How many calories are in cashews?
A 30 g (1 oz) handful of cashews is about 170 kcal. That is roughly 18 kernels, so a little under 9 kcal each — cashews are larger and heavier than almonds, so a handful of them is fewer nuts for similar calories.
Per portion
| Portion | Calories | Protein | Carbs | Fat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| One kernel (about 1.5 g) | ~9 kcal | 0.25 g | 0.5 g | 0.7 g |
| 10 cashews | ~90 kcal | 2.5 g | 5 g | 7 g |
| Handful, 30 g (18 kernels) | ~170 kcal | 5 g | 10 g | 14 g |
| 100 g raw (about ¾ cup) | ~555 kcal | 18 g | 30 g | 44 g |
| 100 g dry-roasted | ~575 kcal | 15 g | 33 g | 46 g |
| 1 tbsp cashew butter (16 g) | ~95 kcal | 3 g | 4.5 g | 8 g |
Only about 3 g of those carbohydrates is fibre — the lowest of the common nuts by a wide margin, and the reason cashews behave differently from the rest.
What changes the number
Oil-roasting and salting. Dry-roasted cashews are about 20 kcal per 100 g above raw; oil-roasted salted cashews reach 580–600 kcal per 100 g. Salted cashews are the classic bar snack for a reason, and it is not the salt’s calories.
Coatings and masala. Pepper, chilli, honey-roasted and chocolate-coated cashews run 500–600 kcal per 100 g. The honey and sugar versions swap fat for sugar, so the total shifts less than you would expect while the food becomes much quicker to eat.
Grade and size. Cashews are graded by size and breakage — whole W-grades, splits, and the small pieces sold cheaply for cooking. Calories per 100 g are identical across grades; what changes is how many kernels a handful holds, so “ten cashews” can mean 70 kcal of small pieces or 110 kcal of large wholes.
Cooking fat, which dominates everything. Cashews fried in ghee as a garnish pick up most of the oil they sit in: a tablespoon of ghee is about 120 kcal, and 15 g of cashews fried in it come out nearer 200 kcal than 85.
Where it fits in a deficit
Cashews are mildly misleading. They are lower in fat and higher in carbohydrate than almonds, peanuts or walnuts, which sounds like it should make them a lighter choice — but at 555 kcal per 100 g they are only about 25 kcal per 100 g below almonds, because the carbohydrate replaces the fat rather than reducing the total. They sit on the same rung of the calorie-density ladder as everything else on the nut shelf.
The real difference is satiety. Cashews are soft, barely need chewing and carry a quarter of the fibre of almonds, so a 170 kcal handful registers as considerably less food. Of the nuts, this is the one most worth portioning out before you start rather than eating from the jar. If you are planning meals around a target, it is also the one most likely to quietly outgrow the portion you budgeted for.
The cashews nobody counts
Most cashews are not eaten as cashews. They are ground into things, and the ground ones are invisible:
| Where they turn up | Rough cost |
|---|---|
| Cashew paste in a korma or makhani gravy | 15–25 g per serving, 85–140 kcal |
| One piece of kaju katli (about 12 g) | 55–65 kcal |
| Cashews in a handful of trail mix | 10–15 g, 55–85 kcal |
| Fried cashew garnish on pulao or kheer | 10 g plus its ghee, 120–180 kcal |
This is why a restaurant korma can be startlingly dense without containing much meat: the sauce is thickened with nuts and cream rather than stock. None of that makes it a food to avoid, but it does mean a cashew-based gravy should be costed like a nut dish rather than a vegetable one. For contrast, the same weight of walnuts carries more calories still, and a deficit counts both the same way.
Figures are typical values and vary by variety, size and preparation. General information, not medical advice.