A cooked, boneless, skinless chicken breast contains about 165 calories and 31 grams of protein per 100 grams. A whole breast, which typically weighs around 172 grams after cooking, comes in at 284 calories with roughly 53 grams of protein. That makes chicken breast one of the most protein-dense foods you can eat, with 80% of its calories coming from protein and only 20% from fat.
Calories and Protein by Serving Size
Chicken breasts vary quite a bit in size, so knowing the numbers per serving weight is more useful than “per breast.” Here’s what a boneless, skinless cooked chicken breast looks like at common portions:
- 3 oz (85 g): 128 calories, 26 g protein, 2.7 g fat
- 4 oz (113 g): approximately 170 calories, 35 g protein, 3.6 g fat
- 6 oz (170 g): approximately 256 calories, 52 g protein, 5.4 g fat
- One whole breast (172 g): 284 calories, 53 g protein, 6.2 g fat
Chicken breast contains zero carbohydrates on its own, so you’re looking at a pure protein-and-fat food. The fat content is low enough that even a generous portion stays well under 10 grams.
Raw vs. Cooked Weight
If you’re weighing your chicken before cooking, expect it to lose roughly 15 to 25 percent of its weight as moisture evaporates. A 300-gram raw breast typically shrinks to about 250 grams once cooked. This matters for calorie tracking: the nutrition labels on raw chicken packaging reflect the raw weight, while restaurant nutrition info and most databases list cooked values. If you log a raw weight using a cooked-chicken entry (or vice versa), your numbers will be off by a meaningful amount.
The simplest approach is to weigh your chicken raw and use a raw nutrition entry, or weigh it cooked and use a cooked entry. Mixing them up is the most common source of error when people track chicken calories.
How Skin Changes the Numbers
Leaving the skin on a chicken breast adds nearly 102 extra calories, almost entirely from fat. A skin-on cooked breast (196 g) contains 386 calories and 15.2 grams of fat, compared to 284 calories and 6.2 grams of fat for skinless. That shifts the calorie breakdown from 80/20 protein-to-fat all the way to 61/39.
At a 3-ounce serving size, the difference is about 38 extra calories: 166 calories for skin-on versus 128 for skinless. If you’re eating chicken breast specifically for its protein-to-calorie ratio, removing the skin keeps that ratio at its best. If you’re less concerned about calories and want the flavor, the skin adds fat but doesn’t change the protein content in any significant way.
How Cooking Method Affects Calories
Grilling, baking, roasting, and poaching a plain chicken breast all produce similar calorie counts because you’re not adding significant fat during cooking. The differences show up when you bread and fry. A 6-ounce grilled chicken breast runs about 280 calories. Bread it, dip it in egg, and fry it in oil, and that same breast can hit 665 calories. The breading absorbs oil during frying, more than doubling the calorie count while adding relatively little protein.
Sautéing in a tablespoon of oil adds around 120 calories. Marinating in oil-based dressings adds some as well, though the amount actually absorbed is harder to pin down. For the leanest result, stick with dry-heat methods like grilling or baking, or use a minimal amount of cooking spray.
Chicken Breast vs. Other Proteins
Chicken breast delivers about 9 grams of protein per ounce of cooked meat. Turkey breast is close at 8 grams per ounce, making them nearly interchangeable for protein purposes, though turkey tends to be slightly drier. Both outperform fattier cuts like chicken thighs, which carry more calories per gram of protein due to their higher fat content.
What makes chicken breast stand out isn’t just its protein content but its protein density. At 128 calories for 26 grams of protein in a 3-ounce serving, you’d need to eat a much larger portion of most other protein sources to hit the same number. That’s why it remains the default lean protein for anyone tracking macros or trying to keep calories low while hitting protein targets.