An 8 oz steak contains roughly 400 to 660 calories depending on the cut. Leaner cuts like sirloin and filet mignon sit at the lower end, while fattier cuts like ribeye land near the top. The difference comes down to how much marbling (intramuscular fat) runs through the meat.
Calories by Cut for 8 oz Steaks
Fat content is the single biggest factor separating one cut from another. Protein stays relatively consistent across cuts, hovering around 50 to 64 grams per 8 oz serving. Fat is where the calorie counts diverge.
- Ribeye: approximately 650 to 660 calories, with 20 to 30 grams of fat. Ribeye is one of the most heavily marbled cuts, which is why it’s so flavorful and calorie-dense.
- Top sirloin: approximately 480 to 520 calories, with around 32 grams of fat and 64 grams of protein. Sirloin is a middle-ground cut that balances flavor and leanness.
- New York strip: approximately 500 to 560 calories. It carries a thick fat cap along one edge, but the interior is moderately lean.
- Filet mignon (tenderloin): approximately 400 to 460 calories, with only 10 to 15 grams of fat. This is the leanest popular cut, prized for tenderness rather than marbling.
- T-bone: approximately 500 to 580 calories. A T-bone is essentially a New York strip and a small piece of tenderloin separated by a bone, so its calorie count falls between the two.
These numbers assume a cooked steak with visible fat still attached. Choosing a leaner cut can save you 200 calories or more per serving compared to a well-marbled ribeye.
Raw Weight vs. Cooked Weight
This distinction matters more than most people realize. A steak labeled “8 oz” at a restaurant almost always refers to the raw, pre-cooked weight. During cooking, steaks lose moisture and shrink. USDA data shows that a boneless ribeye retains about 83% of its raw weight after cooking, while bone-in cuts retain around 85%. That means your “8 oz” steak arrives on the plate weighing closer to 6.5 to 7 oz.
If you’re tracking calories at home and you weigh your steak after cooking, you’re looking at a denser, more calorie-packed ounce than the raw numbers suggest. An 8 oz cooked steak started as roughly 9.5 to 10 oz of raw meat. So if you’re using a nutrition label based on raw weight, weigh before cooking. If you’re using a database entry for cooked steak, weigh after.
Does Trimming the Fat Help?
You might assume that cutting off the visible fat cap before cooking would meaningfully reduce calories. Research published in the Journal of Animal Science tested exactly this with ribeye steaks. The finding was surprising: cooking steaks with the external fat cap attached did not increase the calorie content of the meat itself compared to steaks cooked with the fat removed beforehand. The fat cap improved juiciness, flavor, and texture without the extra calories migrating into the lean portion.
What this means in practice is that you can cook your steak with the fat on for better flavor, then trim it off on the plate if you don’t want to eat it. The calories in a steak come primarily from the marbling inside the muscle, not the exterior fat cap. If you eat the fat cap, those calories count. If you leave it on the plate, you get the cooking benefits without the caloric cost.
Protein and Fat Breakdown
Steak is one of the most protein-dense foods available. An 8 oz serving delivers 50 to 64 grams of protein, which is roughly the entire daily recommended intake for a sedentary adult in a single meal. That protein-to-calorie ratio is part of why steak remains popular in high-protein diets.
Fat content ranges from about 10 grams in a filet mignon to 30 grams in a ribeye. Each gram of fat contains 9 calories, compared to 4 calories per gram of protein. So even though a ribeye and a filet have similar protein, the ribeye’s extra 15 to 20 grams of fat add 135 to 180 calories on their own. Steak contains zero carbohydrates.
How Big Is an 8 oz Steak?
If you’re eyeballing portions without a scale, an 8 oz steak is roughly the size of two side-by-side palms (held flat with fingers curled in at the first knuckle) or two decks of playing cards. A single palm or single deck of cards is closer to 4 oz. Many restaurant steaks that look impressively large are actually 10 to 16 oz, which means you may want to mentally halve or portion accordingly if you’re watching intake.
At home, a kitchen scale is the most reliable tool. Thickness varies widely between cuts, so a thin, wide flank steak and a thick filet mignon can both weigh 8 oz while looking completely different on the plate.
Cooking Method and Calorie Count
The cooking method itself has a modest effect on final calorie count. Grilling allows some fat to drip away, potentially reducing calories by a small margin. Pan-searing in butter or oil adds calories from whatever fat you cook in: a tablespoon of butter adds about 100 calories, and a tablespoon of olive oil adds about 120. If you’re counting carefully, factor in cooking fats separately from the steak itself.
Doneness also plays a minor role. A well-done steak loses more moisture than a medium-rare one, concentrating the calories into a slightly lighter final weight. The total calorie content of the original piece of meat doesn’t change, but the per-ounce density of the cooked result shifts slightly. For most people, the difference between cooking levels is small enough to ignore.