Shrimp Calorie Calculator

Shrimp is one of the leanest proteins you can eat, right up until you fry it. A 6 oz serving of boiled shrimp is about 168 calories and 41 grams of protein. The same weight of coconut shrimp clears 500 calories. The cooking method is the whole story.

Raw vs cooked

Raw shrimp runs about 85 kcal/100g. Boiling or steaming adds nothing, because water has no calories. Per 100 grams the cooked figure is higher (99 kcal) only because moisture evaporates and the flesh tightens, so you are weighing more shrimp and less water. Count by the shrimp rather than by the gram and boiling changes almost nothing.

Grilling adds a trace of fat from the grill surface. Figure 104 kcal/100g.

The numbers this calculator uses

Per 100 grams of the finished dish:

Cocktail shrimp is the one people misjudge. The shrimp itself is boiled and lean, but a normal dip of cocktail sauce is mostly ketchup, so the dish lands slightly above plain boiled and carries eight grams of carbohydrate that plain shrimp does not have.

Where calories pile up

Breaded and fried shrimp nearly triples the calorie density. The breading absorbs oil during frying and adds substantial carbohydrate mass. A 6 oz plate of fried shrimp runs around 410 calories.

Scampi sits in the middle, and the butter is doing all of it. Two tablespoons per serving is about 200 calories of fat before a single shrimp gets counted, which is why a 6 oz scampi lands near 370 while the same weight of boiled shrimp is 168.

Tempura batter is lighter than American-style breading, landing around 230 kcal/100g. Coconut shrimp is the heaviest common preparation, because dense coconut flakes soak up oil efficiently.

Protein efficiency

Even fried, shrimp remains a decent protein source. What drops sharply with heavier preparations is the protein you get per calorie. Boiled shrimp gives you about 4.8 grams of protein per 20 calories. Coconut shrimp gives you about 0.9 grams for the same 20. That is a five-fold difference from the batter alone.

A 3 oz serving is the standard restaurant appetizer portion. Entree-sized shrimp dishes are typically 6-8 oz. Large shrimp (the 31/40 count you usually see at a supermarket counter) run roughly 13 grams each raw, so a 6 oz appetizer is about a dozen.

Shrimp is naturally low in saturated fat and high in selenium and iodine. The cholesterol content is roughly 189 mg per 100g, but dietary cholesterol has a much smaller effect on blood cholesterol than saturated fat does for most people.