Dal calories by the katori: moong, urad, mixed and dal makhani
Dal is the default protein of the Indian kitchen, and it is also where most calorie tracking quietly goes wrong. Food databases report dal per 100 grams. Nobody serves dal in grams. You serve it in katoris, and the gap between those two units is where estimates drift.
This guide gives you cooked, as-served numbers for the dals people actually make, in the portions people actually eat. Everything below is computed from the Indian Nutrient Databank (INDB), a published, peer-reviewed dataset of Indian recipes, using standard household measures.
The quick answer
A katori here is the standard steel bowl, about 150 g of cooked dal. A “full bowl” is the larger household serving the INDB uses, roughly 280 to 300 g.
| Dal (cooked, as served) | 1 katori (150 g) | Protein | 1 full bowl | Protein |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Washed moong dal | 75 kcal | 4.1 g | 139 kcal (277 g) | 7.5 g |
| Washed urad dal | 92 kcal | 3.8 g | 181 kcal (296 g) | 7.4 g |
| Mixed dal | 93 kcal | 3.8 g | 185 kcal (298 g) | 7.5 g |
| Dal makhani (urad + rajma + ghee) | 155 kcal | 5.9 g | 296 kcal (287 g) | 11.2 g |
Two things stand out. First, plain home dals sit in a narrow band: roughly 75 to 95 kcal per katori. If you remember one number, remember “a katori of plain dal is about 80 to 90 kcal.” Second, dal makhani is not “just another dal.” The urad and rajma base plus ghee and cream roughly doubles the energy per bowl. That is not a reason to avoid it. It is a reason to log it as what it is.
Why your app shows a different number
If you have seen dal listed anywhere from 100 to 350 kcal per 100 g, here is what is going on:
- Dry versus cooked basis. Raw moong dal is about 350 kcal per 100 g. Cooked dal is mostly water, so the same 100 g drops to 50 to 60 kcal. Databases that list the dry value make your katori look three times heavier than it is.
- Recipe differences. A dal is a recipe, not an ingredient. Water ratio, ghee in the tadka, and cream change everything. The INDB numbers above are full recipes, cooked and served, which is why they are more useful than a raw-lentil entry.
- Portion guessing. Apps that default “1 serving” to 100 g undercount a real katori by a third.
The tadka is a separate line
The most common source of drift in home dal is not the dal. It is the oil or ghee on top. One teaspoon of cooking fat adds about 41 kcal. One tablespoon adds about 124 kcal, which can nearly match the katori of moong dal underneath it. If your dal is tadka-heavy, log the fat as its own line and your numbers will stop wobbling.
An honest word about protein
Dal has a reputation as a protein powerhouse, and per rupee it is. Per calorie it is decent: moong dal delivers about 5.4 g of protein per 100 kcal, the best ratio in the table. But in absolute terms a katori gives you about 4 g. If your target is 60 g or more a day, dal alone will not get you there. Pair it with dahi, paneer, soya, eggs, or simply more dal, and count what actually lands on the plate.
Log it in one line
Nourished was built for exactly this math. Type “dal makhani, 1 katori, extra tadka” and it returns an editable log with the cooked-basis numbers above, portion in katoris, tadka as its own line. Every estimate is editable and editing is always free. Get early access at nourished.fit.
Method and sources. Nutrition values computed from the Indian Nutrient Databank (Vijayakumar et al., 2024, CC BY 4.0), cooked as-served basis, using INDB household serving weights; katori standardized at 150 g cooked. Oil energy from USDA FoodData Central. Values are honest estimates for home cooking, not lab measurements of your specific pot, which is exactly why every number in Nourished stays editable.