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Chicken thigh nutrition: calories and protein by cut

October 15, 2026 · Viral Tandel

Chicken thigh nutrition comes down to one decision, and it is not the cooking method. The United States Department of Agriculture publishes separate entries for thighs eaten with the skin and without it, and the gap between them is larger than it first looks, because the skin does not only change the figure per 100 g. It also changes how much the thigh weighs.

Key takeaways

• Skinless rotisserie thigh: 193 kcal per 100 g, 24.09 g protein. USDA weighs it at 70 g, so about 135 kcal.
• Skin eaten: 226 kcal per 100 g, and the thigh now weighs 80 g, so about 181 kcal.
• That is a 34 percent jump per thigh, from a figure that looks like only 17 percent per 100 g.
• Cooking method barely matters next to the skin. Skinless thigh runs 175 to 193 kcal per 100 g across three methods.
• Against skinless breast at 144 kcal per 100 g, thigh is higher but carries far more flavour per calorie than the gap suggests.

The thigh, three ways

Read down the skinless rows first. Stewed, sauteed and rotisserie land within 18 kcal per 100 g of each other. Whatever you have heard about cooking method, it is not where the variation in a chicken thigh lives.

Now read across to the skin. Rotisserie goes from 193 to 226 per 100 g, which is a 17 percent increase and sounds modest. But USDA also weighs the skin-on thigh at 80 g rather than 70 g, because the skin is part of what you are eating. Per thigh, 135 becomes 181. That is 34 percent, and it is the figure that lands in your day.

This is a general trap worth carrying elsewhere: a per 100 g comparison hides any difference that is also a difference in serving weight, which is the same mismatch that makes two honest databases appear to contradict each other in where calorie databases get their numbers.

Protein, and why the skin lowers it

Skinless thigh is 24.09 g of protein per 100 g. With the skin eaten it reads 22.51 g.

The thigh did not lose protein. You added about 10 g of skin, which is mostly fat, so the protein is now spread across more weight. In absolute terms a skin-on thigh gives you slightly more protein than a skinless one, because it is a bigger portion. Per calorie, it gives you noticeably less.

If protein per calorie is what you are managing, that is the number to watch, and the protein guide covers how to think about it across a whole day rather than one item.

Thigh against breast and drumstick

Breast is the leanest by a clear margin, with roughly a third of the fat of thigh and more protein. Drumstick sits between the two and is closer to breast than most people assume.

None of which makes thigh a bad choice. It is 193 kcal per 100 g for a cut that stays moist, forgives overcooking and carries sauce properly. It just is not interchangeable with breast when you are counting, and swapping one for the other without changing the log is a quiet source of drift.

Logging it properly

Two habits cover almost all of the error here.

Decide the skin before you log, not after. It is the single largest variable, and it is a decision you make at the plate rather than in the kitchen.

Use the per-thigh figures when you ate a thigh. USDA publishes the weights, 70 g skinless and 80 g with skin, so there is no need to estimate. If your thigh was visibly larger than that, scale the per 100 g column instead and write down the weight you used.

A photo helps with the second one more than the first, because a camera can judge size against a plate but cannot see whether you left the skin. KalTrack shows you which entry it matched so you can switch it before it is logged. Point it at your plate.

This is general information about published nutrition data, not medical advice. If you are managing a health condition or following a prescribed diet, talk to a clinician or a registered dietitian.