# Indian Food Calorie Chart: Roti, Daal, Biryani and Why Calorie Apps Get Them Wrong

> Calories in roti, daal, biryani, naan, paneer, dosa and 20 more Indian and Pakistani dishes, plus why most calorie apps misjudge desi food and how to log it accurately.

- Source: https://www.slimai.ai/indian-food-calorie-chart
- Published: November 11, 2026
- Tags: indian food calories, desi food, calorie counter, AI food scanner, calorie tracking

An Indian food calorie chart is the quickest way to get a feel for what is on your plate. A medium roti is about 110 calories, a katori of daal about 150 to 180, and a plate of chicken biryani around 450. The harder part is that desi food rarely matches the numbers in a calorie app, and there are good reasons for that.

This guide gives you realistic calorie ranges for more than 20 Indian and Pakistani dishes, explains why so many trackers get them wrong, and shows how to log desi meals accurately without weighing every roti.

## Indian food calorie chart

Values are approximate and based on typical home-style or dhaba recipes. Where we have a full guide for a dish, the name links to it.

### Breads and rice

| Food | Typical serving | Calories per serving | Calories per 100 g |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [Chapati / roti](https://www.slimai.ai/foods/desi/chapati-roti-calories) | 1 medium (40 g) | About 110 | About 280 |
| [Naan](https://www.slimai.ai/foods/desi/naan-calories) | 1 plain (90 g) | About 260 | About 290 |
| [Aloo paratha](https://www.slimai.ai/foods/desi/aloo-paratha-calories) | 1 medium (120 g) | About 310 | About 260 |
| Plain white rice, cooked | 1 katori (100 g) | About 130 | About 130 |
| [Chicken biryani](https://www.slimai.ai/foods/desi/chicken-biryani-calories) | 1 plate (250 g) | About 450 | About 180 |

### Daal, curries and protein

| Food | Typical serving | Calories per serving | Calories per 100 g |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [Daal (tadka)](https://www.slimai.ai/foods/desi/dal-calories) | 1 small katori (150 g) | About 175 | About 115 |
| [Chicken karahi](https://www.slimai.ai/foods/desi/chicken-karahi-calories) | 1 serving (250 g) | About 430 | About 170 |
| [Nihari](https://www.slimai.ai/foods/desi/nihari-calories) | 1 bowl (350 g) | About 610 | About 175 |
| [Chicken tikka](https://www.slimai.ai/foods/desi/chicken-tikka-calories) | 6 pieces (180 g) | About 295 | About 165 |
| [Paneer](https://www.slimai.ai/foods/desi/paneer-calories) | 100 g, uncooked | About 300 | About 300 |
| [Chole bhature](https://www.slimai.ai/foods/desi/chole-bhature-calories) | 1 full plate (2 bhature + chole, 340 g) | About 750 | About 220 |

### Breakfast and South Indian

| Food | Typical serving | Calories per serving | Calories per 100 g |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [Idli](https://www.slimai.ai/foods/desi/idli-calories) | 1 piece (40 g) | About 50 | About 128 |
| [Plain dosa](https://www.slimai.ai/foods/desi/dosa-calories) | 1 medium (80 g) | About 170 | About 210 |
| [Poha](https://www.slimai.ai/foods/desi/poha-calories) | 1 small bowl (150 g) | About 210 | About 140 |
| [Upma](https://www.slimai.ai/foods/desi/upma-calories) | 1 plate (200 g) | About 320 | About 160 |

### Snacks, street food and sweets

| Food | Typical serving | Calories per serving | Calories per 100 g |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [Samosa](https://www.slimai.ai/foods/desi/samosa-calories) | 1 medium (60 g) | About 160 | About 270 |
| [Chana chaat](https://www.slimai.ai/foods/desi/chana-chaat-calories) | 1 regular bowl (200 g) | About 290 | About 145 |
| [Pani puri](https://www.slimai.ai/foods/desi/pani-puri-calories) | 6 pieces (120 g) | About 210 | About 175 |
| Pakora | 4 medium pieces | About 200–280 | About 280–320 |
| [Gulab jamun](https://www.slimai.ai/foods/desi/gulab-jamun-calories) | 1 medium piece with syrup (45 g) | About 145 | About 320 |
| Doodh patti chai | 1 cup with sugar (150 mL) | About 70–100 | Varies |
| Sweet lassi | 1 glass (250 mL) | About 200–260 | About 80–105 |

For a mixed dish, the per-100 g figure is the most useful number. Estimate your portion weight, then multiply. A typical dinner plate serving of a rice dish is 250 to 350 g.

## Why calorie apps get Indian food wrong

If you have ever logged daal chawal and got a number that felt far off, you are not imagining it. Desi food breaks the assumptions most calorie apps are built on.

### Databases were built for Western food

Most large food databases began with packaged foods and American or European recipes. Desi dishes are often added later by users, with inconsistent recipes and serving sizes. Search "biryani" in a typical app and you may see entries from 250 to 900 calories, with no way to know which one matches your plate.

### Mixed dishes are hard to see

Research backs this up. In 2024, University of Sydney researchers tested 18 popular food tracking apps against Western, Asian and recommended diets, and published the results in *Nutrients*. The AI apps had the most trouble with mixed Asian dishes, where ingredients are cooked together and cannot be picked out in a photo. Some estimates were off by about half. Curry, biryani, haleem and karahi fall into exactly this group.

### Oil and ghee are invisible

One tablespoon of oil or ghee adds about 120 calories. A home cook might use two tablespoons for a family pot, while a restaurant might use six. A photo cannot see the oil absorbed into the gravy, and a database entry has to guess.

### Portions are hand-made

Roti is rolled by hand, rice is served by the spoonful, and curry comes in a katori, not a measured cup. A "medium roti" in one kitchen is a large one in another. The difference between a 40 g and a 60 g roti is about 60 calories, every single time.

### One dish, many names

Daal, dal, dhal and lentil curry. Chapati, roti and phulka. Aloo gobi and gobi aloo. Apps that rely on exact text matches miss half of these, and voice assistants often struggle with the pronunciation.

## How to log desi food accurately

You do not need a kitchen scale for every meal. These habits close most of the gap:

1. **Log the whole plate, not each spoonful.** One entry for roti, daal and sabzi is faster and you are more likely to keep doing it.
2. **Fix the portion first.** Count rotis by size, not by number, and note whether rice was one katori or two.
3. **Add the oil if the dish was rich.** If the gravy glistens or the paratha was fried, add a tablespoon of oil or ghee as its own ingredient.
4. **Learn your own katori.** Weigh your usual bowl and roti once. After that you will know what "one serving" means in your kitchen.
5. **Use per-100 g values for mixed dishes.** They travel better between recipes than "one plate".

For help deciding how much to put on the plate in the first place, see our [portion control plate guide](https://www.slimai.ai/portion-control-plate).

## How SlimAI handles desi food

SlimAI is designed for mixed, home-cooked meals, and desi food is one of the cuisines it is built to handle.

- **Photo scan for mixed plates.** Snap a thali, biryani or karahi and the AI names the dish and estimates the serving. If it spots several portions, you can choose the detected amount.
- **Say it the way you say it.** Voice and text logging take local names, such as "two aloo parathas and a cup of chai".
- **Edit what the camera cannot see.** Add ghee or oil, swap an ingredient, or change the serving before you save.
- **Plan desi meals.** The free [meal plan generator](https://www.slimai.ai/meal-plan-generator) includes a Desi cuisine option, so your plan is made of food you actually cook.

No app can know exactly how much oil went into a curry. What a good tracker can do is give you a realistic starting point and make it quick to correct. If you are curious how close photo estimates get, read [how accurate AI calorie tracking is](https://www.slimai.ai/is-ai-calorie-tracking-accurate).

## Conclusion

Most Indian and Pakistani staples are moderate in calories. Roti is about 110 calories, daal about 150 to 180 a katori, and a plate of biryani about 450. What moves the total is oil, cream, frying and portion size. Calorie apps often get desi food wrong because their databases and image models were trained mostly on Western meals. Use the chart above as your reference, log the whole plate, and correct the portion and oil every time.

## Sources and References

- Li X, Yin A, Choi HY, Chan V, Allman-Farinelli M, Chen J. Evaluating the Quality and Comparative Validity of Manual Food Logging and Artificial Intelligence-Enabled Food Image Recognition in Apps for Nutrition Care. *Nutrients*, 2024;16(15):2573. [doi:10.3390/nu16152573](https://doi.org/10.3390/nu16152573)
- The University of Sydney. [AI food tracking apps need improvement to address accuracy, cultural diversity](https://sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2024/08/29/ai-food-tracking-apps-need-improvement-to-address-cultural-diversity.html), 29 August 2024.
- Longvah T, et al. *Indian Food Composition Tables 2017.* National Institute of Nutrition, Hyderabad.
- U.S. Department of Agriculture. [FoodData Central](https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/).

## Key Takeaways

- One medium roti is about 110 calories, a plate of chicken biryani about 450, and a katori of daal about 150–180.
- Oil and ghee matter more than the dish name: one tablespoon adds about 120 calories, and restaurant curries often carry several.
- Most calorie apps were built on Western food databases, so they struggle with mixed desi dishes, regional names and hand-made portions.
- A 2024 University of Sydney study found AI food apps had the most trouble with mixed Asian dishes, sometimes missing calories by 50% or more.
- The best way to track desi food is to log the whole plate, then correct the portion and the oil rather than accepting the first estimate.

## FAQs

### How many calories are in a typical Indian meal?

A home-style plate of two medium rotis, a katori of daal, a katori of sabzi and some salad usually comes to about 500–650 calories. A restaurant meal with butter chicken, naan and rice can easily pass 1,200 calories, mostly because of extra oil, cream and larger portions.

### Is Indian food high in calories?

Not by default. Staples like roti, daal, chana, sabzi and grilled tikka are moderate. Calories climb with ghee and oil, cream-based gravies, fried snacks like samosa and pakora, and sweets in sugar syrup. Cooking method matters more than the cuisine.

### Which is lower in calories, roti or rice?

Per serving they are close. One medium roti is about 110 calories, and a small katori of cooked rice (about 100 g) is about 130. Gram for gram rice is lower because it holds more water, so the portion you take decides the total.

### What is the best calorie app for Indian food?

Look for an app that recognizes mixed dishes from a photo, understands local names like daal chawal or aloo paratha, and lets you edit ingredients, oil and portion size after the estimate. SlimAI does all three, and you can log by photo, voice or text in your own words.

### Why do calorie apps show different numbers for the same dish?

Each app uses a different database entry and a different idea of a standard serving. A biryani entry might assume 200 g or 400 g, and may or may not include the oil. Always check the serving size behind the number before comparing.

## Try SlimAI

To try SlimAI, download SlimAI Calorie Tracker from the Apple App Store or Google Play and start the 3-day free trial; SlimAI Pro is then $7.99/month or $29.99/year (under $3/month), and can be cancelled anytime from the Apple or Google account that manages the subscription.

- Apple App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/slimai-calorie-tracker/id6749062571
- Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.slimai.app
- Desktop (QR code): https://www.slimai.ai/download