How many calories are in curd (dahi)?
100 g of curd set from whole milk is about 60 kcal, so a small bowl of 150 g is roughly 95 kcal. Curd is milk plus bacteria and nothing else, so almost all of the variation comes from the milk that went in rather than from the setting.
Per portion
| Portion | Calories | Protein | Carbs | Fat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100 g whole-milk curd | ~60 | 3.5 g | 4.5 g | 3.5 g |
| 150 g small bowl or katori, whole milk | ~95 | 5 g | 7 g | 5.5 g |
| 150 g bowl, toned milk (3% fat) | ~70 | 5 g | 7 g | 3 g |
| 150 g bowl, double-toned or skimmed | ~55 | 5.5 g | 7.5 g | 1 g |
| 150 g bowl, buffalo-milk curd | ~145 | 5.5 g | 7 g | 11 g |
| 100 g hung curd from whole milk | ~120 | 8.5 g | 4 g | 8 g |
| 100 g hung curd from skimmed milk | ~70 | 10 g | 5 g | 1 g |
| 250 g curd rice with tempering | ~250–320 | 7 g | 35–40 g | 8–12 g |
What changes the number
The milk, which decides nearly everything. Fermentation leaves the energy roughly where it was, so curd lands within a few kcal of the milk it came from. A litre of whole milk sets into about 640 kcal of curd; a litre of double-toned milk, about 480. Protein barely moves across that range, so the difference is almost pure fat.
Hung curd concentrates both things at once. Draining the whey removes water and lactose and leaves protein and fat behind: from whole milk, roughly 120 kcal and 8–9 g of protein per 100 g, about double the curd it started as on both counts. It is a sensible stand-in for cream or mayonnaise, but it is not the low-calorie food it is often called. Hung curd from skimmed milk is the version that genuinely is light — around 70 kcal with the same protein.
The malai. A spoon of the cream on a home-set pot is 40–60 kcal, and goes uncounted because it looks like part of the curd.
What lands in the bowl. A teaspoon of sugar is about 20 kcal, a tablespoon of honey about 60, a sprinkle of boondi or sev 30–50. Shrikhand — hung curd beaten with sugar — is 180–220 kcal per 100 g, which makes it a dessert.
Where it fits in a deficit
Curd is mostly water, which is what makes it useful when you are eating less than you burn. A 150 g bowl costs under 100 kcal and settles a meal, so it sits with the high-volume foods, not the dense ones.
Per 100 kcal it carries about 6 g of protein as whole-milk curd, about 10 g from skimmed milk and about 14 g as skimmed-milk hung curd. Respectable, but one bowl is only 5 g: curd rounds out a day’s protein rather than supplying it. Switching the household milk down a grade does most here, because it applies to every bowl without changing anything you eat.
Diluted into chaas the same curd stretches to a drink for 35–45 kcal; blended into a sweet lassi it becomes a 200–350 kcal glass.
Does sour curd have fewer calories?
Not meaningfully. Longer fermentation converts more lactose into lactic acid, lowering the carbohydrate figure by a gram or two per 100 g — under 10 kcal. Sour curd tastes sharper and feels lighter, which is not the same as being lighter.
Two neighbouring claims are also wrong. Curd does not burn fat, and curd eaten at night is not stored differently from curd eaten at noon. What goes on top of it, at either hour, is where the number actually moves.
Figures are typical values and vary by variety, size and preparation. General information, not medical advice.