Calories in Aloo Matar

This is the figure for one standard recipe, and the recipe is generous. A single bowl uses 100 g of shelled green peas along with 50 g of potato, 50 g of tomato, 50 g of onion and 1 tablespoon of oil, so despite the name there are more peas in it than potato. That makes a large serving of thick gravy. The katori that sits on a home thali may well be smaller, and a restaurant bowl meant for sharing is usually oilier. Scale the 280 kcal to what is actually ladled out.

Aloo matar is the heaviest of the seven potato sabzis in the comparison on this page, and the peas are the reason more than the potato. Fat, nearly all of it the cooking oil, supplies 47% of the energy; carbohydrate from the peas and potato supplies 39%; protein supplies 14%, which is high for a vegetable dish. The peas also account for most of the 10 g of fibre. So the bowl costs more energy than aloo gobi or aloo palak, but it gives more back in protein and fibre.

One bowl is about 13% of a sedentary man's daily energy requirement and 17% of a woman's, a larger share than most sabzis take. Two bowls reach 560 kcal with 19.4 g of protein. Because peas and potato are both starchy, aloo matar overlaps with the roti or rice it is eaten with, so the sensible adjustment is one roti fewer, not a smaller helping of the sabzi. With 9.7 g of protein and 10 g of fibre it is one of the more filling vegetable dishes on a thali.

Aloo matar carries 27 g of carbohydrate in a bowl before any roti or rice is counted, which is high for a sabzi. People who have been told to watch their carbohydrate or blood sugar should treat it as part of the meal's starch, not as a free vegetable, and keep to the portions their doctor or dietitian has set.