Calories and protein in a plate of spaghetti aglio e olio, with and without olive oil
Also called garlic and oil spaghetti.
The short answer
1 plate, about 225 g, normal olive oil
460 kcal
12 g protein
Fat 16 g · carbs 66 g · fibre 3 g · Vegan
Portion: 85 g of dry pasta, cooked. Calculated from USDA FoodData Central
The sauce is the oil, so this is the clearest example of why an oil level matters.
With and without olive oil
The same 1 plate, changing only the olive oil the garlic is cooked in. Normal is about 15 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.
| Olive oil | Added | Calories | Protein |
|---|---|---|---|
| None | 0 g | 350 kcal | 12 g |
| A little | 8 g | 410 kcal | 12 g |
| Normal | 15 g | 460 kcal | 12 g |
| A lot | 28 g | 560 kcal | 11 g |
What moves the number
- Pastaabout 320 kcal
- Olive oil (the olive oil the garlic is cooked in)about 130 kcal
- Garlicabout 10 kcal
The recipe behind these numbers
Raw ingredient weights in one 1 plate, scaled from the batch recipe in the Homekcal app’s dish table, with normal olive 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| PastaUSDA: Pasta, dry, enriched | 85 g | 320 | 11 g |
| WaterUSDA: Beverages, water, tap, drinking | 120 g | 0 | 0 g |
| GarlicUSDA: Garlic, raw | 6.5 g | 10 | 0.5 g |
| Chilli powderUSDA: Spices, pepper, red or cayenne | 1 g | 0 | 0 g |
| ParsleyUSDA: Parsley, fresh | 2.5 g | 0 | 0 g |
| SaltUSDA: Salt, table | 1.5 g | 0 | 0 g |
| Olive oilUSDA: Oil, olive, salad or cookingThe olive oil the garlic is cooked in | 15 g | 130 | 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.
- Chilli flakes are calculated as USDA red or cayenne pepper.
- How much of the oil stays in the pan rather than on the pasta is not known; all of it is counted.
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).
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