How many calories are in a salad with chicken?
330calories with 2 tbsp of ranch dressing
32 g of protein, 4.8 g of fiber. The biggest line is the chicken breast, 140 calories.
B Clears 4 of 6 meters as a meal. Misses Energy and Processing.
About 325 calories with 2 tablespoons of ranch, and 32 g of protein. Three cups of romaine, a palm of grilled chicken (3 oz), a tomato and half a cup of cucumber come to about 197 calories before the dressing, and the ranch adds 128.
It’s a good salad as it stands, and the chicken is why. A palm of it has 27 g of protein for 140 calories, enough for most people’s meal line on its own. The romaine is 24 calories of the total.
Two things hold it back, and they make it a B. Bottled ranch is ultra-processed, and at 39% of the bowl it pulls the Processing meter under its line. And at 325 calories it’s light for a lunch on a 2,000 calorie day, where a meal runs about 500 to 830, so it misses Energy too.
We’d swap the ranch for a tablespoon of olive oil with vinegar. The calories barely move, to about 318, Processing is fixed, and it’s a B+. If it’s your lunch, add half a cup of chickpeas too. That makes it our own bowl, about 450 calories with 39 g of protein and 11 g of fiber, graded A+.
The six meters
- Energysmall330 cal
- Processingmixed61% whole food
- Musclehigh32 g protein
- Hungerfilling4.8 g fiber, 0.7 cal a gram
- Nutrientsdense3 cups of plants
- Glucosesteady2 g fast carbs
Each meter's name opens its page on meals.guide, which explains the six jobs a meal does.
Sodium 360 mg, 47% of a meal's share of the day's 2,300 mg. Salt isn't one of the six meters, so it never changes the grade.
Part by part
| Ingredient | Amount | Calories | Protein | Fiber |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Romaine | 3 cups, 168 g | 24 | 3 g | 3 g |
| Chicken breast | a palm, 3 oz, 85 g | 140 | 26.7 g | 0 g |
| Tomato | 1 tomato, 123 g | 26 | 1 g | 1.4 g |
| Cucumber | half a cup, 52 g | 7 | 0.5 g | 0.4 g |
| Ranch dressing | 2 tbsp, 30 g | 128 | 0.4 g | 0 g |
| Total | 458 g | 325 | 32 g | 4.8 g |
At three amounts of dressing
| Ranch dressing | Calories | Dressing's share | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 tbsp | 260 | 24% | B |
| 2 tbsp | 330 | 39% | B |
| 4 tbsp, a ladle or a 2 oz cup | 450 | 56% | B |
Swap the ranch for a tablespoon of olive oil with vinegar
BtoB+
Graded on meals.guide's six meters for a 170 lb person eating 2,000 calories over three meals. Food values from the USDA's Nutritive Value of Foods and its Standard Reference.
3 sources
- USDA Standard Reference, oil, salad or cooking, olive (nutritionvalue.org)nutritionvalue.org
- Gebhardt SE, Thomas RG. Nutritive Value of Foods. USDA ARS, Home and Garden Bulletin 72, 2002ars.usda.gov
- USDA Standard Reference, salad dressing, ranch, regular (nutritionvalue.org)nutritionvalue.org
