How much protein is in a chicken breast?
About 31 g per 100 g of cooked skinless breast. The catch is that a breast is not a fixed size: they run from about 120 g to 250 g raw, so a single breast is anywhere from 30 g to 65 g of protein. Weighing one breast once tells you more than any table.
Key takeaways
- Cooked skinless chicken breast is about 31 g of protein per 100 g. Raw is about 23 g per 100 g, because raw meat holds more water.
- Breast size varies enormously. That variation, not the per-100-g figure, is where protein estimates go wrong.
- Thigh is about 25 g per 100 g cooked: less protein, more fat, and considerably more forgiving to cook.
- Cooking removes roughly a quarter of the weight as water, which concentrates the protein rather than destroying it.
- One weighing of your usual portion converts chicken from a guess into a number you can reuse forever.
Chicken breast is the default protein food for a reason: it carries more protein per 100 g than almost anything else people eat regularly, and very little else. The number is easy. Applying it is where people go wrong.
The figures
- 31 gBreast, skinless, cooked100 g
- 23 gBreast, skinless, raw100 g
- 29 gBreast with skin, cooked100 g
- 25 gThigh, skinless, cooked100 g
- 27 gDrumstick, skinless, cooked100 g
- 26 gWings, with skin, cooked100 g
- 27 gRotisserie chicken, meat only100 g
- 20 gBreaded chicken breast, cooked100 g
Raw against cooked, which is where a third goes missing
Raw chicken is about three quarters water by weight. Cooking drives a good deal of that off, so 100 g raw becomes roughly 75 g cooked, holding the same protein in less mass.
The protein is not created by cooking and it is not destroyed by it. Only the water moves.
The practical consequence is one error, made constantly: weighing chicken raw and then applying the cooked figure. A 200 g raw breast is about 46 g of protein. Multiply 200 by the cooked rate and you get 62 g. That is a 16 g overstatement on one item, on a day that was probably already optimistic elsewhere.
Pick one basis and stay with it. Raw is easier if you cook for one, because you weigh before it goes in the pan.
The variation nobody accounts for
The bigger problem is not raw against cooked. It is that "a chicken breast" is not a unit.
| A breast this size, raw | Cooked weight | Protein |
|---|---|---|
| 120 g, small | about 90 g | 28 g |
| 170 g, average | about 128 g | 40 g |
| 200 g, large | about 150 g | 46 g |
| 250 g, very large | about 188 g | 58 g |
Thirty grams of protein separate the top and bottom rows. That is more than a whole meal's target, hiding inside a single item that everybody logs as one thing.
This is the single largest source of error in protein estimation, and it is why accuracy in a protein log is almost entirely a question of portion size rather than food choice. Weigh your usual breast once. Whatever it turns out to be, that becomes your number, and you never need to weigh again.
Breast against thigh
Breast wins on protein per calorie and loses on everything else people actually care about while cooking.
- Breast, cooked: 31 g protein, about 165 kcal per 100 g.
- Thigh, cooked skinless: 25 g protein, about 210 kcal per 100 g.
That is a real difference, and it is smaller than the difference between eating chicken and not bothering. Thigh is cheaper, more forgiving of a distracted cook, and better in most things that are not a salad. If thigh means you eat chicken twice a week instead of once, thigh is the better food.
The things that quietly lower the number
- Breading. A breaded fillet is about 20 g per 100 g, because a fifth of the weight is not chicken.
- Skin. Not a disaster, but it adds weight and calories without protein, so the per-100-g figure falls.
- Marinades and sauces. Same effect: heavier plate, same protein.
- Deli and pre-cooked slices. Often brined, so some of what you bought is water. Check the label rather than assuming the 31 g figure applies.
For where chicken sits against everything else, the full reference table has the rest of the foods, and what 30 g of protein looks like gives the portion sizes at a glance.
More questions about Protein in food
Is that 31 g raw or cooked?
Cooked. Raw skinless breast is about 23 g per 100 g. The difference is water: cooking drives off around a quarter of the weight, so the same protein sits in less mass. Using the cooked figure on a raw weight overstates your intake by about a third, which is the most common arithmetic error with meat.
How much protein is in one chicken breast?
It depends far more on the bird than on anything else. A small breast of 120 g raw gives roughly 90 g cooked and about 28 g of protein. A large one at 250 g raw gives roughly 190 g cooked and about 58 g. That is a swing of 30 g, which is a whole meal's worth, so weighing yours once is worth the trouble.
Is chicken thigh worse than breast?
Lower in protein per 100 g, at about 25 g against 31 g, and higher in fat, so it carries more calories for the same protein. Whether that is worse depends on your day. Thigh is harder to overcook and cheaper, and a diet you enjoy beats a slightly better macro split you abandon.
