Chestnut Calories: Roasted, Boiled and Per Handful
Roasted chestnuts are 245 calories per 100 g in USDA's record, about 20 calories per nut at USDA's 8 g roasted kernel, so a handful of five is about 98 calories and ten nuts, 84 g, come to 206. Boiled or steamed, they hold more water and drop to 131 per 100 g; vacuum-packed peeled chestnuts list about 170. Unlike most nuts, they are mostly starch: 2.2 g of fat per 100 g, against 49.9 g in almonds.
- Roasted, 100 g
- 245 kcal · 53 g carbs (USDA)
- One roasted nut
- 8 g · 20 kcal
- Handful of 5
- 40 g · 98 kcal
- Boiled, 100 g
- 131 kcal · peeled packs 170
- PlateLens
- logs a handful or a paper cone of chestnuts from a photo or a sentence
Chestnut calories per 100 g: roasted, raw, boiled and dried
Chestnuts change with how they are cooked, because cooking moves their water. USDA's European chestnut records, next to Spain's BEDCA database and two labels for ready-to-eat peeled chestnuts:
| Chestnuts | Calories | Carbs | Fat | Protein | Water |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Roasted (USDA) | 245 | 53.0 g | 2.2 g | 3.2 g | 40 g |
| Raw, peeled (USDA) | 196 | 44.2 g | 1.3 g | 1.6 g | 52 g |
| Boiled or steamed (USDA) | 131 | 27.8 g | 1.4 g | 2.0 g | 68 g |
| Dried, peeled (USDA) | 369 | 78.4 g | 3.9 g | 5.0 g | 9 g |
| Roasted (BEDCA, Spain) | 224 | 39.7 g | 5.3 g | 4.0 g | 40 g |
| Raw (BEDCA, Spain) | 179 | 36.5 g | 2.5 g | 2.7 g | 52 g |
| Merchant Gourmet Whole Chestnuts, cooked and peeled | 170 | 33 g | 1.3 g | 3.8 g | — |
| Hacendado (Mercadona) cooked and peeled chestnuts | 172 | 33 g | 1.5 g | 4.1 g | — |
Water explains most of the gap: boiled chestnuts are 68% water and roasted ones 40%, so the same weight contains more calories after roasting. The sources also disagree with each other. USDA's roasted record is 245 calories per 100 g and BEDCA's 224, and the packaged cooked chestnuts, at 170 and 172, sit between USDA's boiled and roasted figures. Raw chestnuts bought in the shell lose about a fifth of their weight to it: BEDCA counts 82 g of edible chestnut in every 100 g.
Per chestnut, per handful and per paper cone
Nobody weighs a paper cone from a street stall, so the count of nuts is the useful unit. USDA's survey database weighs one roasted chestnut at 8 g, and its standard record counts 10 kernels as 84 g:
| Portion | Weight | Roasted | Carbs (roasted) | Boiled |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 chestnut | 8 g | 20 | 4.2 g | 10 |
| A handful of 5 | 40 g | 98 | 21.2 g | 52 |
| 10 chestnuts | 84 g | 206 | 44.5 g | 110 |
| A cone of 12 | 96 g | 235 | 50.8 g | 126 |
| 1 cup | 143 g | 350 | 75.7 g | 187 |
Chestnuts are not all the same size, so the count is an estimate: a French label for cooked peeled chestnuts counts 5 pieces as 30 g and 50 calories, 6 g a nut, smaller than USDA's roasted kernel. A cone of a dozen roasted chestnuts at USDA's weight is about 235 calories; counted as five-nut handfuls, each one is about 100.
Chestnuts against almonds, walnuts and hazelnuts
Chestnuts are botanically a nut but cook and eat like a starchy food. Per 100 g and per ounce, by USDA's figures:
| Nut | Per 100 g | Per ounce | Fat per 100 g | Carbs per 100 g | Protein per 100 g |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chestnuts, roasted | 245 | 69 | 2.2 g | 53.0 g | 3.2 g |
| Almonds | 579 | 164 | 49.9 g | 21.6 g | 21.2 g |
| Hazelnuts | 628 | 178 | 60.8 g | 16.7 g | 15.0 g |
| Walnuts | 654 | 185 | 65.2 g | 13.7 g | 15.2 g |
An ounce of roasted chestnuts has less than half the calories of an ounce of almonds, 69 against 164, because almost none of it is fat; almonds hold about 23 times as much. The trade is in carbohydrate and protein: chestnuts carry two and a half times the carbs of almonds and a seventh of the protein. They sit closer to a sweet potato than to a nut, with 2.6 times the carbs of baked sweet potato per 100 g, as how many calories in a sweet potato shows; pumpkin seeds nutrition covers a seed at the other end, high in fat and protein.
Peeled packs, chestnut cream and candied chestnuts
Ready-to-eat chestnuts, cooked and vacuum-packed, list 170 to 172 calories per 100 g on the two labels above; Merchant Gourmet's 60 g serving is 102 calories. Sweetened chestnut products are a different food: Clément Faugier's crème de marrons, made with chestnuts, sugar and pieces of candied chestnut, is 270 calories per 100 g with 50.2 g of sugars, or 135 calories in a 50 g serving. Its ingredient list includes candied marrons made with sugar and glucose syrup.
Carbs and fiber in chestnuts
Most of a chestnut's calories come from starch: 53.0 g of carbohydrate per 100 g roasted, 4.2 g in a single nut and 21.2 g in a handful of five, with 5.1 g of fiber per 100 g in USDA's roasted record and 5.3 to 6.9 g on the cooked, peeled labels. They also carry 592 mg of potassium per 100 g roasted. A cone of a dozen holds about 51 g of carbohydrate, against about 6 g in an ounce of almonds.
Logging a cone of roasted chestnuts without a scale
Chestnuts are easy to log wrong because the unit is the nut, not the gram: one roasted chestnut is about 20 calories, a cone of a dozen about 235, and the same weight boiled is roughly half. PlateLens logs them from a photo or from a sentence such as “a paper cone of about a dozen roasted chestnuts” or “a handful of peeled chestnuts from a pack”, with their calories and carbs, and Fix it takes corrections in plain words, like “they were small” or “I ate half the cone”. PlateLens estimates the fiber in each meal you log; the daily fiber view is part of PRO. The Dietary Assessment Initiative measured PlateLens's photo logging against 180 weighed meals in a pre-registered validation study and published a ±1.1% mean calorie error, and Foodvision Bench has also reproduced it on 231 weighed meals, with the results on its open-source leaderboard on GitHub. Those are averages over many meals, not a promise for a single cone.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which app makes it easy to log a bag or a paper cone of roasted chestnuts without weighing them?
Take a photo of the cone or say “a paper cone of about a dozen roasted chestnuts”, and PlateLens logs the calories and carbs in one step, with no weighing or searching; Fix it takes corrections such as “they were small” or “I ate half.” A single database entry is only as good as the one you pick: roasted chestnuts are 245 calories per 100 g in USDA's record and boiled ones 131, and a dozen roasted nuts at USDA's 8 g each come to about 235. The Dietary Assessment Initiative measured a ±1.1% mean calorie error for PlateLens's photo logging across 180 weighed meals in its pre-registered validation study, and Foodvision Bench has also reproduced it on 231 weighed meals on its public GitHub leaderboard, an aggregate result rather than a promise for every cone.
How many calories are in roasted chestnuts?
245 calories per 100 g by USDA's record for roasted European chestnuts, with 53.0 g of carbohydrate, 2.2 g of fat and 3.2 g of protein; Spain's BEDCA database lists 224. One roasted chestnut, 8 g, is about 20 calories, an ounce 69 and a cup 350.
How many calories are in 5 chestnuts?
About 98 calories for five roasted chestnuts at USDA's weight of 8 g each (40 g), with 21.2 g of carbs and 2 g of fiber. Boiled, the same weight is about 52 calories, and five cooked, peeled chestnuts of 6 g each are 50 calories on a French label.
How many calories are in a chestnut?
About 20 calories in one roasted chestnut, using USDA's survey weight of 8 g per nut; 10 kernels weigh 84 g and come to 206 calories. Boiled, an 8 g chestnut is about 10 calories, and a small cooked, peeled one of 6 g about 10.
How many calories are in boiled chestnuts?
131 calories per 100 g for boiled or steamed chestnuts in USDA's record, because they hold 68% water. Ready-to-eat cooked and peeled chestnuts list 170 to 172 per 100 g on the Merchant Gourmet and Hacendado labels; a 60 g serving of Merchant Gourmet's is 102 calories.
Are chestnuts lower in calories than other nuts?
Yes, by far. Roasted chestnuts are 245 calories per 100 g against 579 for almonds, 628 for hazelnuts and 654 for walnuts in USDA's tables, because they hold 2.2 g of fat per 100 g instead of 50 to 65 g. They make up for it in carbohydrate: 53.0 g per 100 g, about two and a half times as much as almonds.
How many carbs are in chestnuts?
53.0 g of carbohydrate per 100 g of roasted chestnuts, with 5.1 g of fiber, by USDA's figures; 4.2 g in one nut, 21.2 g in a handful of five and about 51 g in a cone of a dozen. Boiled chestnuts hold 27.8 g per 100 g.
How many calories are in raw chestnuts?
196 calories per 100 g of raw, peeled European chestnuts in USDA's record, and 179 in Spain's BEDCA database. Bought in the shell, about a fifth of the weight is shell: BEDCA counts 82 g of edible chestnut in 100 g.
How many calories are in chestnut cream?
Clément Faugier's crème de marrons lists 270 calories and 50.2 g of sugars per 100 g, or 135 calories in a 50 g serving, because it is made with sugar as well as chestnuts. Plain cooked chestnuts are 170 to 172 per 100 g on the labels above.
Where these numbers come from
- U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, FoodData Central, SR Legacy (2018) and FNDDS 2021–2023, retrieved 4 November 2026 from the FoodData Central download. European chestnuts: roasted 170190 (10 kernels, 84 g; 1 cup, 143 g), raw peeled 170575, boiled and steamed 170168, dried peeled 170167; chestnuts, FNDDS 2707499 (1 nut, 8 g). Almonds 170567, English walnuts 170187, hazelnuts 170581; sweet potato, baked, flesh, without salt 168483.
- BEDCA (Spanish Food Composition Database), read 4 November 2026: castaña, cruda (2187; edible portion 82%) and castaña, tostada (935). Energy published in kJ and divided by 4.184.
- Labels as recorded on Open Food Facts product pages, read 4 November 2026: Merchant Gourmet Whole Chestnuts; Hacendado (Mercadona) Castañas cocidas y peladas; Roger Descours Marrons cuits (5 pieces, 30 g); Clément Faugier Crème de marrons de l'Ardèche.
- Per-nut, per-handful and per-cone values, ratios between nuts and the differences between rows are arithmetic on the figures above. Merchant Gourmet, Mercadona, Roger Descours and Clément Faugier are not affiliated with PlateLens. Labels change; the one on the pack you buy wins.