How many calories in a Yorkshire pudding? Homemade, frozen and giant

A Yorkshire pudding looks like the lightest thing on a roast dinner. It is golden, hollow and almost weightless on the fork.

It is also one of the densest things on the plate, heavier gram for gram than the chicken beside it. A Yorkshire is about 290 kcal per 100g, twice a roast potato. It gets away with it because a homemade one weighs only 25g, which makes it about 72 kcal. So the honest answer depends on which Yorkshire you mean, and the giant pub version is a different food altogether.

The quick answer

At about 290 kcal per 100g, which holds for homemade and frozen.

Calories by weight

For a tray of leftovers, or a size that is not on the list above.

Where the calories actually are

A Yorkshire has three ingredients in the batter and one in the tin. Here is a standard batch for a 12-hole tin, using USDA FoodData Central values for the flour and the Journal's egg and milk figures.

That is 72 kcal each. The tin starts with about a teaspoon of fat per hole, and roughly half of it stays behind, so about 30g ends up inside the batch.

Per 100g, the finished pudding looks like this.

Fat is nearly half the calories once the egg yolk and milk are added to the tin fat. Protein is modest, at about 2g per Yorkshire.

Why it is denser than a pancake

The batter is close to a British pancake, and a thin pancake is only about 178 kcal per 100g. The difference is the oven. A hot tin drives out water and leaves a dry, crisp shell, and it adds more fat than a lightly oiled frying pan. Less water and more fat means more calories per gram.

The roast potato comparison

This is the correction that matters on a real plate. Per gram, a Yorkshire is twice a roast potato. Per piece, they are nearly the same.

Swapping one roast potato for one Yorkshire costs about 15 kcal. Swapping two potatoes for one Yorkshire saves about 42, which is why a plate with an extra Yorkshire and fewer potatoes usually comes out lighter, not heavier.

The giant one is the exception. It is about the same as four roast potatoes (229 kcal) before anything goes inside it.

Does the fat in the tin matter?

The type does not. The amount does.

Beef dripping, goose fat, lard and sunflower oil all carry about 900 kcal per 100g, the same point the roast dinner breakdown makes about goose fat on potatoes. Dripping gives more flavour, and it costs no extra calories.

It does change the fat profile. Beef dripping is around half saturated fat, against roughly a tenth for sunflower oil. Two Yorkshires made with dripping carry a little over 2g of saturated fat from the tin, compared with the NHS limits of 20g a day for women and 30g for men. That is small, and it is worth knowing if the rest of the plate is heavy with it. Dripping also makes a Yorkshire unsuitable for vegetarians, which is worth asking about at a pub.

Using half as much fat in the tin saves about 11 kcal a Yorkshire, taking it from 72 to about 61. The fat still needs to be smoking hot for the rise. A spray of oil on a cold tin produces a pancake, not a pudding.

Swapping whole milk for semi-skimmed saves about 2 kcal each. It is not worth thinking about.

Giant filled Yorkshires

A giant Yorkshire used as a bowl is a pub and street-food staple. The 232 kcal shell is the smallest decision on the plate.

The figures use the sausage breakdown for the bangers and the roast dinner breakdown for everything else. Swapping the mash for vegetables is worth about 127 kcal, more than anything you could do to the Yorkshire.

Toad in the hole

Toad in the hole is sausages baked in the same batter. A quarter of a family dish is about 530 kcal, and the two sausages are 290 of that. The other 240 is batter, roughly the same as one giant Yorkshire.

UK and US words that trip up logging

• Yorkshire pudding. A savoury side, not a dessert. "Pudding" in the name causes a lot of bad database matches, as it does with Christmas pudding. A US entry for "pudding" is a set milk dessert.
• Popover. The closest US relative, made from a very similar batter and baked with butter or oil. Popovers are usually taller and larger than a 12-hole Yorkshire, so log by weight.
• Dutch baby. Another relative, a large pan-sized pudding from the same kind of batter, usually served sweet. The toppings often outweigh it.
• Yorkshires, Yorkies, Yorkshire puds. Shorthand for the same thing. A database search on these often returns a chocolate bar.
• Beef dripping. Beef fat, close to US beef tallow.
• Plain flour. All-purpose flour in the US.

Yorkshire pudding mistakes to avoid

Logging "1 Yorkshire pudding" without checking the size

Entries range from a small frozen one to a giant, which is a fourfold spread. Weigh one, or use the table: a 12-hole tin is 72 kcal, a 4-hole tin 130.

Treating the giant one as a side

At 232 kcal it is about two slices of bread more than a normal Yorkshire. If it comes with a roast, it is a second portion of potatoes in a different shape.

Assuming air means light

Air has no calories, but the shell around it does, and that shell is about twice as dense as a roast potato. Go by the weight, not the feel.

Forgetting the gravy pooled inside

A Yorkshire is a cup. Fill it with 100ml of gravy from granules and you add about 35 kcal, which is modest. Fill it with meat-juice gravy thickened with fat and the number rises, which is covered in the roast dinner breakdown.

Three ways to keep the Yorkshire

Trade potatoes for pudding (259 kcal)

• 2 homemade Yorkshires (144 kcal)
• 2 roast potatoes, 80g (115 kcal)

Adds up to: 259 kcal, about 42 less than one Yorkshire with four potatoes, and the plate looks just as full.

Two normal ones instead of one giant (144 kcal)

• 2 homemade Yorkshires from a 12-hole tin

Adds up to: 144 kcal, 88 less than the giant, and two feels more generous than one.

Fill it with vegetables, not mash (525 kcal)

• 1 giant Yorkshire (232 kcal)
• 120g lean roast beef (210 kcal)
• Carrots and broccoli, 160g (48 kcal)
• 100ml gravy (35 kcal)

Adds up to: 525 kcal, about 127 less than the mash version.

The verdict

A Yorkshire pudding is about 290 kcal per 100g, so a homemade one is about 72 kcal, a small frozen one about 58 and a giant pub one about 232. Gram for gram it is twice a roast potato, but it weighs so little that one Yorkshire and one roast potato are only 15 kcal apart.

About 30% of the calories are the fat left behind in the tin, and the type of fat makes no difference to the count.

If you change one thing, keep the normal Yorkshires and leave the giant one on the menu.

Pairs well with: the roast dinner calorie breakdown, the pancake calorie breakdown, and the sausage calorie breakdown.