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Calories · Chinese food

Chinese food calories, from takeout boxes to dim sum baskets.

Chinese food covers a whole continent of cooking, from steamed Cantonese fish to fiery Sichuan noodles to the takeout menu of your local. What they share at restaurants: dishes for the table, a lot of wok oil, and rice or noodles underneath it all.

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In short

A restaurant plate of Yangzhou fried rice is about 830 calories, sweet and sour pork about 520 before rice, and a four-piece basket of siomai about 160. Frying, sweet glossy sauces and fried rice instead of plain decide most of a Chinese meal’s number.

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How a meal is built

Shared dishes on a turning table.

At a sit-down Chinese restaurant, dishes arrive for the table — often on a lazy Susan — and everyone takes a little of each with rice. Takeout turns the same dishes into one person’s box. Dim sum is its own world: small baskets ordered in rounds, counted by the piece.

That makes your share the hardest part to count. Two spoonfuls of five dishes is a real meal, even if no single plate looks big.

The menu

Chinese dishes, one rough number each

Chinese · typical restaurant servingEvery cuisine →

  • Siomai (siu mai)~160four pieces, one steamer basket · usually 120–260
  • Wonton soup~170one bowl with broth and a few wontons · usually 120–380
  • Steamed dumplings~230eight steamed pork dumplings, dipping sauce not included · usually 180–400
  • Fried spring rolls~290two takeaway meat spring rolls, dipping sauce not included · usually 140–450
  • Beef and broccoli~320one plate portion, rice not included · usually 250–600
  • Xiao long bao~360one basket of 6 pork soup dumplings · usually 270–480
  • Kung pao chicken~390one plate portion, about half a takeout order, rice not included · usually 290–780
  • Mapo tofu~420one restaurant plate, rice not included · usually 300–550
  • Chicken chow mein~510one takeaway portion · usually 380–750
  • Orange chicken~520one entrée portion, rice not included · usually 380–850
  • Sweet and sour pork~520one main portion, rice not included · usually 400–800
  • Peking duck~570a share of roast duck with six pancakes, sauce, cucumber and spring onion · usually 420–800
  • Char siu rice~610one hawker plate of barbecued pork with rice and cucumber · usually 500–800
  • Yangzhou fried rice~830one restaurant plate · usually 600–1,000

What drives it

Batter, wok oil and sugar.

  • Battered and fried meats. Sweet and sour pork, crispy beef and similar dishes are fried before they meet the sauce.
  • Glossy sauces. Sweet and sour, orange and honey sauces are thickened sugar; the shine is the giveaway.
  • Fried rice. A full restaurant plate of fried rice is about 830 calories — far more than a cup of plain rice at about 210.
  • Noodles. Lo mein and chow mein carry the oil of the wok.
  • Fried dim sum. Spring rolls, taro puffs and fried dumplings run richer than the steamed baskets.

Lighter orders

If you want a lighter meal.

  • Plain steamed rice instead of fried rice.
  • Steamed fish, white-cut chicken or stir-fried greens with garlic.
  • Steamed dim sum — har gow, siomai, cheung fun — rather than fried.
  • Clear soups such as wonton soup.
  • Sauce on the side for battered dishes, and share them.

How the dishes compare

A Chinese menu, roughly.

Restaurant portions vary, so read these as rough. At a shared table, PlateDiary’s calorie counter reads every dish from one photo and you edit it to your share — calories are off unless you turn them on.

Rough calories for typical Chinese restaurant servings
OrderRough numberNotes
Siomai, 4 pieces~160About 40 a piece
Plain white rice, 1 cup~210The default side
Xiao long bao, 6 pieces~360About 60 a dumpling
Sweet and sour pork, no rice~520Add rice on top of this
Sweet and sour pork with a cup of rice~730A typical takeout box
Yangzhou fried rice, a plate~830Egg, meat and wok oil

In PlateDiary

A rough number for the dishes you save — only if you want one.

Off unless you turn them on

Calories in PlateDiary are off unless you turn them on. Switch them on and, when PlateDiary AI reads your photo of the table, each dish gets one rough “~” number. Accept it or change it; a number you correct is remembered for that dish. With Calories off, the app looks exactly as it did before.

A read sends small pictures of the cut-out dishes, with the place's name as a hint — never the table photo, faces or your location. Calorie numbers never go to analytics, and nothing is written to a health app. PlateDiary AI starts with free tries; here is how it works.

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Sources

Where the facts come from

  1. HealthXchange (SingHealth) — Fried rice with egg, seafood and meat
  2. HealthXchange (SingHealth) — Dim sum siew mai
  3. USDA FoodData Central — Sweet and sour pork (FDC 2706401)
  4. USDA FoodData Central — Rice, white, cooked, no added fat (FDC 2708408)

Questions

Questions people ask.

How many calories are in a plate of fried rice?

A restaurant plate of Yangzhou-style fried rice is about 830 calories, usually 600–1,000 depending on size and oil.

Is fried rice much higher in calories than plain rice?

Per cup, fried rice carries the oil, egg and meat it was cooked with, and restaurant plates are large — so swapping a plate of fried rice for a cup of plain rice saves several hundred calories.

How many calories are in a piece of dim sum?

A steamed siomai is about 40 calories. Fried dim sum such as spring rolls or taro puffs run higher.

What are lighter dishes at a Chinese restaurant?

Steamed fish, stir-fried greens, clear soups and steamed dim sum, with plain rice instead of fried.