How many calories are in a Thanksgiving plate?

Key takeaways

• Turkey is one of the lighter things on the plate: 85 g of roasted light meat without skin is about 118 calories, according to USDA.
• Stuffing, sweet potato casserole and pie carry more energy than the turkey on most plates.
• An eighth of a homemade pumpkin pie is about 316 calories, while a regular 150 g slice of pecan pie is about 674 in USDA's data.
• Gravy is lighter than it looks at about 29 calories per quarter cup for a basic poultry gravy, but butter in the mashed potatoes and drippings in the gravy add up quickly.
• A modest plate is about 1,070 calories, a typical plate about 1,940 and a large plate with seconds about 3,640.
• One photo of a heaped plate hides what's under the gravy, so log the dishes one by one.

How many calories are in a Thanksgiving dinner?

A full Thanksgiving dinner on one plate lands between about 1,070 and 3,640 calories in the worked examples on this page, with most people near the middle. The range is wide because there are so many rich sides, and you choose the portion of each one.

Thanksgiving falls on November 26 in 2026. Every number below comes from USDA's FoodData Central, the government's public food composition database, unless the row says otherwise. Each entry carries its FDC ID so you can look it up.

Portions follow federal reference amounts where they exist. The FDA's reference amounts for food labels are 100 g for stuffing, 140 g for mashed or candied potatoes, 70 g for cranberry sauce, a quarter cup for gravy and 125 g for a piece of pie. USDA's poultry rule uses 85 g of cooked meat.

How many calories are in each Thanksgiving dish?

Each dish below is listed per 100 g and for a common serving, using the gram weights USDA publishes for that entry. Pick the rows that match your table.

Turkey

Turkey runs from about 118 to 172 calories per 85 g serving, depending on light or dark meat and whether you eat the skin.

The skin is the turkey's richest part at 459 calories per 100 g. Eating the skin with a light-meat serving adds about 26 calories; with dark meat, about 30.

USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service suggests buying about a pound of turkey per person. That figure includes bones and leftovers, so it isn't what goes on your plate. In USDA's portion data, one large or thick slice of roasted turkey weighs about 85 g.

Stuffing and dressing

A half-cup serving of stuffing is about 177 to 195 calories, and dressing made with meat or extra fat runs higher.

USDA lists a cup of bread stuffing at 200 g, which comes to 354 calories. One U.S. restaurant chain lists its cornbread dressing side at 310 calories.

Mashed potatoes and gravy

A cup of home-style mashed potatoes made with whole milk and butter is about 237 calories, and a quarter cup of basic poultry gravy adds about 29.

The butter row is there for a reason. Many cooks add extra butter to mashed potatoes or make gravy from drippings, and a tablespoon of butter is 102 calories that won't show up in a standard potato or gravy entry. If you made the gravy, count the fat you added.

Cranberry sauce

A quarter cup of canned cranberry sauce is about 112 calories, almost all of it sugar.

Sweet potato casserole

Sweet potato casserole runs from about 124 calories for a half cup to about 468 for a cup of the candied version.

The topping is the swing factor. A marshmallow layer or a pecan streusel turns a simple mash into a dessert, which is why the candied entry has almost twice the energy per gram. One U.S. restaurant chain lists its sweet potato casserole side at 240 calories.

Green bean casserole

Green bean casserole is one of the lighter sides at about 64 calories per half cup in USDA's entry.

Campbell's own recipe, made with condensed cream of mushroom soup, milk, green beans and fried onions, lists 151 calories for each of six servings. The crispy onions on top add more than the beans underneath.

Rolls and butter

A plain dinner roll is about 87 calories, and a pat of butter adds 36.

How many calories are in a slice of pie?

A slice of Thanksgiving pie runs from about 187 calories for a thin slice of pumpkin to about 674 for a regular slice of pecan. Pecan has the most energy per gram, and slice size changes the total as much as the filling does.

USDA's FNDDS lists a regular pie slice at 150 g and a small slice at 75 g, and the FDA's label reference amount for pie is 125 g. If your slice was a sliver, the small-slice rows are the ones to use.

A spoonful of whipped cream is light. A quarter cup of pressurized whipped cream is about 39 calories, so what's under it matters far more than what's on top.

How many calories are on a small, typical or large Thanksgiving plate?

A modest plate is about 1,070 calories, a typical plate about 1,940 and a large plate with seconds and two slices of pie about 3,640. These are example plates with stated amounts, built from the rows above.

The typical plate is worth a closer look. Turkey is 265 of its 1,939 calories, about 14%. Stuffing, sweet potatoes and pie together are 1,015, more than half.

The sides are where portion sizes count most, and where an estimate is most likely to drift.

How does a Thanksgiving plate compare with a restaurant turkey dinner?

A restaurant turkey dinner with three sides is close to the typical home plate before pie. One U.S. chain's published nutrition makes the comparison easy.

Adding a regular slice of pumpkin pie at 374 calories brings that restaurant meal to about 1,754, a little under our typical home plate of 1,939.

What about a desi or Middle Eastern Thanksgiving table?

Many South Asian and Middle Eastern families put a rice dish next to the turkey. A cup of chicken biryani adds about 204 calories for a light home recipe and about 320 for a takeaway-style one, as our chicken biryani calories page shows.

If biryani replaces the stuffing, the plate total barely changes. If it sits beside the stuffing, add it as its own line. The same goes for a curry; our chicken karahi calories page shows how a share of karahi and a roti add up.

Why is a photo of a Thanksgiving plate hard to estimate?

A Thanksgiving plate is hard to estimate from a photo because the foods overlap, the gravy covers the rest, and the richest ingredients are mixed in where no camera can see them. A heaped plate looks like a pile; the layers underneath are invisible.

Research on image-based diet records describes these exact problems. A 2020 review by Höchsmann and Martin notes that portions of foods with amorphous shapes or higher energy density tend to be hard to estimate. It uses butter in mashed potatoes as its example of a hidden ingredient that usually needs a note from the person eating.

Pie is a known trouble spot too. A 2018 study of food photographs found that images of amorphous solids, such as pies and pastries with a filling, and of liquid or semi-liquid dishes were more prone to bias. Gravy and soft casseroles fall in that second group.

The recipe adds another layer of uncertainty. A photo can't tell a plain mash from one made with a stick of butter, or a sweet potato mash from a candied casserole with marshmallows baked in. The difference between those two sweet potato rows is 220 calories a cup.

How should you log a Thanksgiving plate?

Log Thanksgiving dish by dish instead of as one plate, and log pie as its own item. Separate entries make each estimate easier to check and easier to fix.

1. Start with what you served yourself. Think in cups you can picture: USDA lists a cup of bread stuffing at 200 g and a cup of mashed potatoes at 210 g. Our portion guide has hand and household comparisons.
2. Log turkey by type. Note light or dark meat and whether you ate the skin. One thick slice is about 85 g.
3. Mention the extras you know about. If you made the mashed potatoes with a lot of butter or the gravy from drippings, add that fat as its own entry or note.
4. Pick the sweet potato version. Plain mash, casserole and candied with marshmallows are very different entries.
5. Log pie separately. Write down the type and the slice size, small or regular, and add whipped cream if you used more than a spoonful.
6. Log seconds as seconds. A second trip to the table is easier to log as a second meal than to fold into the first.

Our guide to logging biryani, curry and mixed meals explains how to split a shared dish into parts, and the cooking oil and butter guide covers hidden fat. Leftovers the next day go in as their own meal at the amount you eat.