Calories and protein in a bowl of chicken congee, with and without sesame oil
Also called jook, zhou.
The short answer
1 bowl, about 400 g, normal sesame oil
190 kcal
14 g protein
Fat 3 g · carbs 26 g · fibre 0.5 g · With meat or fish
Portion: a large soup bowl. Calculated from USDA FoodData Central
Congee is mostly water, so a big bowl is light. Fried dough sticks on the side change that.
With and without sesame oil
The same 1 bowl, changing only the sesame oil drizzled on top. Normal is about 1.5 g in this portion. A little halves the recipe’s fat and a lot doubles it, so in a portion of the same weight a lot comes out a little under double. These are the four levels the app asks about, with the same numbers.
| Sesame oil | Added | Calories | Protein |
|---|---|---|---|
| None | 0 g | 180 kcal | 14 g |
| A little | 0.5 g | 190 kcal | 14 g |
| Normal | 1.5 g | 190 kcal | 14 g |
| A lot | 2.5 g | 200 kcal | 14 g |
What moves the number
- Riceabout 120 kcal
- Chickenabout 65 kcal
- Sesame oil (the sesame oil drizzled on top)about 10 kcal
The recipe behind these numbers
Raw ingredient weights in one 1 bowl, scaled from the batch recipe in the Homekcal app’s dish table, with normal sesame oil. Water, salt and spices add almost no energy but are listed so the recipe is complete. If your version has more of something, the numbers move with it.
| Ingredient | Weight | Calories | Protein |
|---|---|---|---|
| RiceUSDA: Rice, white, long-grain, regular, raw, enriched | 32 g | 120 | 2.5 g |
| ChickenUSDA: Chicken, broilers or fryers, meat only, raw | 53 g | 65 | 11 g |
| GingerUSDA: Ginger root, raw | 3 g | 5 | 0 g |
| Spring onionUSDA: Onions, spring or scallions (includes tops and bulb), raw | 3 g | 0 | 0 g |
| SaltUSDA: Salt, table | 1.5 g | 0 | 0 g |
| WaterUSDA: Beverages, water, tap, drinking | 379 g | 0 | 0 g |
| Sesame oilUSDA: Oil, sesame, salad or cookingThe sesame oil drizzled on top | 1.5 g | 10 | 0 g |
What we could not match
Stand ins and assumptions in this recipe that a person still has to check.
- Cooked yield is an estimate of a typical home pot (water evaporated); a weighed batch would replace it.
- Meat weight is edible meat without bone; bone-in pieces on the plate weigh more than the meat they carry.
- Congee thickness varies a lot; a thicker pot has more rice per bowl.
- Fried dough sticks, fried shallots and soy sauce on the side are not included.
How this was worked out
This is the same dish the Homekcal app logs, from the same table. Each raw ingredient’s weight is multiplied by its per-100 g values in USDA FoodData Central, the batch is added up and divided by the cooked weight it makes. Calories are rounded to the nearest 10 and grams to the nearest gram, because a standard recipe is not your recipe. These are calculated values, not weighed or lab tested meals, and home versions vary a lot.
Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2026. fdc.nal.usda.gov. Public domain (CC0).
Logging this at home? A photo estimate in the app starts from a dish like this, and you set the portion and the sesame oil in one tap. See what photo estimates miss.
Compare with other Chinese dishes
Photograph your own chicken congee
See calories and protein in seconds, as an honest range, with the sesame oil one tap away.