October 17, 2026

Raw vs Cooked Meat Calories and Protein (USDA Chart)

Raw vs cooked meat: raw beef steak with peppercorns and herbs

Raw vs cooked meat in one line: cooked meat has more calories and protein per 100 g than raw meat, but cooking doesn’t add any. Meat loses water as it cooks, so the same protein is packed into less weight. A 100 g raw chicken breast has 22.5 g of protein; after grilling it weighs about 75 g and still has about 22.5 g, which works out to 30.5 g per 100 g of cooked chicken. The chart below shows raw and cooked values side by side from USDA FoodData Central.

Quick answer

Raw meat does not have more protein than cooked meat; the protein stays the same while water is lost. Per 100 g, cooked meat usually shows about 25 to 50% more protein than raw (less for salmon). Nutrition labels on fresh meat describe the raw product, so weigh meat raw if you track with label values.

Table of Contents

Raw vs Cooked Meat Calories and Protein per 100 g

Food	Raw kcal	Raw protein	Raw fat	Cooked	Cooked kcal	Cooked protein	Cooked fat
Chicken breast, skinless	120	22.5 g	2.6 g	grilled	151	30.5 g	3.2 g
Chicken thigh, skinless	121	19.7 g	4.1 g	roasted	179	24.8 g	8.2 g
Ground beef 80/20	254	17.2 g	20 g	broiled patty	270	25.8 g	17.8 g
Ground beef 90/10	176	20 g	10 g	broiled patty	217	26.1 g	11.8 g
Beef eye of round, lean	121	23.4 g	3 g	roasted	163	29.8 g	3.9 g
Ground turkey 93/7	150	18.7 g	8.3 g	pan-browned	213	27.1 g	11.6 g
Ground lamb	282	16.6 g	23.4 g	broiled	283	24.8 g	19.6 g
Atlantic salmon, farmed	208	20.4 g	13.4 g	baked or grilled	206	22.1 g	12.4 g
Tilapia	96	20.1 g	1.7 g	baked or grilled	128	26.2 g	2.7 g
Atlantic cod	82	17.8 g	0.7 g	baked or grilled	105	22.8 g	0.9 g

USDA FoodData Central, SR Legacy (raw/cooked IDs: 171077/171534, 173627/172388, 174036/171797, 174030/174031, 173998/170633, 172850/172851, 174370/172544, 175167/175168, 175176/175177, 171955/171956). Edible meat only, no bone or skin.

Why Cooked Meat Shows More Calories per 100 g

Muscle is about 70 to 75% water. Heat shrinks the protein fibers and squeezes some of that water out, so a piece of meat typically loses 20 to 30% of its weight as it cooks. The protein, and most of the fat, stays behind in a smaller piece, so every 100 g of cooked meat contains more of both.

Fatty meats are the exception for calories. Ground beef 80/20 and ground lamb render a lot of fat into the pan, so their calories per 100 g barely rise even though protein jumps by about half. Salmon loses less water than lean fish, so its numbers change the least.

What 100 g of Raw Meat Becomes After Cooking

100 g raw	Approx. cooked weight	Protein (unchanged)	Calories in that cooked portion
Chicken breast	about 75 g	22.5 g	about 110
Chicken thigh	about 80 g	19.7 g	about 140
Ground beef 80/20	about 65 to 70 g	17.2 g	about 180
Ground beef 90/10	about 75 g	20 g	about 165
Beef eye of round	about 80 g	23.4 g	about 130
Ground turkey 93/7	about 70 g	18.7 g	about 145
Tilapia	about 75 g	20.1 g	about 100

Estimated from the USDA values above, assuming protein is retained during cooking. Actual weight loss varies with cut, temperature and doneness.

For lean meats the calories in the cooked portion are close to the raw calories, because almost nothing but water is lost. For fatty ground meats, the cooked portion has fewer calories than the raw meat you started with, because fat drips away. That is also why 200 g of raw ground beef usually ends up as about 130 to 150 g cooked.

Are Nutrition Labels on Meat Raw or Cooked?

Labels on fresh, uncooked meat and poultry describe the product as packaged, which means raw. Packages of cooked products such as deli meat or rotisserie chicken describe the cooked food. If you log a label’s values, weigh the meat in the same state: raw for a raw label. Logging cooked weight against raw values undercounts protein and calories by about 25 to 50%.

How to Convert Raw Weight to Cooked Weight

Weigh the raw meat and calculate its nutrition from raw values.
Cook it, then weigh the whole cooked batch.
Divide the raw totals by the cooked weight to get values per gram of cooked meat.
Weigh each portion you serve and multiply.

Example: 500 g of raw chicken breast has 112 g of protein. If it weighs 375 g after grilling, each 100 g cooked portion has about 30 g of protein.

Cook ground meats to 160°F, poultry to 165°F, and whole cuts of beef and lamb to 145°F with a 3-minute rest, per the FoodSafety.gov temperature chart.