Vietnamese Food Calories and Protein: 60 Common Dishes

In FitArchive’s recipe estimates at a regular size, a bowl of Vietnamese noodle soup is about 390 to 750 kcal with 16 to 51 g of protein, a rice plate about 480 to 780 kcal, a filled bánh mì about 420 to 530 kcal, a pack of xôi about 310 to 500 kcal, and a meat congee about 360 to 530 kcal. Drinks range from 32 to 39 kcal for a black coffee with sugar to 281 to 322 kcal for a cup of milk tea. Beef phở is one of the leanest full meals (418 kcal, 38 g protein); braised pork belly with rice is one of the heaviest (782 kcal, 20 g protein).

Every number below is an estimate for a stated recipe weight, not a lab measurement of the bowl in front of you. Restaurant portions vary, and the sections after the tables explain by how much and why.

Vietnamese food calories at a glance

These ranges cover all 263 dishes in FitArchive’s catalogue, grouped by type, at the regular size.

A cup of milk tea is more than three quarters of a bowl of phở.

Calorie table: 60 common Vietnamese dishes

All values are FitArchive recipe estimates at the regular size, rounded to whole kcal and grams.

Noodle soups: phở, bún, hủ tiếu and mì

More detail on the phở variants is in phở calories and protein.

Dry noodles and rice rolls

Rice plates: cơm tấm, cơm gà and more

Sticky rice and porridge: xôi and cháo

Bánh mì

The fillings are compared in more detail in bánh mì calories and protein.

Snacks, rolls and pancakes

Home dishes (without rice)

Drinks and chè

How were these estimates made?

Each dish is a recipe built from weighed parts, and each part uses ingredient data from USDA FoodData Central. The regular beef phở, for example, is 200 g of cooked rice noodles, 80 g of cooked beef and 450 g of beef broth, plus onion, scallions and bean sprouts: 785 g in all. A cơm tấm sườn is 200 g of cooked rice, a 120 g grilled pork chop, fish sauce dip with sugar, a little oil, cucumber and carrot.

The table shows the regular size. In FitArchive a small portion is the regular recipe × 0.75 and a large one × 1.3, so a beef phở is about 315 kcal small and about 545 kcal large. Gram weights include the broth, which is why a 785 g bowl of phở has fewer calories than a 450 g plate of cơm tấm.

Why your bowl may not match the table

A recipe estimate describes one plausible bowl. The real one can differ because of:

• Broth fat. A clear broth and one with a layer of fat or bone marrow look similar but are not.
• Meat amount and cut. Rare beef phở is 390 kcal; well-done brisket phở with the same noodles is 467 kcal in the data.
• Noodles or rice. Shops differ in how much they serve, and extra noodles or a rice refill are common.
• Cooking oil and fried toppings. Fried shallots, mỡ hành (scallion oil) and chả giò add up quickly.
• Sauces and sugar. Nước chấm, hoisin, condensed milk and syrup carry calories that are easy to forget.

Measured data show how large that gap can be. In a study of non-chain restaurants in three US cities, researchers measured meals by bomb calorimetry. Eleven beef phở meals averaged 854 kcal (standard deviation 350) in bowls averaging 1,324 g, much larger than the 785 g bowl here, and pork vermicelli plates averaged 936 kcal. An earlier Boston study found that samples of the same meal type varied with an average standard deviation of 271 kcal, and in a subset analysis the meals held 19% more energy than national food database values for equivalent items. Those were US restaurants, so the numbers do not transfer directly to a street stall in Hà Nội or Sài Gòn, but they are a good reason to adjust for portion size rather than trust any table to the last calorie.

Which Vietnamese dishes have the most protein per calorie?

Protein per 100 kcal is protein (g) × 100 ÷ kcal, calculated from the rounded values in the data. These are the top 10 of all 263 dishes:

Most of these are home dishes eaten with rice, which adds calories but little protein. Among noodle soups, rice plates and porridges, beef phở leads (9.1 g per 100 kcal), followed by the rare beef and rare-and-flank versions (8.5), well-done brisket phở (8.1), bún bò with pork knuckle and shrimp porridge (7.9 each), and beef porridge (7.6). The highest totals per serving are one person’s share of hotpot (54 to 73 g) and Vietnamese steak and eggs (bò bít tết, 54 g).

How much you need per day depends on you. A meta-analysis of protein supplementation with resistance training found no further gain in fat-free mass beyond about 1.6 g per kg of body weight per day; how much protein per day to build muscle covers the range and its limits.

Low-calorie Vietnamese food: lighter swaps

These example swaps compare similar dishes from the data. They are not meal recommendations.

Other lighter picks in the data include gỏi cuốn (147 kcal per roll), cháo cá (362 kcal, 27 g protein), cháo gà (372 kcal) and a bowl of canh chua cá (148 kcal). “Lighter” here only means fewer calories for the stated portion; it says nothing about whether a dish suits your diet.

Drinks that add up: trà sữa, cà phê sữa and sinh tố

Drinks are the easiest calories to miss. The regular trà sữa trân châu recipe assumes 25 g of sugar, 25 g of creamer powder and 25 g of dry tapioca pearls in a 375 g cup, which comes to 322 kcal with 1 g of protein: more than three quarters of a bowl of beef phở. All six milk teas in the data land between 281 and 322 kcal.

A cà phê sữa đá is 60 g of coffee with 30 g of condensed milk, 97 kcal, so two a day add about 194 kcal. Bạc xỉu is 158 kcal. Sinh tố bơ uses 100 g of avocado, 30 g of condensed milk, 100 g of whole milk and 10 g of sugar for 356 kcal; fruit smoothies in the data run 197 to 296 kcal.

Liquid calories may also be less filling. In a small crossover study, 15 adults ate fewer other calories when given jelly beans, but not when given the same carbohydrate energy as soda, over four weeks each. That was one short study with sweetened soft drinks, so treat it as limited evidence, but it is a fair reason to log drinks as carefully as meals.

How to estimate a dish that is not in the table

1. Find the closest dish with the same base and cooking method. A noodle soup with a different topping is closer to another noodle soup than to a stir-fry.
2. Compare the portion with the stated grams. If your bowl is clearly bigger or smaller, choose large (× 1.3) or small (× 0.75).
3. Adjust the main part. Half the noodles or rice, or a refill, changes the total more than most toppings.
4. Add extras separately. In the data, adding a fried egg turns a 626 kcal cơm tấm sườn into a 741 kcal plate.
5. Note that it is an estimate, so you know later which entries were firm and which were guesses.

Common mistakes when counting Vietnamese food calories

• Assuming soup means light. Bún măng vịt (680 kcal) and herbal duck noodle soup (754 kcal) are heavier than many rice plates.
• Counting rolls as one item. One chả giò is 174 kcal; four are 696 kcal.
• Logging a home dish without the rice. The home dishes above exclude rice; a plate of rice with braised pork and egg is 782 kcal.
• Forgetting drinks and chè. A trà sữa plus a chè ba màu adds 623 kcal.
• Treating the numbers as exact. Whole numbers look precise, but the restaurant data above show swings of hundreds of calories for the same dish.

Logging Vietnamese dishes in FitArchive

Choosing an app to log these dishes? See how to pick a calorie counter for Vietnamese food.

FitArchive is a free, private training and food log that works in the browser. Its food log includes about 263 Vietnamese dishes built from the same weighed recipes as this table. You can log sized dishes small, regular or large, set one main part such as noodles or rice to less (× 0.5) or more (× 1.5), and add USDA foods or your own foods for the rest. It shows daily calories and protein against optional targets you set yourself, and it keeps your data on the device unless you sign in to sync. To see food and workouts side by side, read how to log food and workouts together or try the demo with sample data.