Rajma protein per 100 g, calories, carbs and fibre: full nutrition

The table gives the rajma nutritional value per 100 g of raw, dried beans, next to two pulses that share its shelf: kabuli chana and kala chana. The rajma and kala chana columns use IFCT 2017, the food composition tables published by the ICMR-National Institute of Nutrition. The kabuli chana column uses the USDA FoodData Central record for raw chickpeas, because IFCT lists only whole Bengal gram, the desi type.

Three things help in reading it:

• The weights are raw. IFCT data for pulses is for the raw food, so every value here is for dry beans before soaking. Beans take up water as they soak and cook, which means 100 g of cooked rajma carries much less than 100 g of dry rajma. The per-katori and per-serving numbers further down start from the dry weight for that reason.
• Carbohydrate and fibre are separate lines. IFCT prints available carbohydrate, the part that is digested and absorbed, and lists dietary fibre on its own. Rajma's 48.6 g carbohydrate and 16.6 g fibre are two figures, not one inside the other.
• The entry is red rajmah. IFCT lists rajmah by colour. This page uses the red entry, the one that matches Kashmiri and other red rajma.

Per 100 g raw, edible portion. Composition: IFCT 2017 (ICMR-NIN); USDA FoodData Central (SR Legacy), FDC ID 173756, NDB 16056. GI: University of Sydney GI database. — means not reported. These are average values for the food; the label on a pack gives the values for that product.

Nobody eats 100 g of dry rajma at one sitting, so two home measures are more useful. Our katori is the 200 ml bowl, filled with the cooked beans from about 30 g of dry rajma, which is also the raw weight of pulses in a lunch on the suggested menus of the Dietary Guidelines for Indians. A full serving of rajma masala, the amount that goes on a plate of rajma chawal, takes about 50 g of dry beans, and our recipe allows 200 g for four plates.

1 katori rajma calories and nutrients (from 30 g dry rajma)

• Energy: 90 kcal
• Protein: 6 g
• Carbohydrate: 14.6 g
• Fibre: 5 g
• Fat: 0.5 g
• Iron: 1.8 mg
• Potassium: 397 mg
• Folate: 95 mcg

One serving of rajma masala (from 50 g dry rajma)

• Energy: 150 kcal
• Protein: 10 g
• Carbohydrate: 24.3 g
• Fibre: 8.3 g
• Fat: 0.9 g
• Iron: 3.1 mg
• Potassium: 662 mg
• Folate: 158 mcg

These numbers are for the beans alone, worked out from the IFCT values by weight. The ghee or oil in the masala brings calories of its own, and the rice on the plate brings more; the recipe page gives the figure for the full plate. If you weigh cooked beans, the water they have absorbed is part of that weight, so go back to the dry weight you started with.

Rajma curry calories: about 224 kcal a serving

Cooked as in our rajma curry recipe, where 200 g of dry rajma goes into the pot with 2 tablespoons of ghee, cumin and three spice powders for four servings, one serving comes to about 224 kcal. The onion, tomato and ginger-garlic paste are not counted, and the rice on a rajma chawal plate is extra.

Per 100 g raw, rajma has 19.9 g protein, kabuli chana 20.5 g and kala chana 18.8 g. The three sit within two grams of each other, so protein alone is no reason to pick one over another. Choose by the dish and by what else the bean brings.

• Fibre: kala chana has 25.2 g, rajma 16.6 g and kabuli chana 12.2 g.
• Fat: rajma has 1.8 g fat per 100 g, the lowest of the three; kala chana has 5.1 g and kabuli chana 6 g.
• Calories: rajma calories per 100 g come to 300 kcal, against 287 kcal for kala chana and 378 kcal for kabuli chana.
• Protein for the calories: for every hundred calories, rajma carries 6.6 g protein, kala chana 6.5 g and kabuli chana 5.4 g.

Kabuli chana is the odd one out: its figures come from USDA FoodData Central, compiled by different methods from IFCT, so a small gap between it and the other two columns may not mean much. The Dietary Guidelines for Indians name kidney beans, chickpeas and cowpeas among the pulses that are rich sources of protein, and call pulses very important sources of protein in balanced vegetarian Indian diets.

The glycemic index of rajma is 45, which puts it among low-GI foods; the University of Sydney, which keeps the GI database, counts a GI of 55 or less as low. The 45 is the mean of the database's two India-tested entries for kidney beans: 19 for plain boiled rajmah, and 70 for kidney beans that were soaked for 12 hours, stored moist for 24 hours and steamed for an hour.

Those two entries are far apart and the beans were prepared differently, so 45 is best read as a working middle. The database also holds 11 entries for cooked kidney beans tested outside India, which run from 9 to 51 with a mean of 30; they are given here as context. Legumes as a group usually test low and give consistent values from country to country, according to the 2021 edition of the international GI tables, a systematic review by Atkinson et al. Kabuli chana and kala chana both show a GI of 23 in the table above, because the database does not separate the two types of chickpea.

Rajma is rarely eaten alone. In rajma chawal the rice is the larger source of carbohydrate on the plate, so the size of the rice portion matters as much as the beans. How much of each suits a person with diabetes is an individual matter; talk to your doctor or dietitian.

Rajma leads this table on potassium and magnesium, and comes second on folate, iron and calcium.

• Potassium: 1324 mg per 100 g, against 935 mg in kala chana and 718 mg in kabuli chana. Sodium is 10.5 mg, so the dry bean is high in potassium and low in sodium before any salt goes into the pot.
• Folate: 316 mcg per 100 g. Kabuli chana has more at 557 mcg, kala chana less at 233 mcg.
• Iron: 6.1 mg per 100 g, close to kala chana at 6.8 mg and above kabuli chana at 4.3 mg.
• Magnesium: 173 mg per 100 g, against 160 mg in kala chana and 79 mg in kabuli chana.
• Calcium: 126 mg per 100 g; kala chana has 150 mg and kabuli chana 57 mg.
• Zinc: 2.7 mg per 100 g, a little under kabuli chana at 2.8 mg and kala chana at 3.4 mg.
• Vitamin C: IFCT 2017 reports no value for dry rajma.

Two habits from the Dietary Guidelines for Indians help the iron in a plant food reach you. Vitamin C-rich foods eaten as part of the meal, such as lemon or a chutney of coriander and green chillies, improve iron absorption from plant foods. Tea pulls the other way, since it binds dietary iron; the guidelines ask for at least an hour between a cup and the meal, on either side.

Rajma's 19.9 g protein per 100 g is only part of the answer; the mix of amino acids matters too. The Dietary Guidelines for Indians explain that pulses have higher levels of lysine and lower levels of methionine and cysteine, while cereals are the other way round. Eaten together, each covers what the other lacks.

The guidelines put it plainly: a meal containing both pulses and grains supplies all amino acids and is of higher quality than a diet of pulses alone or grains alone. They give a ratio of 3 parts cereal to 1 part pulse, by raw weight, as one that can meet the requirement for all essential amino acids.

Rajma chawal already does this. A plate made from 75 g of rice and 50 g of rajma carries more pulse than that ratio asks for. Rajma with roti, or rajma stirred into a millet khichdi, works the same way. A bowl of curd or a glass of chaas on the side helps too; the guidelines note that milk in the daily diet further improves protein quality.

The table is for dry beans, and rajma is never eaten that way. He et al., in a 2018 systematic review of the lectins in Phaseolus vulgaris beans, class lectins as anti-nutritional factors and report that they can cause intestinal disorders. The bean has to be cooked right through before it reaches the plate.

Cooking works in the bean's favour. According to the Dietary Guidelines for Indians, boiling and pressure cooking destroy anti-nutritional factors in pulses, which raises digestibility and protein availability, and the phytic acid that hinders mineral absorption falls to a great extent. The same guidelines caution against boiling pulses for too long, because long cooking lowers protein quality through the loss of lysine, and they advise boiling in just enough water, without draining it, to retain folate.

In the kitchen that means an overnight soak, the soaking water thrown away, a rinse, and then the pressure cooker until the beans are soft to the centre. The water they cooked in goes into the gravy. What rajma does for the body, and who should go easy on it, is covered under rajma benefits.

How much protein in 100 gm rajma?

100 g of raw, dried rajma has 19.9 g protein, along with 300 kcal, 48.6 g carbohydrate and 16.6 g fibre (IFCT 2017, red rajmah). The figure is for dry beans. Once soaked and cooked, the same beans weigh much more because of the water they hold, so 100 g of cooked rajma has far less protein than 100 g of dry rajma.

How much protein in rajma?

One katori of cooked rajma, made from 30 g of dry beans, has about 6 g protein, and a full serving of rajma masala cooked from 50 g has about 10 g. With rice or roti on the side the protein of the plate goes up, and the grain and the beans together supply a fuller set of amino acids than either does alone.

Is rajma rich in protein?

Yes, for a plant food. At 19.9 g protein per 100 g raw, rajma is level with kabuli chana at 20.5 g and kala chana at 18.8 g, and the Dietary Guidelines for Indians list kidney beans among the pulses that are rich sources of protein. It carries that protein with only 1.8 g fat per 100 g.

How many calories are there in rajma?

Rajma has 300 kcal per 100 g raw. Scaled to home portions, that is 90 kcal in a katori of beans cooked from 30 g dry and 150 kcal in a full 50 g serving. That is before the masala: the ghee or oil in the tadka brings calories of its own, and the rice on the side brings more. The beans themselves are low in fat at 1.8 g per 100 g.

Is rajma high in carbs?

Rajma is about half carbohydrate by dry weight: 48.6 g of available carbohydrate per 100 g raw, with 16.6 g fibre counted separately. A serving cooked from 50 g of dry rajma has 24.3 g carbohydrate. Its glycemic index of 45, the mean of two India-tested entries in the University of Sydney database, sits inside the low range of 55 or less.

Does cooking reduce the protein in rajma?

Cooking makes the protein more usable, as long as the beans are not overcooked. The Dietary Guidelines for Indians say boiling and pressure cooking destroy anti-nutritional factors in pulses and so raise digestibility and protein availability. They also say pulses should not be boiled for too long, since long cooking brings a loss of lysine. Cook rajma until soft, then stop.