat and takes some of it back, along with whatever butter or oil the pan started with.

If you cook steak often, this is the single largest lever on the page after the knife.

Protein, sodium and the saturated fat line

A 6 oz top sirloin delivers 45.8 g of protein for 413 calories, which is 92 % of the Daily Value the FDA sets for a 2,000-calorie diet. The micronutrients ride along with it:

• Vitamin B12: 2.7 µg, 113 % DV
• Selenium: 49.6 µg, 90 % DV
• Niacin: 12.2 mg, 76 % DV
• Zinc: 8.3 mg, 75 % DV
• Iron: 2.9 mg, 16 % DV

Now the sodium, which is where steak gets a reputation it has not earned. Unseasoned top sirloin holds 56 mg of sodium per 100 g. A 6 oz steak is 95 mg — 4 % of the day. As it comes off the animal, steak is a low-sodium food.

What people actually eat is a different record. USDA's survey database, which reflects sirloin as prepared and seasoned in American kitchens and restaurants, puts sodium at 361 mg per 100 g. One regular-sized 160 g steak by that measure carries 578 mg, or 25 % of the day. Six times the sodium of the plain cut, and every milligram of the difference came from the salt shaker, the marinade or the sauce. Chain restaurants push it the same direction: the USDA record for a Denny's top sirloin lists 182 calories per 100 g and 349 mg of sodium per 100 g, so a 107 g steak arrives at 195 calories with 373 mg of sodium — smaller and saltier than what you would cook at home.

Saturated fat is the number that sets the limit on this meal. A 6 oz steak carries 9.5 g, 48 % of the Daily Value, and the Dietary Guidelines for Americans keep saturated fat under 10 % of daily calories. One steak uses roughly half of that allowance. Trimming the cap is the fix that costs nothing: lean-only sirloin runs 2.224 g of saturated fat per 100 g against 5.603 g with the fat on.

For anyone counting carbohydrate, top sirloin is as clean as food gets. Zero carbs, zero sugar, zero fiber, per 100 g and per steak alike.

How top sirloin compares with other steaks

All five are cooked, lean and fat, all grades — so the comparison is fair rather than flattering.

Our take: top sirloin is the value pick of the group. It sits 82 calories below a ribeye at 6 oz and carries more protein per 100 g than ribeye, strip or filet, which is why it shows up in meal-prep containers far more often than it shows up on tasting menus. If you want the leanest steak on the list, flank wins outright at 326 calories for 6 oz with 27.7 g of protein per 100 g — and it needs slicing against the grain to be worth eating. If you want the one that tastes like an occasion, ribeye earns its 495, and a trimmed top sirloin at 303 is what the other six nights of the week look like.

Most popular top sirloin 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.

Brand popularity: BodyPal food database. Nutrition: manufacturer labels / USDA FoodData Central.

Top sirloin steak FAQs

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Count it without the math

Point the camera at the plate and BodyPal handles the raw-versus-cooked question for you, calories and protein together.