How many calories in a roti? A proper answer, with the numbers
The internet says anything from 70 to 300. Here is why the range is that wide, and how to work out the number for the rotis your own kitchen makes.
· 7 min read
Search for the calories in a roti and you will be told 70, 120, 160, 240 and 297 — all with equal confidence, often on the same page of results. None of them is exactly wrong. They are answers to slightly different questions, and nobody says which question they answered.
A roti is flour, water and heat. Its calorie count is decided almost entirely by how much flour went into it. Everything else — the arguments about atta versus maida, about multigrain, about whether it was cooked on an iron tawa — moves the number by single digits. Size moves it by a hundred.
The short answer
A plain wholewheat roti made with 30g of atta — a 6-inch roti, roughly the size of a side plate, which is what most Indian households actually make — comes to about 104 calories. Add a smear of ghee and you are at about 145.
| Roti size | Dry atta | Calories | Protein | Carbs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Small (5 inch) | 20g | 70 kcal | 2.4g | 14g |
| Medium (6 inch) | 30g | 104 kcal | 3.6g | 21g |
| Large (7–8 inch) | 40g | 139 kcal | 4.8g | 28g |
| Tandoori roti (restaurant) | 60g | 210 kcal | 7.2g | 42g |
Based on roughly 347 kcal per 100g of wholewheat atta. Fat in a plain roti is under 1g; the fat you see on a menu comes from what was brushed on afterwards.
Where the extra calories actually come from
Once the flour is settled, three things change the number, and only three.
1. Ghee, oil or butter
This is the big one. Fat carries 9 calories per gram — more than double what carbohydrate or protein carry — so a small amount goes a long way.
| Addition | Amount | Extra calories |
|---|---|---|
| Ghee, light smear | ½ tsp (2.5g) | +22 kcal |
| Ghee, generous | 1 tsp (5g) | +45 kcal |
| Butter | 1 tsp (5g) | +36 kcal |
| Oil brushed on a tawa roti | 1 tsp (5g) | +45 kcal |
A roti with a generous spoon of ghee is close to 150 calories — half again as much as the plain version. Over four rotis at dinner, that single habit is 180 calories a day, or roughly 5,400 a month. That is not an argument for eating dry rotis; it is an argument for knowing which number you are actually eating.
2. The flour
Calorie-wise, the difference between wholewheat atta, maida and most multigrain blends is small — all of them sit in the region of 340 to 360 calories per 100g. Where they differ is fibre and protein.
| Flour | Calories | Protein | Fibre |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wholewheat atta | 347 kcal | 12g | 11g |
| Maida (refined) | 364 kcal | 10g | 3g |
| Bajra (pearl millet) | 361 kcal | 12g | 9g |
| Jowar (sorghum) | 349 kcal | 10g | 10g |
| Ragi (finger millet) | 328 kcal | 7g | 11g |
| Besan (gram flour) | 387 kcal | 22g | 11g |
Swapping atta for bajra will not meaningfully change your calorie intake. It changes fibre, micronutrients and how full you feel afterwards — all worth having, but they are not calorie savings, and treating them as such is how people end up confused about why the weight is not moving.
3. Whether it is a roti at all
Much of the confusion in search results comes from the word covering several quite different breads.
| Bread | Typical calories | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Plain roti / chapati | 104 kcal | 30g atta, no fat |
| Phulka | 80–104 kcal | Usually smaller, no fat |
| Tandoori roti | 210 kcal | Larger, often brushed with butter |
| Naan (plain) | 260 kcal | Maida, milk, oil |
| Butter naan | 320 kcal | Plus butter on top |
| Plain paratha | 260 kcal | Layered with ghee |
| Aloo paratha | 290–330 kcal | Before the butter |
| Missi roti | 180 kcal | Besan and atta |
Restaurant portions run larger than home portions, sometimes by half again. Where a menu doesn't say, assume the larger end.
Estimating yours without a scale
Most people will not weigh atta before dinner, and a tracking habit that requires it will not last a week. Two approaches survive contact with a real kitchen:
Weigh once, then never again. One evening, weigh the dough ball your family actually makes. Divide by the number of rotis. You now have a number specific to your kitchen that will be right for years, because the person making them is not going to change size overnight.
Or use the plate. A roti that covers a standard 6-inch side plate with a small margin is about 30g of atta. One that overhangs the plate is closer to 40g. This gets you within about 15 calories, which is well inside the noise of everything else on the thali.
A worked example: a normal North Indian dinner
Three rotis with a light smear of ghee, a katori of dal tadka, a katori of bhindi, salad.
| Item | Portion | Calories | Protein |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roti | 3 × 30g atta | 312 kcal | 10.8g |
| Ghee on the rotis | 1.5 tsp total | 68 kcal | 0g |
| Dal tadka | 1 katori (150g) | 190 kcal | 9g |
| Bhindi masala | 1 katori (150g) | 150 kcal | 3g |
| Salad, no dressing | 1 plate | 35 kcal | 1.5g |
| Total | 755 kcal | 24.3g |
For most adults that is a reasonable dinner: it is roughly a third of a day's energy and it carries about a quarter of a sensible protein target. It also shows where the leverage is — the ghee and the tadka together are about 120 calories, and the rotis are 312. Nothing here needs eliminating; it just helps to know which lever is which.
How many rotis should you eat?
There is no correct number. It depends on your total energy target and what else is on the plate. But as a rough frame, for someone eating around 2,000 calories a day:
- 2 rotis at a meal — about 210 calories of bread — leaves plenty of room for dal, sabzi and curd.
- 3–4 rotis is a normal, substantial dinner for an active adult.
- 6+ rotisis around 620 calories from bread alone, which is a lot of a day's budget spent on the thing with the least protein on the table.
The more useful reframing: rotis are not the problem people assume they are. Roti is a reasonable, high-fibre carbohydrate with a bit of protein attached. If a diet is going wrong, the fault is more often in the oil, the sugar in the chai and the evening snacking than in the bread. See our guide to protein for vegetarians for what to do about the other half of the plate.
Figures on this page are typical values compiled from public nutrition data and are approximations — real dishes vary with recipe, oil, and portion size. This article is general information, not medical or dietary advice. Talk to a doctor or a registered dietitian about any medical condition or before making significant changes to your diet.