Tomato Paste - How Many Calories?

Calories in a spoonful of tomato paste

The generic tomato-paste reference gives 74 calories per 100 g. Cooking amounts are usually smaller: a weighed 10 g provides about 7 calories and 20 g provides 15. Weighing your usual spoonful once is useful because a level spoon and a heaped spoon hold different amounts.

A 20 g amount contains 2.58 g carbohydrate, 0.9 g protein and 0.56 g fibre. Shared through a dish divided into four equal portions, it contributes about 4 calories to each portion. Oil, meat, pulses or grains used with it determine the rest of the meal's energy.

Paste or prepared tomato sauce?

Paste gives concentrated tomato flavour and colour in a small amount. Water spreads that paste through a larger mixture; butter used to cook it adds energy. Prepared tomato sauce is a separate mixture ready to add to food. The reviewed generic sauce has 27 calories and 1.53 g fat per 40 g, compared with 15 calories and 0.04 g fat in 20 g paste. These are different use amounts, not spoon-for-spoon equivalents.

Cooked canned tomatoes offer a more liquid tomato base. Replacing cans, paste and ready sauce at equal weights changes texture and flavour as well as nutrition, so choose the form called for in your recipe.

Check the salt information on the jar

The generic entry gives 48 mg sodium per 20 g. A jar you buy may have a different salt content. Read its salt or sodium declaration for the amount you use; salt added to a homemade batch also matters. A small calorie contribution does not, by itself, tell you how much salt a paste contains.

Source notes

Calculations use the Diyetkolik generic tomato-paste entry, with 14.8 calories per 20 g. A brand, complete formula and added-sugar status were not established. Conflicting dessert-spoon weights are excluded; portions here are weighed amounts. Total sugars and saturated fat are unreported.