Calories and protein in a bowl of egusi soup, with and without palm oil
Also called melon seed soup.
The short answer
1 bowl, about 250 g, normal palm oil
380 kcal
26 g protein
Fat 30 g · carbs 7.5 g · fibre 1.5 g · With meat or fish
Portion: soup only, without swallow. Calculated from USDA FoodData Central
Egusi is rich because the seeds themselves are high in fat. The swallow (eba, pounded yam, fufu) is a separate item and often the bigger number.
With and without palm oil
The same 1 bowl, changing only the palm oil the soup is cooked in. Normal is about 13 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.
| Palm oil | Added | Calories | Protein |
|---|---|---|---|
| None | 0 g | 280 kcal | 27 g |
| A little | 6.5 g | 330 kcal | 27 g |
| Normal | 13 g | 380 kcal | 26 g |
| A lot | 25 g | 470 kcal | 25 g |
What moves the number
- Melon seedsabout 150 kcal
- Palm oil (the palm oil the soup is cooked in)about 110 kcal
- Beef chuckabout 95 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 palm 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Melon seedsUSDA: Seeds, watermelon seed kernels, dried | 28 g | 150 | 8 g |
| SpinachUSDA: Spinach, raw | 56 g | 15 | 1.5 g |
| Beef chuckUSDA: Beef, chuck for stew, separable lean and fat, all grades, raw | 74 g | 95 | 16 g |
| OnionUSDA: Onions, raw | 11 g | 5 | 0 g |
| Green chilliUSDA: Peppers, hot chili, green, raw | 2 g | 0 | 0 g |
| WaterUSDA: Beverages, water, tap, drinking | 111 g | 0 | 0 g |
| SaltUSDA: Salt, table | 1.5 g | 0 | 0 g |
| Palm oilUSDA: Oil, palmThe palm oil the soup is cooked in | 13 g | 110 | 0 g |
What we could not match
Stand ins and assumptions in this recipe that a person still has to check.
- Bitterleaf or ugu is calculated as spinach; stockfish and crayfish are left out.
- Melon seeds: Egusi (melon seed) as USDA watermelon seed kernels. Check.
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 palm oil in one tap. See what photo estimates miss.
Compare with other Nigerian dishes
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