How many calories in an egg?
A large egg is about 72 calories. But "an egg" hides four questions at once — what size, the whole egg or just the white, how you cook it, and how many. The boiled egg and the fried egg are the same egg; the difference is the fat in the pan. Set yours below.
Size
Part
Cooking method
How many
Boiling and poaching add nothing — only the oil or butter does. Fried and scrambled figures assume about 1 tsp of added fat per egg; skip it and they match a boiled egg.
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Cooking doesn't add calories — fat does
A raw egg, a boiled egg and a poached egg all carry the same ~72 calories for a large one, because none of them involve added fat. The jump to a "fried" or "scrambled" figure comes almost entirely from the cooking fat: a teaspoon of oil or butter is roughly 40 calories. Fry an egg in a dry non-stick pan and it stays a 72-calorie egg.
White vs yolk
Split a large egg and the calories split unevenly. The white is about 17 calories and almost pure protein. The yolk is about 55 calories — it carries all the fat, plus the fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, K), choline and most of the minerals. Egg-white-only dishes cut calories sharply but leave most of the nutrition behind in the bin.
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By size — small to jumbo
Egg cartons are graded by weight, and the calories track it almost linearly: small (38 g) ~54, medium (44 g) ~63, large (50 g) ~72, extra-large (56 g) ~80 and jumbo (63 g) ~90. Australian Eggs quotes 74 calories (310 kJ) for the average egg in the 700 g cartons most people buy — effectively a large.
Two eggs, three eggs
Two large eggs come to about 144 calories and ~13 g of protein before any cooking fat; a three-egg omelette is around 216 calories of egg plus whatever butter, cheese or milk goes in. On the old "is two eggs a day too much" worry: dietary cholesterol is now considered to have far less effect on blood cholesterol than once thought, which is why most modern guidelines dropped a strict daily egg limit.
An egg is not an Egg McMuffin
A lot of "egg" searches are really after a built sandwich. A Sausage McMuffin with Egg is roughly 480 calories; a bacon, egg and cheese bagel can clear 500. In those, the egg is the smallest contributor — the muffin or bagel, cheese, sausage and butter do the heavy lifting. Counting the egg alone won't get you there.
Common questions
- Healthline — calories by size: small (38 g) 54, medium (44 g) 63, large (50 g) 72, extra-large 80.
- USDA FoodData Central — whole large egg ~72 kcal; hard-boiled ~78 kcal.
- Mayo Clinic Health System — one egg: 75 kcal, 5 g fat, 6 g protein, 0 g carbohydrate.
- Australian Eggs — average egg 74 calories / 310 kJ (700 g carton grade).
- British Lion / EggInfo — small ~55, medium ~66, large ~80 (UK grading).
The egg barely changes — 72 calories, large, every time. Everything else on the menu is the cooking.