Chicken breast is a familiar dish in every diet menu for its low-fat protein. Still, you need to find out the precise number of intake calories in a portion of chicken breast to prepare for each meal.
If you feel related to this, read on to discover how many calories in 4 oz chicken breast and other useful information in the below content!
How Many Calories In 4 Oz Chicken Breast?
As chicken is high in protein and healthy fat, it is a perfect choice for people on a diet. For example, there are a variety of nutrients in 113g of skin-on, bone-in chicken breast (~136 calories), including potassium, iron, phosphorus, magnesium, selenium.
The number of calories included in 4 oz of a raw chicken breast differs from a cooked one. Continue reading for more details on each!
Raw Chicken
Raw chicken is a meaty, low-skinned, low-fat food portion, rich in vitamin B6, and contains no carbohydrates.
With 4 oz of raw, skinless, and boneless chicken breast (about 113g), you will get 136 calories and other nutrients as follows.
- Fat: 3 grams
- Carb: 0 gram
- Protein: 26 grams
- Cholesterol: 83 milligrams
You will notice a decrease in calories in skinless, boneless raw chicken compared to the skin-on, bone-in one, which indicates that about 80% of the calories in breast come from protein, and the remaining 20% from fat.
Keep in mind that those figures refer to unprocessed chicken breasts. Once you begin cooking it with ingredients like cooking oil, sauces, or seasonings, there are changes in total calories, fat, and carbohydrates.
Cooked Chicken
As mentioned above, the cooked chicken will be higher in calories and fat due to the impact of other ingredients in your cooking process.
To see the difference, let’s take a look at a few examples!
Fried Chicken
With 4 oz of fried chicken (about 113g), you will have a total of 295 calories, of which 135 calories originate from fat. In each 15g total fat of fried chicken, there are 4g saturated fat, 3.5g polyunsaturated fat, and 6.2g monounsaturated fat.
Moreover, when frying chicken, you will increase cholesterol content to 96mg, 312mg Sodium, and 228mg Potassium.
Roasted Chicken
In general, there are 187 calories in 4 oz of roasted chicken breast, of which 36 calories are fat.
The average value of total fat is 4g, of which 1.1 grams come from saturated fat, 0.9 grams from polyunsaturated fat and 1.4 grams from monounsaturated fat.
To add-in, the amount of cholesterol in 4 oz of chicken breast when being roasted is about 96 mg, while the data for sodium is 84 mg and 290 mg for potassium.
Grilled Chicken
Four oz of grilled chicken breast has 168 calories but only 35 calories from fat. Here is the breakdown nutrition data for grilled chicken breast:
- Saturated fat: 1.1 grams
- Trans fat: 0 gram
- Polyunsaturated fat: 0.8 grams
- Monounsaturated fat: 1.5 grams
- Cholesterol: 120 milligrams
- Sodium: 244 milligrams
- Potassium: 476 milligrams
- Carbohydrates: 0 gram
- Sugar: 0 gram
- Protein: 33 grams
Especially with grilled chicken, the calcium and iron content will increase by 0.5% and 2.7%.
How Many Calories In 1 Oz Chicken Breast?
Let’s see how many calories in 1 oz chicken breast:
Raw Chicken Breast
There are only 29 calories in 1 oz of the raw chicken breast, where it has 37% fat, 0% carbs, and 63% protein. It can be seen that the calorie content in 1 ounce of raw chicken breast is very low.
Cooked Chicken Breast
An ounce of cooked chicken breast contains 31 calories, with skin and bones removed.
Breaking down the data, there are 11% of calories coming from fat, 89% from protein and 0% from carbs.
Especially, please note that the skin always adds more calories and fat to the meat! Therefore, if you are in the process of losing weight, you should remove the skin before or after cooking.
One of the healthiest chicken dishes is chicken salad due to its low calories. Moreover, can you freeze chicken salad for convenience? – Yes, it is another best thing about this dish. Freezing can help you save time in future preparation without affecting the nutrients.
Why Do Calories In Chicken Breast Change When You Cook?
The calorie value of food usually differs between raw or processed food. Specifically, the cooking process will significantly change the nutritional composition and the number of calories in the food.
For example, when grilling or boiling chicken breast, you will reduce the amount of juice retained in the food, thereby reducing the number of calories. On the other hand, the calories will increase or decrease if you fry or stir-fry.
As a dieter, the most important thing you need to pay attention to is the amount of fat in your daily diet. When processing chicken breast, you have significantly increased the number of calories by cooking with oil or butter.
Indeed, the calorie content of oily food is quite high. Even a small amount of oily ingredients used in cooking can have a huge effect on the calorie value of your food.
How Can I Calculate The Calories In A Chicken Breast?
Calories in chicken breasts and other foods are calculated by the total mass of 3 substances: starch (carbohydrate), fat, and protein. Typically, the calories of each of these substances are measured in a laboratory and determined as follows:
- 1g carbohydrate releases 4 kcal
- 1g of protein releases 4 kcal
- 1g fat releases 9 kcal
Thus, fat will produce the most calories, provide the most energy. However, different foods will provide different types of fat. You should only choose foods that contain healthy fats. The same goes for starches and proteins.
You can calculate the specific calories in the food based on the calories of each substance, grams of starch, protein, or fat content, which is listed on the package of the product.
Last Thoughts On How Many Calories In 4 Oz Chicken Breast?
How many calories in 4 oz chicken breast? 4 oz of unprocessed breast contains 136 calories with lots of good components for you. Yet, that calories value will change, depending on how you cook the meat!
Hopefully, this article has provided you with some helpful information. Thank you, and see you next time!
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