A typical steak contains between 300 and 700 calories depending on the cut and size. A 6-ounce sirloin, one of the most common portions served at home, comes in around 390 calories. A fattier cut like ribeye in the same portion size pushes closer to 475. The cut you choose, how large the steak is, and what you cook it in all shift that number significantly.
Calories by Cut
Not all steaks are created equal. The difference between the leanest and fattiest popular cuts is about 50 calories per 100 grams (roughly 3.5 ounces), and that gap widens as portion sizes increase. Here’s how five popular cuts compare, all cooked and trimmed to a standard amount of outer fat:
- Top round: 224 calories per 100 g, 10 g fat
- Top sirloin: 230 calories per 100 g, 13 g fat
- New York strip: 250 calories per 100 g, 15 g fat
- Tenderloin (filet mignon): 262 calories per 100 g, 17 g fat
- Ribeye: 278 calories per 100 g, 18 g fat
The pattern is straightforward: more marbling means more fat, and more fat means more calories. Ribeye is prized for its rich flavor precisely because it carries nearly twice the fat of a top round steak. That extra fat adds about 70 calories per serving compared to the leanest option on the list.
How Serving Size Changes the Math
The numbers above are per 100 grams, which is a useful benchmark but not how most people eat steak. A restaurant steak is often 8 to 16 ounces before cooking. A home-cooked portion is more commonly 6 to 8 ounces. Here’s what those serving sizes look like in calories, using sirloin and ribeye as the lean and rich ends of the spectrum:
- 3 oz (85 g): about 195 calories (sirloin) to 235 calories (ribeye)
- 6 oz (170 g): about 390 calories (sirloin) to 475 calories (ribeye)
- 8 oz (227 g): about 520 calories (sirloin) to 630 calories (ribeye)
- 12 oz (340 g): about 780 calories (sirloin) to 945 calories (ribeye)
These are cooked weights. Raw steaks lose roughly 25% of their weight during cooking as water and some fat render out, so a 10-ounce raw steak becomes roughly a 7.5-ounce cooked steak. If you’re tracking calories, weigh your steak after cooking for the most accurate count.
Protein and Fat Breakdown
Steak is one of the most protein-dense foods you can eat. A 6-ounce cooked sirloin delivers about 35 grams of protein alongside 22 grams of total fat, of which roughly 9 grams is saturated. That protein-to-calorie ratio is why steak shows up so often in high-protein meal plans.
Leaner cuts like top round pack a similar amount of protein with less fat, making them the better choice if your goal is maximizing protein per calorie. Fattier cuts like ribeye trade some of that efficiency for flavor and tenderness. Neither is inherently better; it depends on what you’re optimizing for.
How Cooking Adds (or Removes) Calories
The cut and size of your steak account for most of the calories, but cooking method plays a supporting role. Grilling or broiling a steak without added fat keeps the calorie count closest to the baseline numbers above. Some fat actually renders out of the meat and drips away during grilling, slightly reducing the final calorie count compared to the raw numbers.
Pan-searing is a different story. A tablespoon of cooking oil adds about 120 calories, and a tablespoon of butter adds roughly 100 (butter contains some water, so it’s slightly lower calorie than pure oil). In practice, you won’t absorb all of that. Some stays in the pan, some ends up on the plate. A reasonable estimate is that pan-searing with a tablespoon of fat adds 50 to 80 calories to your steak. If you’re cooking a well-marbled ribeye, the fat that renders out of the meat into the pan may roughly offset whatever oil you added.
Basting with butter at the end, a common technique for restaurant-quality steaks, can add another tablespoon or two. If you’re not counting closely, this is a minor detail. If you are, figure an extra 50 to 100 calories for a butter-basted steak.
USDA Grade Matters Too
All the numbers in this article are based on Select grade beef, which is the leaner of the two grades commonly sold in grocery stores. Choice grade, which is more widely available and has more marbling, will run 10 to 20 calories higher per 100 grams for the same cut. Prime grade, the most marbled and typically found at high-end steakhouses, adds even more. If you’re eating a Prime ribeye at a restaurant, expect the per-ounce calorie count to be meaningfully higher than what’s listed here.
The USDA grading system is based almost entirely on intramuscular fat, so a higher grade always means more calories from fat. The protein content stays roughly the same across grades.