Leeks are a mild, onion-like vegetable that bring savory depth to soups, stir-fries, and side dishes with very few calories. Figuring out the calories in a tablespoon can be confusing because chopped leeks settle differently, and raw, cooked, and frozen leeks each have their own weight per spoonful. This calculator converts your portion into calories and macronutrients using typical chopped-leek densities and standard nutrition values.
Use it for meal logging, recipe planning, or weight management. Enter your amount in tablespoons, teaspoons, or cups, choose the preparation, and add cooking fat if needed. The result shows total calories, calories per tablespoon, and a full carb, protein, fat, and fiber breakdown — handy for anyone tracking macros, from home cooks to fitness enthusiasts.
🥬 Leek Calories per Tablespoon
How This Calculator Works
Start with your portion size in tablespoons, teaspoons, or cups, and choose the leek preparation that matches how you eat it: raw chopped, cooked, or frozen. If you added butter or oil during cooking, tick the Add cooking fat checkbox and enter the amount in teaspoons. The tool first converts your portion into tablespoons, estimates its weight using typical chopped-leek densities, then applies approximate USDA nutrition values per 100 g. Because leeks are mostly water and fiber, the calorie difference between preparations is small, but the weight per spoonful changes noticeably once leeks are cooked and drained.
Calculation Method
The math is straightforward. First, convert your amount to tablespoons: teaspoons are 1/3 of a tablespoon, and 1 cup equals 16 tablespoons. Then multiply the tablespoons by the grams per tablespoon for your chosen preparation to get the weight in grams. Leek calories come from multiplying that weight by the calories per 100 g and dividing by 100. Macronutrients (carbohydrates, protein, fat, and fiber) are calculated the same way using grams per 100 g. Finally, if you added butter or olive oil, the fat calories are added to the leek calories to give the total.
- Weight (g) = tablespoons × grams per tablespoon
- Leek calories = weight × kcal per 100 g ÷ 100
- Total calories = leek calories + added fat calories
- Each macro (g) = weight × grams per 100 g ÷ 100
Reference Table
The table shows the typical values used by this calculator for a single tablespoon of chopped leek. Raw leeks are densest because chopping packs them tightly; cooked leeks hold more water after boiling and weigh less per spoonful; frozen leeks sit in between.
| Leek form | kcal / 100 g | grams / tbsp | kcal / tbsp |
|---|---|---|---|
| Raw, chopped | 61 | 5.6 | ≈3.4 |
| Cooked, boiled / drained | 31 | 4.5 | ≈1.4 |
| Frozen, chopped | 50 | 5.4 | ≈2.7 |
Tips for Accurate Tracking
- Weigh leeks on a kitchen scale whenever possible. Volume estimates vary with chop size and how firmly you pack the spoon, and a scale removes most of that uncertainty.
- If you are logging a soup or stew, count the leeks as cooked unless they were stirred in raw at the very end of cooking.
- Track cooking fats separately. Butter and olive oil add 34–40 kcal per teaspoon, which is often more than the leeks in an entire serving.
- Use the same preparation consistently in your food diary so your daily totals stay comparable.