Calories in a Cup of Soy, Almond and Coconut Milk

By NYUS Inc. · Published 27 October 2026

Soy milk, almond milk and coconut milk drinks sit next to the dairy milk in most shops, and the calories in a cup depend on which one it is and whether it is sweetened. This guide gives four reference rows from USDA FoodData Central, one per drink, each with the cup weight USDA prints on the record. They are US ready-to-drink products as the record names describe them, not a brand and not the carton in your fridge. Our cow and buffalo milk guide says it gives no number for almond milk; this page gives four plant drink rows, and oat milk is not among them because USDA has no record for it.

The short answer

By the USDA records below, one cup of soy milk (243 g, original and vanilla, unfortified) is about 131 kcal. One cup of unsweetened almond milk (262 g) is about 39 kcal, and one cup of sweetened vanilla almond milk (240 g) about 91 kcal. One cup of the coconut milk drink (240 g, sweetened and fortified) is about 74 kcal. Our reading: the sweetened almond record carries more than twice the energy of the unsweetened one per 100 g (38 against 15 kcal), so "almond milk" is not one number; check whether yours is sweetened. The coconut row is a drink to pour on cereal or into tea, not canned coconut milk for cooking, and oat milk has no USDA record in SR Legacy, so we give no number for it.

Calories and protein per cup

The table gives each record as USDA prints it: energy, protein, total fat and carbohydrate per 100 g, and the cup weight listed on the record page. The per cup figures are our arithmetic: grams in the cup times the value per 100 g, divided by 100, rounded to the nearest kcal and to 0.1 g for protein, fat and carbohydrate, with half rounding up. Indian tables do not cover these drinks, so there is no IFCT row to set beside them.

The sums: soy milk 54 × 243 / 100 = 131.22, so 131 kcal, with protein 3.27 × 243 / 100 = 7.946, so 7.9 g, fat 1.75 × 243 / 100 = 4.2525, so 4.3 g, and carbohydrate 6.28 × 243 / 100 = 15.26, so 15.3 g; sweetened almond 38 × 240 / 100 = 91.2, so 91 kcal; coconut drink 31 × 240 / 100 = 74.4, so 74 kcal; unsweetened almond 15 × 262 / 100 = 39.3, so 39 kcal. The protein, fat and carbohydrate for the other three rows are the same arithmetic on the per 100 g figures. USDA also lists 1 fl oz (30.6 g) for the soy record, which is 54 × 30.6 / 100 = 16.5, so 17 kcal.

Against cow and buffalo milk, per 100 g

Cup weights differ by drink, so the fair comparison is per 100 g. Our milk guide gives whole cow milk at 73 kcal and 3.26 g of protein per 100 g and whole buffalo milk at 107 kcal and 3.68 g (IFCT 2017 L002 and L001, the figures that guide prints). Set beside them, the four USDA rows are 54 kcal and 3.27 g of protein (soy), 38 kcal and 0.42 g (sweetened almond), 31 kcal and 0.21 g (coconut drink) and 15 kcal and 0.4 g (unsweetened almond). These are two different sources, an Indian table for dairy and US product records for the plant drinks, so use the comparison for scale, not to the last kcal.

What stands out in the numbers

• Per 100 g the rows run from 15 to 54 kcal: soy 54, sweetened almond 38, coconut drink 31 and unsweetened almond 15.
• Soy is the only row near the dairy row for protein: 3.27 g per 100 g against 3.26 g for the cow milk row, and 0.21 to 0.42 g for the other three, as printed.
• Sweetened and unsweetened almond differ a lot. Carbohydrate is 6.59 g per 100 g in the sweetened record against 1.31 g in the unsweetened one, which is most of the gap between 91 and 39 kcal per cup.
• The coconut drink has twice the fat of the unsweetened almond. The records print 2.08 g and 0.96 g of fat per 100 g, which is about 5.0 g and 2.5 g per cup by our arithmetic.

Why these are reference rows, not your carton

• USDA's own notes. On the record pages, the protein and fat of the soy record are marked "aggregated data", those of the unsweetened almond record "manufacturer supplied", and the protein and fat of the sweetened almond record and the protein, fat and carbohydrate of the coconut record "label claim (back calculated from label by NDL staff)"; the carbohydrate of the sweetened almond record is "estimated formulation based on ingredient list". Each describes a product USDA looked at, not every product.
• Sweetened, flavoured, fortified. The record names say which: vanilla, sweetened, unsweetened, fortified. A chocolate, barista, protein-added or sweetened-with-something-else carton is not one of these rows.
• Oat milk and others. USDA SR Legacy has no oat milk record (we searched for oat milk on 27 Oct 2026 and found none, and a search for oat found no oat drink), so we give no number for it, and none for cashew, rice or pea drinks.
• For your own carton, the pack wins. This page uses no pack labels, so it does not mix them with the four records.

How to log it so the numbers hold

• Log the drink by its state. Choose sweetened or unsweetened before you choose the milk; the difference is larger than the difference between almond and soy.
• Log a cup as a cup. The grams are USDA's cup weight; if you pour 150 ml, scale from the per 100 g column.
• In chai, coffee or a shake, log the milk by its own row and the rest separately: our chai and coffee guide builds a cup from milk and sugar, and our protein powder guide gives a scoop.
• Do not mix sources inside one day. If you log a carton from its own pack, keep to the pack.

Where NYUS fits (our app)

We make NYUS, so read this as ours. NYUS is an AI fitness and nutrition coach in early access on Android, with no ads and no data selling. You log foods yourself by searching 8,900+ Indian and global foods or by barcode, and a weekly check-in adjusts your calories, macros and step goal once enough is logged. Barcode coverage of Indian packaged foods is not complete, so search by name when a scan finds nothing.

What this page leaves out

• A calorie, protein or calcium target, and any claim about what these drinks do to your weight or health: we have not looked up one for any person, so we give none. If you have a medical condition or an allergy, ask your doctor or dietitian.
• Any named brand, pack label or FSSAI figure: not used, so the page does not mix label numbers with the records above.
• Oat, rice, cashew, pea and other plant drinks, canned coconut milk for cooking, coconut cream, and barista or flavoured cartons: not covered here.
• An IFCT 2017 comparison for the plant drinks: IFCT 2017 has no soy milk, almond milk, coconut milk, oat milk, plant milk or rice milk row (we searched all 585 pages of the PDF on 27 Oct 2026 for those terms and found none). The dairy figures above are quoted from our milk guide.
• Nutrients beyond energy, protein, fat and carbohydrate, including calcium and vitamins: not covered here.

Sources

• USDA FoodData Central, SR Legacy 172446 (Soymilk, original and vanilla, unfortified): Energy 54 kcal, protein 3.27 g, total fat 1.75 g, carbohydrate 6.28 g per 100 g; household portions printed on the record: 1 cup 243 g, 1 fl oz 30.6 g (read 27 Oct 2026).
• USDA FoodData Central, SR Legacy 168751 (Beverages, almond milk, sweetened, vanilla flavor, ready-to-drink): Energy 38 kcal, protein 0.42 g, total fat 1.04 g, carbohydrate 6.59 g per 100 g; household portions: 1 cup 240 g, 8 fl oz 240 g (read 27 Oct 2026).
• USDA FoodData Central, SR Legacy 174116 (Beverages, coconut milk, sweetened, fortified with calcium, vitamins A, B12, D2): Energy 31 kcal, protein 0.21 g, total fat 2.08 g, carbohydrate 2.92 g per 100 g; household portion: 1 cup 240 g (read 27 Oct 2026).
• USDA FoodData Central, SR Legacy 174832 (Beverages, almond milk, unsweetened, shelf stable): Energy 15 kcal, protein 0.4 g, total fat 0.96 g, carbohydrate 1.31 g per 100 g; household portion: 1 cup 262 g (read 27 Oct 2026).
• NYUS guide, milk calories and protein, cow vs buffalo, read on 27 Oct 2026 for the whole cow milk (73 kcal, 3.26 g protein) and whole buffalo milk (107 kcal, 3.68 g protein) per 100 g figures, which that page takes from IFCT 2017 L002 and L001.
• ICMR-NIN, Indian Food Composition Tables 2017 (IFCT 2017), PDF searched on 27 Oct 2026 for plant milk terms: no row found.
• nyus.in, the NYUS landing page, read on 27 Oct 2026 for the app statements in the NYUS section and the CTA.

The per cup figures, the sums, the rounding, the comparisons and every sentence starting "Our reading" are NYUS's own arithmetic or opinion, not from USDA. The cup weights in the table are USDA's, printed on the record pages above. The names in the first column are USDA's record names, shortened; the full names are in Sources.

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