Thai Food Nutrition Facts: Menu Choices & Calories

Thai Food nutrition facts
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If you love fresh vegetables, seafood, and meat, you'll love many of the menu items at Thai restaurants.

While not everything on the menu suits your eating plan, Thai food calories and nutrition content will complement many diets.

Thai Food Calories

As with any cuisine, a wide range of calorie counts can be found in Thai food, where many dishes are packed with veggies and lean protein like chicken, fish, and tofu. And they don't tend to be deep-fried or otherwise prepared with cooking methods that add calories. Depending on the sauce and amount of rice or noodles in a dish, many Thai favorites may be lower-calorie.

Portion sizes at Thai restaurants tend to be large. For example, pad Thai with chicken has about 300 calories per cup, and a massaman curry dish with chicken and vegetables has about 180 calories per cup (not including any rice or noodles it may be served with). A restaurant portion might be 2 or 3 cups, so if you're counting your meal's Thai food calories, you'd need to double or triple that number.

Thai Menu Nutrition

Many of the menus at Thai restaurants are quite extensive. If you are unfamiliar with Thai food, you might get overwhelmed navigating page after page.

Remember that you can always ask your server for a suggestion. Clarify whether you want foods that are low in calories, low in fat, or low in carbohydrate.

Many traditional Thai restaurants serve curries. While you might be familiar with the common spice blend called curry, a "curry" served in a Thai restaurant is slightly different. Thai curries are creamy (sometimes soupy) that usually include coconut milk, curry paste, vegetables, herbs, and meat or seafood.

Curry

Curries come in different spice levels such as spicy red curry, sweet and spicy green curry, lightly sweet and spicy Panang curry, or the mild massaman curry often sweet and peanutty.

Curries can increase Thai food calories due to coconut milk, usually one of the main ingredients. But if you order a spicy curry, you may eat less of it.

If you prefer less spicy food, there is still plenty to enjoy on a Thai menu that will keep your diet on track. Fresh meat and seafood, fruits, herbs, and vegetables are popular ingredients in Asian food.

Pad Thai Calories and Nutrition

The following nutrition information is provided by the USDA for a 1-cup serving (200g) of chicken pad Thai.

  • Calories: 306
  • Fat: 14.1g
  • Sodium: 684mg
  • Carbohydrates: 28.6g
  • Fiber: 2.4g
  • Sugars: 8.3g
  • Protein: 17.5g

One of the most popular dishes on a Thai menu is pad Thai, stir-fried rice noodles with egg, bean curd, bean sprouts, scallions, and crushed peanuts. There is usually variation in the dish from restaurant to restaurant. You often order pad Thai with meat, seafood, or tofu. Because there are different variations, pad Thai calories can vary as well.

While the dish isn't usually the highest-calorie option on a Thai menu, it has significant calories due to oil and peanuts. Pad Thai nutrition is sometimes called into question because of its sugar content.

Most people don't expect a savory dish to be high in sugar, but a single serving provides 8.3 grams. Lastly, Pad Thai is high in sodium, so it may not be an ideal option for those watching their salt intake.

What about the nutrition for other popular dishes? Many are made with rice or with cellophane noodles. These are clear noodles made from starch and water. According to USDA data, one cup of cellophane noodles provides 491 calories, 121 grams of carbohydrates, and less than one gram of fat and protein.

Healthiest Thai Food Options

If you want to keep your Thai food calories and fat intake low, scan the menu for any of these options.

  • Thai spring rolls. ​These rolls usually are made with fresh shrimp, vegetables, and/or tofu. They are wrapped in clear-ish spring roll wrappers and not fried.
  • Soups. While some soups in Thai restaurants are made with coconut milk, others have clear broth and include chicken, beef, or tofu with vegetables, herbs, scallions, and garlic.
  • Thai salads. Many fresh salads have mixed greens, cucumbers, tomatoes, shallots, or tofu. They are often served with peanut dressing or a citrus vinaigrette.
  • Chicken sate. These skewered chicken breast appetizers are marinated with herbs and grilled. They are often served with dipping sauce.

You will also find many stir fry choices on a Thai menu. Many might be slightly higher in fat because of the preparation method, but if you keep your portion size in control these dishes can provide healthy servings of lean meats and vegetables.

Less Healthy Thai Food Options

So, what should you avoid at a Thai restaurant? Skip fried foods. Fried wontons or crispy rolls are popular on many menus but provide little nutrition. You might also see fried calamari or fried fish cakes on some menus.

Skip peanut dipping sauces if you're paying attention to Thai food calories, as some are high in fat, sugar, and calories.

3 Sources
Verywell Fit uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.
  1. USDA, FoodData Central. Massaman medium curry chicken.

  2. Pad Thai with chicken. U.S. Department of Agriculture.

  3. Noodles, Chinese, cellophane or long rice (mung beans), dehydrated. U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Malia Frey

By Malia Frey, M.A., ACE-CHC, CPT
 Malia Frey is a weight loss expert, certified health coach, weight management specialist, personal trainer​, and fitness nutrition specialist.