A tablespoon holds anywhere from 8 calories (soy sauce) to 124 calories (canola oil). Fats sit at the top: oil, butter, mayonnaise and nut butters. Soy sauce, mustard, cocoa and nonfat Greek yogurt sit at the bottom, under 15 calories each.
The numbers below come from USDA FoodData Central and assume a level measuring tablespoon (15 ml). The grains are different: I weighed those myself with the spoon I actually eat with, heaped the way I scoop.
Calories per tablespoon: the table
| Food | Grams in 1 tbsp | Calories per 100g | Calories in 1 tbsp |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oils and butter | |||
| Canola oil | 14 | 884 | 124 |
| Coconut oil | 13.6 | 892 | 121 |
| Olive oil | 13.5 | 884 | 119 |
| Butter | 14.2 | 717 | 102 |
| Sauces and dressings | |||
| Mayonnaise (regular) | 13.8 | 680 | 94 |
| Ranch dressing (regular) | 15 | 430 | 65 |
| BBQ sauce | 17 | 172 | 29 |
| Ketchup | 17 | 101 | 17 |
| Yellow mustard | 15 | 60 | 9 |
| Soy sauce | 16 | 53 | 8 |
| Dairy | |||
| Cream cheese | 14.5 | 350 | 51 |
| Heavy cream | 15 | 340 | 51 |
| Sour cream | 12 | 198 | 24 |
| Parmesan, grated | 5 | 420 | 21 |
| Half-and-half | 15 | 131 | 20 |
| Greek yogurt, plain nonfat | 15 | 59 | 9 |
| Sweeteners and sweets | |||
| Chocolate hazelnut spread | 18.5 | 539 | 100 |
| Honey | 21 | 304 | 64 |
| Jam | 20 | 278 | 56 |
| Brown sugar, packed | 13.8 | 380 | 52 |
| Maple syrup | 20 | 260 | 52 |
| Chocolate chips, semisweet | 10.5 | 480 | 50 |
| Granulated sugar | 12.5 | 387 | 48 |
| Cocoa powder, unsweetened | 5.4 | 228 | 12 |
| Nut butters, nuts and seeds | |||
| Almond butter | 16 | 614 | 98 |
| Peanut butter | 16 | 598 | 96 |
| Flaxseed, whole | 10.3 | 534 | 55 |
| Sesame seeds | 9 | 573 | 52 |
| Sunflower seeds, shelled | 8.8 | 584 | 51 |
| Walnuts, chopped | 7.3 | 654 | 48 |
| Baking | |||
| Cornstarch | 8 | 381 | 30 |
| All-purpose flour | 7.8 | 364 | 28 |
| Breadcrumbs, dry | 6.8 | 395 | 27 |
| Dry grains (weighed by me, heaped dinner spoon) | |||
| Couscous | 17 | 376 | 64 |
| White rice | 17 | 365 | 62 |
| Buckwheat | 18 | 346 | 62 |
| Pearl barley | 17 | 352 | 60 |
| Rolled oats | 10 | 379 | 38 |
Source: USDA FoodData Central (SR Legacy). Grains: my own kitchen scale, November 2026.
Oil: 120 calories in one tablespoon
Oil is almost pure fat, so one tablespoon of olive or canola oil is about 120 calories. That's the same as two and a half tablespoons of sugar.
Three tablespoons in a pan are 360 calories before any food goes in. On a 1,600-calorie daily target, that's almost a quarter of the day. Measure the oil with a spoon instead of pouring from the bottle. I make mushrooms in the air fryer with soy sauce and no oil at all: 70 calories a serving.
Mayo, ranch and the rest of the sauce shelf
A tablespoon of regular mayonnaise is 94 calories. A tablespoon of ketchup is 17. One spoon of mayo costs the same as five and a half spoons of ketchup. Swap a daily spoon of mayo for nonfat Greek yogurt and that's about 4 pounds off in the first year.
Ranch lands in between at 65 calories a tablespoon, so two tablespoons on a salad are 130. Mustard and soy sauce barely register: 9 and 8 calories.
Dairy: cream cheese vs Greek yogurt
Cream cheese and heavy cream both come in at 51 calories a tablespoon. Sour cream is 24. Plain nonfat Greek yogurt is 9, so swapping it in for sour cream on a taco or a baked potato saves about 15 calories a spoon and adds about 1.2 grams of protein. I mix it with mustard for a sauce for chicken: 25 calories a serving.
Honey has more calories per spoon than sugar
Per 100 grams, honey has fewer calories than sugar: 304 vs 387. But a tablespoon of honey is 64 calories and a tablespoon of sugar is 48, because honey is denser. A tablespoon of honey weighs 21 grams, a tablespoon of sugar only 12.5.
The same thing happens with maple syrup (52 calories) and jam (56). Syrups are heavier than dry sugar crystals, so a spoon holds more grams of them.
Peanut butter: 96 calories in a level tablespoon
A level tablespoon of peanut butter is 96 calories, and almond butter is 98. A spoon scooped from the jar comes out rounded and holds more, so weigh yours once on a kitchen scale.
Seeds are lighter per spoon: 51 to 55 calories for sesame, flax or sunflower. If you add a tablespoon to your oatmeal every morning, count it: that's about 360 to 385 calories a week.
How much does a spoon of dry grain weigh?
I weighed five grains with a regular dinner spoon, heaped. A spoon of rice, buckwheat, pearl barley or couscous weighed 17 to 18 grams, about 60 to 64 calories. A spoon of rolled oats weighed 10 grams, 38 calories.
The spoons look equally full in the photos. Oats are flat flakes with air between them, so the same spoon holds 10 grams instead of 17. For the same calories, you need about 1.6 spoons of oats for every spoon of rice. Weigh oats instead of spooning them.
All of these numbers are for dry grain. Cooked rice or oatmeal soaks up water, so a spoon of it weighs more and carries fewer calories. Weigh grains dry, before cooking: raw and cooked weights give very different numbers.
Why your tablespoon isn't the label's tablespoon
A measuring tablespoon holds 15 ml. The spoon in your cutlery drawer can be smaller: mine holds about 11 ml of water. Counted by volume, that's about 10 grams of oil, or 90 calories, not 120.
The heap changes the number even more. A level measuring tablespoon of dry rice is 11.6 grams (USDA). A heaped dinner spoon was 17 grams. So "a spoon of rice" is either 42 calories or 62, depending on which spoon and how you scoop.
Weigh your own spoon once
Put your empty spoon on a kitchen scale and write the number down. Scoop the food the way you normally do and weigh it again. Subtract the first number from the second: that's how many grams your spoon really holds.
Then multiply your grams by the calories per 100 grams and divide by 100: that's your spoon. Do it tonight with the spoon you use for oil and the one you use for peanut butter.
