Nutrition facts
Calories in couscous
The fastest grain in the cupboard: five minutes under a lid and it triples, which is exactly the trap when weighing it.
What a real portion weighs
The Anses table gives values per 100 grams, and 100 grams is not a portion anybody serves. Here are the same values, applied to the portions as they turn up. Weights are in grams, the unit the table is built on. For a quick conversion: 1 oz is about 28 g, and 1 lb is about 454 g.
| Portion | Weight | Energy | Protein | Carbs | Fat | Fiber |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A couscous plate · cooked grain | 180 g | 295 kcal | 11.5 g | 55.8 g | 1.6 g | 5 g |
| A side serving · cooked grain | 120 g | 197 kcal | 7.7 g | 37.2 g | 1.1 g | 3.4 g |
These weights are usual orders of magnitude, not standardized measures: they turn a per-100-gram value into a credible portion. A kitchen scale stays more accurate than any average weight.
Composition per 100 grams
Couscous grain, cooked, no added salt
- Energy
- 164 kcal
- Protein
- 6.4 g
- Carbohydrate
- 31 g
- of which sugars
- 3.4 g
- Fat
- 0.9 g
- Fiber
- 2.8 g
- Sodium
- 15 mg
Couscous vs cooked white rice
Two grains that swap places on the plate and are weighed the same way, cooked. The gap says whether there is really a choice to make.
| Food | Energy | Protein | Carbs | Fat | Fiber |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Couscous | 164 kcal | 6.4 g | 31 g | 0.9 g | 2.8 g |
| Cooked white rice | 155 kcal | 3.3 g | 33.2 g | 0.7 g | 1.4 g |
Weight for weight, couscous: 6% more energy.
What a table of values does not say
- Like rice and pasta, couscous is weighed cooked: the dry grain roughly triples as it swells, and mixing the two states up is the biggest source of error in the starch aisle.
- Fine, medium or coarse, the table sees one grain: the grade changes the dish, not the line.
What comes after the number
How much to eat in a day
A portion means nothing without the day that holds it. A calorie need is worked out from height, weight, age and activity level, then split into protein, carbohydrate and fat.
Calorie calculatorWhere body build sits
Body mass index, the full WHO classification, and the weight range matching a normal build for a given height.
BMI calculatorNeighboring pages
An average weight is an estimate. A photo is not.
In Zemiam, a photo of the meal is enough to log the real portion, with the composition of this same table rather than a guessed figure.
Where the values come from
The composition comes from the Anses Ciqual table: Anses. 2025. Table de composition nutritionnelle des aliments Ciqual, published under Licence Ouverte 2.0. The per-100 g values are reproduced without being altered; the per-portion values are those same values multiplied by a weight, and that weight is not an Anses figure.
The same page in French: Calories de la semoule de couscous.