Short answer: one medium beef kofta in gravy carries 90 to 120 calories. A chicken kofta of the same size lands at 60 to 85, and a mutton kofta at 100 to 130. Most people eat three or four at a sitting, so a plate of kofta curry usually runs 280 to 480 calories before the roti or naan shows up. The meat inside the ball and the oil in the gravy decide almost all of it.
Kofta is minced meat rolled into balls with onion, green chilies, coriander, and spices, then simmered in an onion tomato gravy. In Pakistani kitchens the mince is usually beef or mutton, chicken is the lighter everyday option, and the balls are sometimes fried first and sometimes cooked straight in the gravy. That last detail matters more than people expect. A kofta that goes into the pot raw soaks up gravy. One that is fried first carries the frying oil with it.
What actually sets the number
The meat. Same story as with qeema, because a kofta starts life as qeema. USDA based food data puts cooked ground beef at 80 percent lean at about 244 kcal per 100 grams, cooked ground chicken at about 189 kcal, and lean braised ground lamb at about 192 kcal. Pakistani butcher mince is rarely as lean as the database version, especially mutton, so real koftas run a little higher than the leanest numbers suggest.
The size of the ball. Koftas are not standardized. A home cook rolling small balls gets 40 gram koftas. A dhaba or a generous hand makes 60 gram ones. That is a 50 percent swing from one kitchen to the next, which is why counting koftas beats counting grams only if you know roughly how big yours are. A golf ball sized kofta is a fair mental image for the medium size used below.
Fried or not. Some cooks fry the koftas until browned, then finish them in gravy. Frying adds roughly 15 to 30 kcal per kofta depending on how much oil the ball absorbs. Koftas simmered raw in gravy skip that step entirely. If your koftas arrive dark brown and crisp at the edges, price them at the top of the range.
The gravy. Kofta gravy is onion, tomato, and oil, bhuna until the oil separates. A ladle of gravy adds 40 to 80 kcal, mostly from oil. Restaurants and dhabas ladle generously, and the shinier the gravy looks, the more oil is in it. People who eat mostly koftas and leave most of the gravy behind save a real amount here.
The binder. Kofta mince is usually mixed with a spoon of besan or soaked bread and sometimes an egg to hold the balls together. These add a few grams of carbs and a little protein per kofta, and they dilute the meat slightly, which pulls the per 100 gram number down a touch compared with plain mince.
Kofta calories and macros
| Food | Portion | Calories | Protein | Carbs | Fat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beef kofta, 1 piece | about 50 g | 90 to 120 | 8 to 11 g | 3 to 5 g | 5 to 8 g |
| Chicken kofta, 1 piece | about 50 g | 60 to 85 | 9 to 12 g | 3 to 5 g | 2 to 4 g |
| Mutton kofta, 1 piece | about 50 g | 100 to 130 | 8 to 11 g | 3 to 5 g | 7 to 10 g |
| Beef kofta curry, plate | 3 koftas plus gravy, about 200 g | 320 to 450 | 26 to 33 g | 10 to 15 g | 17 to 26 g |
| Chicken kofta curry, plate | 3 koftas plus gravy, about 200 g | 230 to 330 | 29 to 36 g | 10 to 15 g | 8 to 14 g |
| Mutton kofta curry, plate | 3 koftas plus gravy, about 200 g | 350 to 480 | 26 to 33 g | 10 to 15 g | 20 to 30 g |
| Beef kofta curry | 100 g | 160 to 225 | 13 to 17 g | 5 to 8 g | 8 to 13 g |
| Chicken kofta curry | 100 g | 115 to 165 | 14 to 18 g | 5 to 8 g | 4 to 7 g |
| Nargisi kofta, 1 piece | about 70 g | 130 to 170 | 11 to 14 g | 4 to 6 g | 7 to 10 g |
Dish rows add pot oil, onion, tomato, and the binder, with gravy counted in. Fried koftas sit at the top of each range.
The plate math nobody does
Kofta is a counting trap. Three koftas feel modest. Four feel normal. But each beef kofta is roughly 100 kcal, so the difference between three and four is a whole snack. Then the bread arrives. Two rotis add 200 to 300 kcal (roti calories), and a naan adds 280 to 400 (naan calories). A full meal of four beef koftas, gravy, and two rotis can pass 800 kcal without anything on the plate looking excessive. That is not a warning, just the arithmetic. Kofta is protein rich food, and protein is the point of it.
For comparison, a plate of kofta curry lands in the same territory as chicken karahi at similar portions, and well above daal, which is why kofta works better as the protein anchor of a meal than as a side dish next to another meat.
Nargisi and other kofta styles
Nargisi kofta wraps a boiled egg inside the mince ball, the way scotch eggs do. The egg adds about 35 to 45 kcal per kofta and a few grams of protein, so a nargisi kofta is a slightly bigger, slightly richer ball. Lauki kofta, made with bottle gourd instead of meat, is a different dish nutritionally: lighter, lower in protein, closer to a vegetable curry than to meat kofta. Malai kofta, the creamy restaurant version, adds cream and cashew to the gravy and can push a plate 100 to 150 kcal higher than the tomato gravy versions above.
How to track kofta in seconds
Describe it the way it looks on the plate:
"4 beef koftas with gravy and 2 rotis"
In CalsFlow you get the calorie and macro estimate plus the assumptions behind it: which meat it priced in, how many koftas it counted, and how it counted the rotis. Ate chicken koftas, or skipped most of the gravy? Say so and the estimate moves with it. The same describe what you see approach sits at the heart of our guide to counting calories in Pakistani and desi food.
Kofta and protein
A plate of three chicken koftas with gravy delivers roughly 30 grams of protein, which is a serious contribution toward a daily target. Our protein guide explains how to set that target. Beef and mutton koftas match the protein but bring more fat along, so the chicken version is the one to pick when the goal is protein without the extra fat. For a full picture of where kofta sits among everyday Pakistani dishes, the Pakistani food calorie chart puts it next to the rest of the table.
FAQs
How many calories in 1 kofta? One medium beef kofta in gravy runs 90 to 120 kcal. Chicken is 60 to 85, mutton 100 to 130. Fried koftas sit at the top of each range.
How many calories in a plate of kofta curry? Three koftas plus gravy, about 200 grams, runs 320 to 450 kcal for beef, 230 to 330 for chicken, and 350 to 480 for mutton, before bread.
Is kofta good for weight loss? It can be. The protein keeps you full, and chicken kofta is genuinely lean. The risks are the gravy oil, the fried version, and the bread. Pick chicken, go easy on the gravy, and count the rotis, and kofta fits a deficit better than most fried snacks at similar calories.
How many koftas should I eat? Three medium koftas with a salad or raita make a solid meal for most people. Four is fine too, as long as the fourth one is logged rather than treated as free.
Is kofta the same as qeema? Kofta starts as qeema, minced meat with spices, but it is shaped into balls and simmered in gravy, so it eats differently and logs differently. Plain qeema is loose mince, usually eaten by the scoop.
Eating kofta tonight? Describe your plate in CalsFlow and it will estimate the koftas, the gravy, and the bread together, so the count reflects what you actually ate. Get CalsFlow on Google Play
CalsFlow provides nutrition estimates, not medical advice.