How many calories in a Christmas dinner? The plate, the pudding and the whole day
A traditional Christmas dinner is about 1,017 kcal on the plate and about 3,000 across the day. Every item by portion, what really adds up, and swaps that work.
Christmas dinner has a reputation for being a 3,000 calorie plate. It is not. The day is.
A traditional Christmas dinner is about 1,017 kcal on the plate. That is heavy, about the same as a large takeaway, but it is one meal. Add the pudding, the drinks, the mince pies and the chocolate tin, and a typical Christmas Day comes to about 3,000 kcal.
The plate is also not where most people think. The turkey is a fifth of it. The roast potatoes, pigs in blankets and stuffing together are more than half.
The plate, item by item
| Item | Portion | Calories | Share of the plate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roast potatoes | 4 pieces, 160g | 229 | 23% |
| Turkey breast, no skin | 150g | 225 | 22% |
| Pigs in blankets | 3 | 195 | 19% |
| Roast parsnips | 80g | 112 | 11% |
| Sausagemeat stuffing | 40g ball | 100 | 10% |
| Bread sauce | 2 tbsp | 50 | 5% |
| Gravy, from granules | 100ml | 35 | 3% |
| Brussels sprouts, boiled | 80g | 28 | 3% |
| Cranberry sauce | 1 tbsp | 23 | 2% |
| Carrots, boiled | 80g | 20 | 2% |
| Total | 1,017 |
Every figure here comes from the individual breakdowns: turkey, roast dinner for the potatoes and vegetables, stuffing, gravy and sausage for the pigs in blankets.
What changes the plate most
The plate above is a modest one. Most Christmas plates are bigger, and the extra calories come from the same three places every time.
| Change | Calories | Difference |
|---|---|---|
| Plate as above | 1,017 | |
| Turkey with the skin on | 1,077 | +60 |
| Six roast potatoes instead of four | 1,131 | +114 |
| Six pigs in blankets instead of three | 1,212 | +195 |
| Homemade Yorkshire pudding added | 1,089 | +72 |
| Roasting tin gravy with the fat left in, 100ml | 1,072 | +55 |
| Cauliflower cheese, 150g, added | 1,182 | +165 |
| Butter on the vegetables, 10g | 1,089 | +72 |
| Seconds of everything at half size | about 1,525 | +508 |
Seconds are the biggest number on the table, and most people have them. A second smaller helping of potatoes, turkey and pigs in blankets is the difference between a 1,000 kcal dinner and a 1,500 one.
The swaps that work
None of these drops an item. Each one keeps the dinner recognisable.
| Swap | Saves |
|---|---|
| Three roast potatoes instead of four | 57 |
| Two pigs in blankets instead of three | 65 |
| Packet sage and onion ball instead of sausagemeat | 44 |
| Extra 80g of sprouts instead of the parsnips | 84 |
| The first three together | 166 |
With three potatoes, two pigs in blankets and a packet stuffing ball, the plate comes to about 851 kcal. Add a more generous helping of sprouts and it is still under 900. That is a full Christmas dinner with every item on it. The 15 lowest-calorie Christmas foods ranks every item on the table by portion.
The plate above already assumes skinless turkey and gravy from granules. If yours has the skin on (60 kcal on 150g) and tin gravy with the fat left in (55 per 100ml), those two are worth another 115, and they are the easiest changes of all.
The pudding course
| Pudding | Portion | Calories |
|---|---|---|
| Trifle | 150g bowl | 240 |
| Mince pie | 1 standard pie | 233 |
| Mince pie with 100ml custard | 1 pie | 333 |
| Christmas pudding, no topping | 113g | 362 |
| Christmas pudding with brandy butter | 113g plus 1 tbsp | 446 |
| Christmas pudding with 150ml custard | 113g plus 150ml | 512 |
| Christmas pudding with custard and brandy butter | 680 |
Custard is the lightest topping per spoonful, at about 1 kcal per ml (the custard breakdown has the comparison). Trifle is the lightest pudding per gram. Christmas pudding is heavy because the standard slice is big, not because the pudding is unusually dense.
The whole day
This is the honest number. A fairly typical Christmas Day, without anything excessive:
| When | What | Calories |
|---|---|---|
| Before dinner | A flute of Brut prosecco, 125ml | 82 |
| Dinner | The plate above | 1,017 |
| With dinner | Two 175ml glasses of 13.5% red | 264 |
| Pudding | Christmas pudding with custard | 512 |
| Afternoon | Six chocolates from the tub, about 48g | 257 |
| Afternoon | Two mince pies | 466 |
| Evening | A cup of mulled wine, 150ml | 153 |
| Evening | Turkey sandwich with cranberry sauce | 263 |
| Total | 3,014 |
The NHS uses 2,000 kcal a day for women and 2,500 for men as reference figures. The dinner is about a third of the day. The drinks are 499. The afternoon and evening (chocolates, mince pies, mulled wine and a sandwich) come to 1,139, more than the dinner plate itself.
Wine figures come from the wine breakdown. Tub chocolates are mostly milk chocolate at about 5.35 kcal per gram, so a single wrapped one of about 8g is roughly 43 kcal, per the chocolate breakdown.
Does one big day matter?
Not much, and it is worth saying plainly. A surplus of about 1,000 kcal is a small fraction of a kilogram of fat. The two or three kilograms that sometimes appear on the scales on Boxing Day are mostly water, salt and the weight of the food still in transit, and they leave over the next few days of normal eating.
What matters is the stretch from mid December to New Year. Ten days of mince pies, chocolates and drinks at Christmas Day levels is a different story from one day. If you track anything over the holidays, track the grazing, not the dinner.
UK and US words on the Christmas table
| UK | US or elsewhere | Calorie note |
|---|---|---|
| Pigs in blankets | Chipolatas wrapped in bacon. In the US, "pigs in a blanket" are mini hot dogs in pastry | A different food, so check the pack rather than using 65 kcal |
| Stuffing ball | Stuffing or dressing by the scoop | A US scoop of buttery dressing is about 300 kcal, against 56 to 100 for a UK ball |
| Gravy | Brown gravy | US white gravy is a different, much denser sauce |
| Bread sauce | No US equivalent | About 25 kcal a tablespoon |
| Christmas pudding | Plum pudding, figgy pudding | The same dessert |
| Mince pie | Mincemeat tart | No meat in modern mincemeat |
| Crackers | Christmas crackers (party favours) | Nothing to eat inside, except the paper hat |
The roast dinner post covers swede against rutabaga and the other trimmings in more detail.
How to log Christmas dinner accurately
- Log the plate as items, not "Christmas dinner". A generic entry can be anywhere from 600 to 1,600 kcal.
- Count roast potatoes and pigs in blankets by the piece. About 57 and 65 kcal each. They are the easiest items to count and the biggest share of the plate.
- Log seconds as a separate entry. They are usually half a plate, about 500 kcal.
- Log the drinks as you pour them. Two glasses of wine and a mulled wine are about 400 kcal, and they are the part people forget by evening.
- Do not try to make up for it on Boxing Day. Go back to normal meals. The water weight will go on its own.