How many calories are in cabbage?
Raw green cabbage is about 25 kcal per 100 g, which makes a cup of shredded cabbage — roughly 70 g — about 18 kcal. Only cucumber, lettuce and a few leafy greens sit lower. A whole medium head is around 225 kcal.
Per portion
| Portion | Calories | Protein | Carbs | Fat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Raw green, 100 g | ~25 kcal | 1.3 g | 5.8 g | 0.1 g |
| Raw red, 100 g | ~30 kcal | 1.4 g | 7 g | 0.2 g |
| Boiled and drained, 100 g | ~23 kcal | 1.3 g | 5.5 g | 0.1 g |
| 1 cup shredded raw (~70 g) | ~18 kcal | 0.9 g | 4 g | 0.1 g |
| 1 cup cooked (~150 g) | ~35 kcal | 2 g | 8 g | 0.2 g |
| Half a medium head (~450 g) | ~110 kcal | 6 g | 26 g | 0.5 g |
| Sauerkraut, drained, 100 g | ~20 kcal | 1 g | 4 g | 0.1 g |
What changes the number
Not the variety. Green, red, savoy and napa all land between 23 and 31 kcal per 100 g, and nothing you choose at the shop moves that meaningfully.
The fat does:
- 1 tsp oil in a patta gobi sabzi: about 40 kcal, and two teaspoons is common
- Shop coleslaw: 130 to 200 kcal per 100 g, against about 40 for a vinegar slaw
- Fried in butter or with bacon: 120 to 250 kcal a serving, nearly all from the pan
- A stir-fry finished with oil and soy: 150 to 220 kcal a bowl
A 300 g plateful is 75 kcal plain and 250 kcal dressed. Few foods are decided this completely by the cooking medium.
What cooking does not change is the energy, only the plate. Three hundred grams of raw shreds fills a mixing bowl; boiled or stir-fried, the same cabbage collapses to about a cupful, and both are 75 kcal. That cuts both ways: if you want the fullness, eat it raw, because appetite responds to bulk and chewing time; if you want to get through half a head, cook it.
Where it fits in a deficit
This is the cheapest way there is to make a meal physically larger. Shredded under a curry, stir-fried beside it, or dressed with vinegar, it cuts a meal’s calories without cutting its size, which is the whole mechanism behind high-volume eating.
Two honest limits. At 1.3 g of protein per 100 g, cabbage bulks a meal rather than building one, so it belongs beside a protein source. And 2.5 g of fibre per 100 g, eaten in quantity, causes wind and bloating in a lot of people. Cooked is gentler than raw.
The cabbage soup diet
The cabbage soup diet does produce fast weight loss, and it is worth being plain about why. The plan — cabbage soup plus a few vegetables and some fruit for seven days — lands most people around 800 to 1,000 kcal a day. That is a very large calorie deficit created by eating almost nothing, and any food restricted that hard would do the same.
Nothing in cabbage burns fat, speeds metabolism or has negative calories. Much of the first few days’ drop is water and glycogen, and it comes back when you eat normally. A litre of the soup also supplies perhaps 10 g of protein, which is the real problem: at that intake, a meaningful share of what you lose is lean tissue.
The idea survives without the diet. Cabbage soup with stock, beans and some chicken in it is a genuinely filling 250 kcal bowl, and that is a sustainable version of the same trick. On a plate rather than in a bowl, cauliflower and green beans do the same job at much the same density.
Figures are typical values and vary by variety, size and preparation. General information, not medical advice.