Sweet potato calories, by size
Baked sweet potato flesh is 90 calories per 100 g. A USDA medium is 114 g, so about 103 calories. It has a reputation as a diet food and a competing reputation as a carb bomb, and the numbers support neither.
Per 100 g, baked in skin, flesh only
| Serving | Weight | Calories | Protein | Carbs | Fat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 small | 60 g | 54 | 1.2 g | 12.4 g | 0.1 g |
| 1 medium (2" dia, 5" long, raw) | 114 g | 103 | 2.3 g | 23.6 g | 0.2 g |
| 1 large | 180 g | 162 | 3.6 g | 37.3 g | 0.3 g |
| 1 cup | 200 g | 180 | 4.0 g | 41.4 g | 0.3 g |
Sizes are measured raw; the figures are the baked flesh.
Baked in the skin is not incidental
These figures are for sweet potato baked in its skin, then the flesh eaten. Baking in the skin keeps water in, which is why baked flesh reads denser than boiled — boiling lets water in and dilutes the same food across more weight. Neither method adds or removes energy from the vegetable. If you boiled it, your per-100 g figure will be lower and your portion will weigh more; both errors cancel if you weigh what you actually eat.
What people are really asking
The question behind "sweet potato calories" is usually whether it beats a white potato. It does not, particularly — they are close, and both are largely water and starch. Sweet potato carries 20.7 g of carbohydrate per 100 g and 3.3 g of fiber, plus a very large amount of vitamin A that white potato does not have. That vitamin content is the actual reason to prefer it. On calories alone the swap is close to neutral.
What gets added afterwards
At 0.15 g of fat per 100 g, a sweet potato is effectively fat-free until something happens to it. A tablespoon of butter is about 100 calories, which nearly doubles a medium one. Fries are worse again, because they are cooked in oil and oil is 9 calories a gram. Log the potato and the fat separately; the potato is rarely the problem.
Source: USDA FoodData Central, SR Legacy release 2018-04. Figures are per 100 g as published; serving weights are USDA’s own. Records used: Sweet potato, cooked, baked in skin, flesh, without salt (FDC 168483).
Common questions
A USDA medium is 114 g, which at 90 calories per 100 g of baked flesh is about 103 calories.
Not meaningfully — the two are close. The real difference is vitamin A, which sweet potato has in very large amounts and white potato does not.
Not the total energy. Baking in the skin retains water, so baked flesh reads denser per 100 g than boiled. Weigh what you actually eat and it comes out the same.
20.7 g per 100 g of baked flesh, including 3.3 g of fiber. A medium is about 24 g of carbohydrate.
Compare it with
| Food | Per 100 g | Protein | The page |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oats | 379 dry | 13.2 g | Dry against cooked — a 5.3× difference |
| White rice | 365 dry | 7.1 g | Why a cooked cup weighs less than a raw one |
| Pasta | 371 dry | 13.0 g | The 2 oz serving nobody serves |
All twenty-four are on the food macros index.
Log it without doing this arithmetic
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