How many calories in an egg? Boiled, fried, scrambled

Eggs are one of the few foods we eat without a scale or a label: you crack one, cook it and guess. The good news is that they are also one of the easiest foods to estimate. According to Ciqual, the French national food composition table run by the food safety agency ANSES, 100 g of raw egg provides 140 kcal, 12.8 g of protein, 9.8 g of fat and almost no carbohydrate.

The real question is how much your egg weighs. The weight that defines its size includes the shell, which makes up about 12% of the total, so a 58 g medium egg holds only around 50 g of white and yolk. That is the figure that matters, and it works out to about 70 kcal for a medium egg, the size you find in most boxes.

The other big food tables agree: USDA FoodData Central lists 143 kcal per 100 g and Norway’s Matvaretabellen 149 kcal. These small gaps come from the hens’ feed, the share of yolk and lab methods. Per egg, they add up to a few calories, nothing that changes your day.

Cut an egg in half and the split is surprising. The white makes up about two thirds of the weight, but it is almost nothing but water and protein: about 16 kcal in the white of a medium egg, with no fat and no cholesterol. The yolk is only a third of the egg, yet it carries nearly three quarters of the calories, all of the fat and all of the cholesterol.

Protein is shared more evenly than most people think: the white provides a little over half (3.7 g) and the yolk the rest (2.6 g). That is why egg white omelettes are so popular with gym-goers: you keep a good chunk of the protein for a fraction of the calories.

It is one of the most common questions: does a hard-boiled egg have more calories than a raw one? No. Cooking in water adds nothing, so a hard-boiled, soft-boiled or poached egg keeps its roughly 70 kcal. The small differences in the Ciqual table (134 kcal per 100 g for hard-boiled, 142 for soft-boiled) reflect water content and the samples analysed, not an effect of cooking. A jammy six-minute egg sits somewhere in between.

An egg fried dry in a non-stick pan shows 157 kcal per 100 g. That higher figure is misleading: some water evaporates, so the egg weighs less, but it holds exactly the same calories it had before it hit the pan.

Fat changes everything. An egg fried with a drizzle of oil or a knob of butter soaks up 15 to 20 kcal of fat on average, according to measurements from the USDA and Matvaretabellen. And if you baste the yolk with melted butter or mop up the leftover oil with toast, you are eating the rest of the spoonful too.

In real life, we rarely eat a single egg on its own. An omelette, scrambled eggs or a plate of bacon and eggs usually means two or three eggs, some fat and a filling. The eggs are the base, but butter, cheese and cured meat are what separate a 200 kcal meal from a 400 kcal one.

The table covers common homemade versions. Bacon deserves a note: streaky bacon, cut from the belly and fried until crisp, tops 450 kcal per 100 g, while very lean cured loin, such as the French “filet de bacon” or Canadian bacon, has only 118 kcal per 100 g according to Ciqual. Two plates with the same name can therefore be 70 kcal apart.

For 70 kcal, an egg offers a rare nutritional profile. Its 6.5 g of protein contains all the essential amino acids in proportions close to human needs, which is why egg protein has long been used as a benchmark for protein quality.

The most underrated nutrient is choline, which supports the liver, the brain and cell membranes. According to the USDA, a medium egg provides about 150 mg, almost all of it in the yolk. EFSA, the European Food Safety Authority, sets an adequate intake of 400 mg a day for adults (480 mg during pregnancy, 520 mg while breastfeeding), so a single egg covers more than a third of that reference.

Eggs are also one of the few foods that naturally contain vitamin D: about 1 µg per medium egg according to Ciqual, a little more in Norwegian eggs (close to 1.4 µg according to Matvaretabellen), against a European reference of 15 µg a day. It is a useful top-up, not a solution, especially in winter: our guide on vitamin D deficiency covers the other sources. Add 0.5 to 0.7 µg of vitamin B12 depending on the table (the reference is 4 µg), plus vitamin A and iodine, and it is easy to see why eggs are so often recommended to people who eat little meat.

For decades, eggs had a bad reputation: one yolk contains about 190 mg of cholesterol, and it was assumed that this cholesterol went straight into your arteries. Advice has moved on a lot since then, because the liver makes most of the cholesterol in your blood and adjusts its output depending on what you eat.

In Europe, EFSA decided back in 2010 not to set a reference value for dietary cholesterol, beyond limiting saturated fat. In the United States, the American Heart Association (AHA) published a science advisory concluding that observational studies generally show no significant link between dietary cholesterol and cardiovascular disease, while noting that intervention trials often tie high cholesterol intakes to higher LDL. It recommends focusing on the overall eating pattern, such as a Mediterranean-style diet, rather than on a number.

The large studies point the same way, with nuances. In 2020, an analysis of three US cohorts (more than 215,000 people followed for up to 32 years), backed by a meta-analysis of 1.7 million participants, found no association between one egg a day and cardiovascular risk. On the other hand, a 2019 study in JAMA of nearly 30,000 Americans linked each extra half egg a day to a 6% higher cardiovascular risk, a link that vanished once total dietary cholesterol was taken into account.

The review carried out for the 2023 Nordic Nutrition Recommendations sums up current knowledge well: eggs can raise blood cholesterol slightly, with big differences from one person to the next, but one egg a day is unlikely to increase disease risk, especially in European studies. To understand what really moves your LDL, read our guide on cholesterol and diet.

There is no single official number, but the guidance lines up. The AHA considers that healthy people can include up to one whole egg a day in a healthy diet, and that older adults with normal cholesterol can go up to two. In France, Santé.fr, the public health information service, says that two eggs a day seem fine for people with no particular risk, provided they get their cholesterol checked, and advises 3 or 4 eggs a week for people with high cholesterol, diabetes or cardiovascular risk. The Nordic review also points out that there is little data above one egg a day.

Context matters as much as the number. Two poached eggs on wholegrain toast with salad do not have the same effect as two fried eggs surrounded by bacon, sausages and buttered white bread: it is mostly the saturated fat and processed meat around the egg that weigh on the balance. For vegetarians, eggs are a valuable ally, since they are one of the few sources of vitamin B12 outside meat and fish.

One last precaution, this time about food safety: France’s food safety agency ANSES advises pregnant women, young children, older people and people with weakened immunity not to eat raw or undercooked eggs (homemade mayonnaise, chocolate mousse, very runny yolks) because of the risk of salmonella. If you take cholesterol-lowering medication, your doctor is the right person to set your amount.

Eggs have a real card to play when you are watching your weight: plenty of protein, few calories and a well-documented filling effect. In a study published in 2005, 30 women with overweight ate either an egg breakfast or a bagel breakfast with the same calories and the same weight. After the eggs, they felt fuller and ate about 575 kcal at lunch, against 740 after the bagel, and their intake stayed lower for 36 hours.

In 2008, the same team followed 152 adults with overweight for eight weeks. Combined with a diet set at a 1,000 kcal daily deficit, the two-egg breakfast (340 kcal including toast) led to a loss of 2.6 kg against 1.6 kg with bagels, 65% more, with no effect on blood cholesterol. Without a diet, however, eggs alone did not lead to weight loss. Both small studies were funded by the American Egg Board, the US egg industry body: they show an interesting satiety effect, not a miracle fix. For more morning ideas, our guide to a low-calorie breakfast has plenty.

A medium egg provides about 70 kcal and 6.5 g of protein; count 60 kcal for a small egg and 95 kcal for a very large one. The yolk holds three quarters of the calories, all of the cholesterol and most of the vitamins, while the white supplies a good share of the protein for just 16 kcal. Hard-boiled, soft-boiled, poached or fried without fat, an egg keeps its calories: butter, oil, cheese and bacon are what turn a 150 kcal plate into a 350 kcal meal. For healthy people, one egg a day fits comfortably into a balanced diet according to the major reviews available today. If you have high cholesterol, diabetes or heart disease, ask your doctor to help you set the amount that suits you.