Calories in Besan Chilla

The recipe behind the figure mixes 100 g of gram flour with 30 g of onion and 25 g of tomato, and cooks the batter into 6 chillas using only 3/4 teaspoon of oil for the whole batch. The source does not fix the size of a chilla, so one serving here simply means one of those 6 portions, each holding about 17 g of besan. That is a thin, small chilla made on a pan that needs almost no fat. A home chilla poured from a full ladle and cooked in a teaspoon of oil is a different thing and will come out well above 71 kcal.

Carbohydrate supplies 60% of the energy, protein 22% and fat only 18%. That split is unusual for a breakfast cooked on a tawa, and it follows from the ingredients: besan is a pulse flour, so it brings more protein and fibre than wheat or rice flour does, and there is very little oil to dilute it. Each chilla also carries 2.2 g of fibre. The moment oil goes on the pan the picture shifts, because a single teaspoon of oil holds about 44 kcal, which is more than half of what the chilla itself contains.

Nobody eats one small chilla for breakfast. Three come to 213 kcal with 12.3 g of protein, and even that is a moderate meal: a single chilla is only about 3% of a sedentary man's daily energy requirement and 4% of a woman's. Among the 22 breakfast dishes in this set it is the third lightest, behind idli and rava idli, and it gives a good amount of protein for its calories. A bowl of curd or a glass of milk alongside rounds off the meal.

The low figure depends on a recipe with almost no oil and a small ladle of batter, so do not carry 71 kcal over to a thick, well-oiled chilla from a stall or a restaurant. The batter is salted to taste, and salty chutneys or pickle add to it. Besan suits many eating plans, but people managing diabetes or kidney disease should take their portions from their doctor or dietitian.