Skinless, boneless chicken breast, roasted, delivers 165 calories and 31 grams of protein per 100 grams. Fat sits at 3.6 grams, and carbohydrate at zero, per USDA FoodData Central. A standard 3-ounce serving weighs about 85 grams. It works out to 140 calories and 26 grams of protein. Chicken breast nutrition holds steady in the raw cut. Preparation does most of the moving.
Cooking method changes the math through three levers. Added fat comes first, retained skin second, and breading third. The sections below work through each lever with USDA-based numbers.
Chicken breast nutrition: the roasted baseline
These USDA values describe roasted, skinless, boneless breast meat. That cut serves as the reference for most label comparisons. A 100-gram basis keeps the arithmetic simple. The 3-ounce serving is noted where it helps. Daily Value percentages follow FDA references.
- Calories: 165 per 100 grams (140 per 3-ounce serving).
- Protein: 31 grams per 100 grams (26 grams per serving).
- Fat: 3.6 grams per 100 grams.
- Carbohydrate: 0 grams.
- Cholesterol: 85 milligrams per 100 grams.
- Niacin: 13.7 milligrams per 100 grams (86 percent of the Daily Value).
- Vitamin B6: 0.60 milligrams per 100 grams (35 percent).
- Selenium: 27.6 micrograms per 100 grams (50 percent).
The NIH potassium fact sheet lists a 3-ounce grilled boneless breast at 332 milligrams of potassium. That is 7 percent of the Daily Value, in line with the roasted baseline. A note on units: 100 grams is two-fifths of a pound of cooked meat. Restaurant portions often run larger, so the numbers scale with the weight on the plate. For related coverage, see Banana nutrition explained: potassium, carbs and the ripeness effect.
Poached, simmered or grilled
Water-based cooking and dry grilling keep results close to the roasted baseline. Neither method adds fat or anything else. Calories per gram stay near the roasted numbers. Moisture loss explains most of the small differences between them.
Simmering works the same way. The meat cooks in water near a bare bubble, and nothing sticks to it but moisture. Protein density survives all three methods equally well, since nothing dilutes it. That makes poached and grilled breasts interchangeable with roasted in most arithmetic about protein per gram.
Skin on or skin off
Leaving the skin on through roasting lifts the USDA figures. Skin-on breast lists at 197 calories and 8.1 grams of fat per 100 grams. Protein holds near 30 grams. The gap between the two table rows is the skin, nothing more. Nutrition labels state which version the package holds. This connects to our earlier piece, Egg nutrition facts: protein, cholesterol and yolk versus white.
Breaded and fried: what changes
Breading and frying change the equation in both directions. Flour or crumbs add carbohydrate. Frying oil adds fat. Calories climb well past the skinless baseline, while protein per gram falls. USDA tables show breaded, fried chicken entries carrying double-digit carbohydrate grams per 100 grams. Plain roasted breast never comes close to that share.
Preparation, more than the cut itself, drives the spread in chicken breast nutrition across a restaurant menu. The same bird can land at 140 calories per serving or well past 250, depending on the coating and the oil.
Conclusion: reading chicken breast nutrition by method
The baseline stays simple. Cooked and skinless, the cut runs about 31 grams of protein and 3.6 grams of fat per 100 grams. Skin raises fat and calories. Breading adds carbohydrate and oil. Poaching and grilling change little. Whichever route the kitchen takes, the cut remains a lean protein by USDA numbers, and the label tells the rest.
