Calorie estimator
Recipe Calorie & Macro Calculator
Type each ingredient, pick the best USDA match, enter quantity in any unit. Get calories plus a protein-carb-fat breakdown per serving and across the whole recipe. 195 foods indexed; unmatched ingredients accept manual values per 100 g.
Recipe details
Ingredients (5)
≈ 400 g · 660 kcal
≈ 316 g · 411 kcal
≈ 200 g · 68 kcal
≈ 27 g · 239 kcal
≈ 9 g · 13 kcal
Type 2+ letters to search the database of 195foods. Pick from the dropdown. If your ingredient isn't listed, fill in kcal per 100 g (and optional macros) manually — find values on the food package or USDA FoodData Central.
Nutrition per serving
348
kcal
Total (4 servings combined)
1391
kcal
139
P g
105
C g
43
F g
How the math works
Every food in the database carries USDA-derived values for kcal, protein, carbohydrate, fat, and fiber per 100 g. The calculator does three things per line:
- 1.Converts your quantity into grams. Mass units (g, kg, oz, lb) are direct. Volume units (cup, tbsp, tsp, ml, l, fl oz) use the ingredient's density — flour packs at 125 g/cup, honey at 339 g/cup, water at 240 g/cup, butter at 227 g/cup. Pieces (whole, slice, each) use per-ingredient standard weights — a large egg is 50 g, a medium banana is 118 g, a slice of white bread is 25 g.
- 2.Multiplies the per-100 g nutrient values by (grams / 100). A 200 g chicken breast contributes 2.0 × the per-100 g values. Simple, exact, no rounding errors.
- 3.Sums every line into a total, divides by your servings count for the per-serving figure. Macro percentages are computed by kilocalorie contribution (4 kcal/g protein, 4 kcal/g carb, 9 kcal/g fat) so the three pie slices always add to 100%.
Why density matters for cup-based recipes
A "cup" is 240 ml of volume, not 240 g of mass. The mass depends entirely on what fills the cup. Look at the spread:
| 1 cup of | Weight (g) | Calories |
|---|---|---|
| All-purpose flour | 125 | 455 |
| Honey | 339 | 1030 |
| Butter | 227 | 1627 |
| Whole milk | 244 | 149 |
| Olive oil | 216 | 1910 |
| Cornflakes | 28 | 100 |
| Cooked white rice | 158 | 205 |
A calorie calculator that ignores density and treats "1 cup" as a fixed weight would be off by 1500% between cornflakes and honey. The unit-aware conversion built into this tool gives the same answer a registered dietitian with a kitchen scale would.
How accurate is "USDA-derived"?
The reference values come from the USDA FoodData Central database (Standard Reference Legacy plus SR-28), which is the same source nearly every commercial nutrition tracker uses. Lab-measured ranges for the same food can vary ±10-15% depending on cultivar, ripeness, fat trim, and cooking method. The values here are conservative medians.
For medical-grade precision (managing diabetes, training for a competition), pair this calculator with a kitchen scale and check package labels — manufacturers' printed values reflect their specific product and override generic database values.
What the macro split tells you
Calories tell you energy load. Macros tell you what kind of fuel. The split is computed from kilocalorie contribution, not gram weight, because that's what matters biologically. Quick reference for common dietary targets per serving:
- High-protein meal:protein > 30% of calories. Typical chicken-and-veg dinners land here. Good for muscle recovery and satiety.
- Balanced meal: protein 20-30%, carb 40-55%, fat 20-35%. The most studied long-term sustainable pattern.
- Keto / low-carb: carb under 10%, fat above 65%. Most regular recipes will not reach this without substitutions — see the Substitution Matcher for low-carb swaps.
- Pre-workout / endurance: carb above 60%. Pasta, rice, oats, fruit lift this number fast.
Pair with other RecipeCrave tools
- • Real-time Recipe Scaler — scale calories proportionally when you change servings
- • Cups → Grams Converter — convert legacy recipes into the weight-based form this calculator favors
- • Recipe Cost Calculator — pair calorie data with cost-per-serving for full meal-prep accounting