Calculating calories

How Many Calories Are There in an Egg

Max. D Gray
By Max. D Gray. Updated: January 16, 2017
How Many Calories Are There in an Egg

The humble egg is a perfect food to include in your daily regime. It is high in vitamins and low in fat, making it ideal to enjoy as part of a balanced diet. However, to find out how many calories there are in an egg, you have to take into consideration the method used to cook the egg, as this will affect the calorific content.

In this OneHowTo.com article, we'll show you how many calories there are in an egg via various techniques you can use to cook eggs.

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Contents

  1. The composition of an egg
  2. Hard boiled egg
  3. Fried egg
  4. Omelette or scrambled egg

The composition of an egg

The first thing to consider if you want to know how many calories there are in an egg is that the calorific content of the yolk and the egg white is not the same. The yellow yolk contains more fat than the egg white.

Studies have shown that egg yolk is a good source of nutrition, particularly when it comes to vitamins A and B as well as iron and riboflavin. However, it does contain more fat than the egg white and, therefore, is less suitable for weight loss diets.

The egg white contains fewer calories because it is mainly just protein. This means that when you eat egg whites, you'll feel fuller without increasing your fat intake. If you're trying to lose weight, simply separate the egg yolk from the egg white, and enjoy recipes like egg white omelette. Because of its properties, egg whites are often used as beauty treatments.

How Many Calories Are There in an Egg - The composition of an egg

Hard boiled egg

As already indicated, how many calories there are in an egg varies depending on the way it has been cooked. If you hard boiled an egg, the the amount of calories the egg had while raw is barely changed after boiling.

However, you should take into account the size of the egg: the number of calories in a small egg will be less than in an extra large egg. As a summary, at OneHowTo.com we have the following calorie chart for eggs:

  • Extra large boiled egg: 80 kcal
  • Large boiled egg: 72 kcal
  • Medium-sized boiled egg: 63 kcal
  • Small boiled egg: 54 kcal

You should know that cooking a hard boiled egg is not all that healthy as other options. As the yolk turns solid, the nutrients basically disappear and will only be a great source of cholesterol.

How Many Calories Are There in an Egg - Hard boiled egg

Fried egg

When you fry an egg, the calorific content increases considerably. The excessive use of oil and the technique of frying food increases the number of calories in the egg. Therefore, fried eggs are not suitable for people who want to stay slim or are trying to lose weight.

In the previous section, we advised that the number of calories in an extra large egg is 80 kcal. However, frying an egg will effectively double its calorific content: 160 kcal in a fried egg.

What will affect the amount of calories in this recipe? The quantity of oil you use to cook the egg. Obviously, it's not the same to use a little oil or enough to fill the pan, so, in general, we can say that the calories in a fried egg may vary from 100 kcal to 160 kcal.

How Many Calories Are There in an Egg - Fried egg

Omelette or scrambled egg

The number of calories in an egg will not be the same if the egg is cooked in a omelette. Why? Because unlike the previous two options, to cook omelette or scrambled egg oil is used but only in moderation. For that reason, egg omelettes are recommended in weight loss diets.

As we have already said, if you want to successfully reduce the calorie content of an egg, the best thing to do is to separate the yolks from whites and avoid eating the fat contained in the yolk. When we make an omelette, the amount of oil we use is lower because, although it is a form of frying, an omelette recipe only requires a splash of oil to grease the pan. For this reason, egg calories are only slightly increased compared to their natural state.

Broadly speaking, we can state that the calories in a one-egg omelette may vary between 90 kcal to 110 kcal, depending on the amount of oil used and on the other ingredients in the omelette.

Try out different recipes using eggs on OneHowTo.com:

How Many Calories Are There in an Egg - Omelette or scrambled egg

This article is merely informative, oneHOWTO does not have the authority to prescribe any medical treatments or create a diagnosis. We invite you to visit your doctor if you have any type of condition or pain.

If you want to read similar articles to How Many Calories Are There in an Egg, we recommend you visit our Healthy living category.

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How Many Calories Are There in an Egg