Pad Thai: Calories, Nutrition & Healthier Swaps

Pad Thai is stir-fried rice noodles with egg, peanuts and a sweet-salty sauce — tasty, but high in sugar, salt and oil.

Pad Thai nutrition facts per 100 g and per serving

Values per 100 g as eaten, averaged from food composition tables (USDA FoodData Central and others) and rounded — a specific brand or recipe will differ a little.

Pad Thai: nutrition highlights

A serving (serving, 300 g) provides 23 g of protein — about 40% of the 56 g daily reference for a 70 kg (154 lb) adult (0.8 g per kg). It has 3.6 g of fiber per serving — roughly 14% of the 25 g a day most adults fall short of.

On the open Nutri-Score algorithm, Pad Thai gets a C: the middle of the scale — fine with an eye on portions. The score weighs calories, sugar, saturated fat and salt against protein, fiber and the share of fruit, vegetables, legumes and nuts.

What to watch

• It's low in fiber, so add vegetables, greens or beans to the plate.
• One serving (serving, 300 g) has 15 g of sugar — 60% of the 25 g of free sugars the WHO suggests as an ideal daily limit.
• A serving has 3.6 g of salt — 72% of the WHO's 5 g daily maximum.

How much movement is one serving?

One serving (serving, 300 g) is 507 kcal — roughly 2 h 46 min of easy walking or 64 min of cycling for a 70 kg (154 lb) person. In the diary, minutes are worked out for your weight and the activities you actually do.

Healthier swaps for Pad Thai

Swaps are picked the same way the app does it: from the same kind of food, with a serving matched to the same calories (±25%), and only when the swap is clearly better — not “salad instead of pizza”.

• Pad Thai with chicken — 320 g, 512 kcal: −1 g salt.
• Pad Thai with shrimp — 350 g, 511 kcal: −0.4 g salt.
• Lentils with lentils — 380 g, 509 kcal: −2.1 g saturated fat, −7.4 g sugar.
• Lentils with chickpeas — 330 g, 502 kcal: −1.9 g saturated fat, −3.3 g salt.