Poha calories: one bowl, one plate, or 50 g of flakes
Poha is one of the honest breakfasts — but the number depends entirely on whether someone is weighing dry flakes or serving a cooked bowl. This page gives both, using the same chart your ForgeFitWithSidd food log uses.
If you want the plate total rather than the flakes, read the last two lines of the table: that is a cooked bowl with something protein-rich added.
The short answer
One bowl of cooked poha (200 g) is about 270 calories, with 6 g protein, 46 g carbs and 5 g fat. A "plate" of poha is the same serving under a different name, so it is the same 270.
Dry flakes are the other end of the same food: 100 g of poha flakes is 354 calories, so the 50 g most home recipes use is 177 before anything is fried in it. Cook those flakes in a teaspoon of oil and the bowl lands at about 221 calories — which is why "poha is light" and "poha made me stall" can both be true.
Calories per bowl, plate and weight
Cooked lines are the chart's own bowl. The dry lines are the uncooked flakes, so you can scale to your own kitchen.
| Serving | How it was measured | kcal | P (g) | C (g) | F (g) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 bowl poha | 1 bowl (200 g) | 270 | 6 | 46 | 5 |
| 1 plate poha | the same 200 g serving, called a plate | 270 | 6 | 46 | 5 |
| 1/2 bowl poha | 100 g cooked | 135 | 3 | 23 | 2.5 |
| 100 g poha flakes (dry) | uncooked weight | 354 | 7.4 | 76.8 | 0.9 |
| 50 g poha flakes (dry) | uncooked weight | 177 | 3.7 | 38.4 | 0.5 |
| 50 g flakes + 1 tsp oil | what a home bowl is cooked from | 221 | 3.7 | 38.4 | 5.5 |
| 1 bowl poha + 1 boiled egg | cooked bowl plus one egg | 348 | 12.3 | 46.6 | 10.3 |
| 1 bowl poha + 100 g curd | cooked bowl plus plain curd | 331 | 9.5 | 50.7 | 8.3 |
What changes the number most
Poha is flat rice, so the variation comes from the pan, not the flakes.
- Oil and ghee. A teaspoon of oil is about 44 calories, and most home recipes use more than one for a single bowl.
- What goes in with it. Peanuts, potato, peas and raisons all add calories that nobody lists when they say “poha is 200 calories”.
- Sweet poha. Sugar turns the same flakes into a different meal — weigh it rather than eyeball it.
- Bowl size. A restaurant bowl holds far more than 200 g, and the number climbs with it.
The reliable method: weigh the dry flakes you cook, log that, and add the oil separately. Then the bowl size you happened to serve yourself stops mattering.
Poha beside the other breakfast plates
Same chart, same serving logic — so a swap is an informed one.
| Serving | How it was measured | kcal | P (g) | C (g) | F (g) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 bowl poha | 1 bowl (200 g) | 270 | 6 | 46 | 5 |
| 1 katori dal tadka | 1 katori (180 g) | 180 | 9 | 22 | 5.9 |
| 1 medium roti | 1 medium roti | 96 | 3.2 | 19.3 | 0.4 |
| 2 idli with sambar | 2 idli + sambar | 250 | 9 | 45 | 4 |
| 1 masala dosa | 1 dosa with potato | 330 | 7 | 48 | 12 |
| 100 g murmura (puffed rice) | no oil added | 362 | 7.5 | 78 | 1.6 |
Poha is carbs first
A cooked bowl carries 6 g of protein. That is not a flaw — it is the reason a poha breakfast often leaves you hungry by eleven. Put curd, a boiled egg or a katori of dal beside it and the same meal holds you until lunch. The protein rows in the dal calories page show what that adds.
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Tell us what you ate and we'll estimate the calories, protein, carbs and fat — using the same numbers as the charts on this site. No sign-up needed.
The two full charts
Staples, dals, dairy, cooked dishes and cooking fats are in the Indian food calories chart. Samosa, pakora, pani puri, vada pav, namkeen and mithai are in the separate Indian snacks calories chart.
Want these numbers turned into your plan?
A chart tells you what food contains. Coaching tells you how much of it you need — calorie and macro targets calculated from your own body and goal, built around Indian, Western, vegetarian, non-vegetarian or Jain eating.