Calories in 1 Teaspoon of Ghee, Oil, Sugar, Honey

By NYUS Inc. · Published 27 October 2026

A teaspoon of ghee on the roti, a tablespoon of oil in the tadka, a spoon of sugar in the chai, a spoon of honey or jaggery: these are the calories people forget to log, because calorie lists give fats and sugars per 100 g and nobody eats 100 g. This guide gives the calories per 100 g for ghee, butter, six cooking oils, white sugar, honey and jaggery, then turns them into one teaspoon and one tablespoon using spoon weights that are ours. The figures are for the food as sold, not for a cooked dish.

The short answer

By the sources below, a level teaspoon of ghee is about 41 kcal, a teaspoon of a cooking oil about 41 kcal (coconut oil 41), a teaspoon of salted butter 34 kcal, white sugar 16 kcal, honey 22 kcal and jaggery 14 kcal. A level tablespoon is about 122 kcal of ghee, 122 kcal of oil, 102 kcal of butter, 48 kcal of sugar, 65 kcal of honey and 42 kcal of jaggery. Our reading: ghee and every oil on this page are within a few kcal of each other per spoon, so the oil or ghee you pick matters far less than how many spoons go in.

Calories per 100 g, per teaspoon and per tablespoon

Indian lab values (IFCT 2017) exist only for jaggery; the other rows are USDA reference values. Jaggery is IFCT 2017 Table 1 row I001 (PDF page 56, 6 regions): 1480 kJ per 100 g, divided by 4.184 kJ per kcal, is 354 kcal. Every other row is a USDA FoodData Central SR Legacy record, and the kcal per 100 g is the Energy figure printed on that record. The values are for the food as sold. The spoon weights are ours, not from USDA or IFCT: for liquids (the six oils and honey) we take a level spoon as 5 mL for a teaspoon and 15 mL for a tablespoon and multiply by a density of 0.92 g per mL for oils and 1.42 g per mL for honey; for solids (ghee, butter, sugar and jaggery) we take a level spoon and our own estimate of its weight. We have not weighed these ourselves, so weigh your own spoon once. Each figure is the grams times the kcal per 100 g in the table, divided by 100, rounded to the nearest kcal.

What stands out in the numbers

• Ghee and the oils are close per spoon. Ghee is 900 kcal per 100 g and the oils 884 kcal (coconut oil 892), so a teaspoon is about 41 kcal of ghee and about 41 kcal of groundnut, mustard, sunflower, rice bran or sesame oil. A tablespoon is about 122 kcal of ghee against 122 kcal of oil.
• Butter is lighter than ghee per spoon: 717 kcal per 100 g in the salted butter record, so a teaspoon is about 34 kcal and a tablespoon about 102 kcal.
• A spoon of sugar is much smaller than a spoon of fat: about 16 kcal a teaspoon and 48 kcal a tablespoon, against about 41 and 122 kcal for ghee.
• Honey weighs more per spoon. Honey is 304 kcal per 100 g against 387 kcal for sugar, but by our density a teaspoon of honey is 7.1 g against 4.2 g for sugar, so a teaspoon of honey (22 kcal) is more than a teaspoon of sugar (16 kcal). That follows from our spoon weights, so check your own spoon.
• Jaggery is 354 kcal per 100 g in IFCT 2017, between honey and sugar, so a level teaspoon of about 4 g is about 14 kcal and a tablespoon of about 12 g about 42 kcal. Our jaggery vs sugar guide compares the two.

How to log it so the numbers hold

• Level the spoon, or weigh it. A heaped spoon of ghee or sugar can hold more than a level one. Put your usual spoon on a kitchen scale once and scale the table. Other NYUS guides, following the ICMR-NIN guidelines, count a teaspoon of ghee or oil as 5 g, about 45 kcal, and a tablespoon of ghee as about 15 g, about 135 kcal. This page uses the USDA level-spoon weights, 4.5 g and 13.5 g, which give 41 and 122 kcal. The difference is the spoon weight, not the food data. A generous 5 g spoon is about 45 kcal.
• Count the oil that stays in the pan. The rows are for the oil or ghee as sold. How much of it ends up on your plate depends on the dish; see our cooking oil guide and our ghee guide.
• Sugar in drinks and sweets. Chai, lassi and mithai carry their own sugar, milk and ghee; our sugar guide and our cooking oil fatty acids guide go further. If you cannot weigh, the plate method in our hand-portion guide helps.
• Pick the nearest row. A different oil, a different butter or a flavoured honey is not one of these rows; use the closest row and weigh it.

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 or protein target: we have not looked up one for any person, so we give none.
• Indian lab values for ghee, butter, oils, sugar and honey: IFCT 2017 Table 1 has no row for them that we found (it has jaggery and sugarcane juice), and its fatty acid table gives the fat make-up of oils, not calories. Those rows therefore come from USDA FoodData Central, as stated above.
• Other oils and spreads, vanaspati, margarine, flavoured or branded products, and any cooked dish: not covered, and no branded or pack-label figure is used.
• Anything about weight, health or what these foods do to your body: the page adds up food data and makes no claim about it. If you have a medical condition, ask your doctor or dietitian.

Sources

• ICMR-NIN, Indian Food Composition Tables 2017 (IFCT 2017). Table 1, row I001 (Jaggery, cane, Saccharum officinarum), PDF page 56, 6 regions: energy 1480 kJ per 100 g, divided by 4.184 kJ per kcal = 354 kcal (read 27 Oct 2026).
• USDA FoodData Central, SR Legacy 171314 (Butter, Clarified butter (ghee)): Energy 900 kcal per 100 g (read 27 Oct 2026).
• USDA FoodData Central, SR Legacy 173410 (Butter, salted): Energy 717 kcal per 100 g (read 27 Oct 2026). The unsalted record (173430) prints the same 717 kcal.
• USDA FoodData Central, SR Legacy 171410 (Oil, peanut, salad or cooking): Energy 884 kcal per 100 g (read 27 Oct 2026).
• USDA FoodData Central, SR Legacy 172337 (Oil, mustard): Energy 884 kcal per 100 g (read 27 Oct 2026).
• USDA FoodData Central, SR Legacy 171412 (Oil, coconut): Energy 892 kcal per 100 g (read 27 Oct 2026).
• USDA FoodData Central, SR Legacy 171025 (Oil, sunflower, linoleic, (approx. 65%)): Energy 884 kcal per 100 g (read 27 Oct 2026).
• USDA FoodData Central, SR Legacy 171013 (Oil, rice bran): Energy 884 kcal per 100 g (read 27 Oct 2026).
• USDA FoodData Central, SR Legacy 171016 (Oil, sesame, salad or cooking): Energy 884 kcal per 100 g (read 27 Oct 2026).
• USDA FoodData Central, SR Legacy 169655 (Sugars, granulated): Energy 387 kcal per 100 g (read 27 Oct 2026).
• USDA FoodData Central, SR Legacy 169640 (Honey): Energy 304 kcal per 100 g (read 27 Oct 2026).
• nyus.in, the NYUS landing page, read on 27 Oct 2026 for the app statements in the NYUS section and the CTA.

The spoon weights (4.5 g, 4.7 g, 4.6 g, 4.2 g, 7.1 g and 4.0 g a teaspoon; 13.5 g, 14.2 g, 13.8 g, 12.5 g, 21.3 g and 12.0 g a tablespoon), the 0.92 and 1.42 g per mL densities, the sums, the rounding and every sentence starting "Our reading" are NYUS's own arithmetic or opinion, not from USDA or IFCT. Names in brackets (makhan, gingelly, til, chini, shahad, gur) are our matching to the record names.

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