How Many Grams of Protein in an Egg? White, Yolk and Size

One large egg has about 6.2 g of protein, split between the white (3.6 g) and the yolk (2.8 g). How many grams of protein in an egg depends mostly on size: a small egg has 4.8 g and a jumbo has 7.9 g. Cooking barely moves the protein, only the calories.

How many grams of protein in an egg, by size?

A small egg has 4.8 g of protein and a jumbo has 7.9 g, which is 3.1 g apart. The table uses one USDA record, Egg, whole, raw, fresh, which lists 12.56 g of protein and 143 kcal per 100 g and a weight for each size.

Size (US)	Weight without shell (g)	Protein (g)	Energy (kcal)
Small	38	4.8	54
Medium	44	5.5	63
Large	50	6.3	72
Extra large	56	7.0	80
Jumbo	63	7.9	90

The large row shows 6.3 g, not the 6.2 g above. The 6.2 g comes from the newer Foundation record, which weighs a large egg at 50.3 g and gives 12.4 g of protein per 100 g. A tenth of a gram isn’t worth arguing over. I use 6.2 to 6.3 g for a large egg and move on.

Check your carton, then pick your row.

Which has more protein, the egg white or the yolk?

The white has more: 3.6 g against 2.8 g in the yolk, which is 57% of the protein in the two parts. The yolk is only a third of the egg by weight (17.0 g of 51.0 g), yet it carries three quarters of the calories.

Part of a large egg	Weight (g)	Protein (g)	Energy (kcal)	Protein per 100 kcal (g)
Whole egg	50.3	6.2	74	8.4
White	34.0	3.6	19	19.5
Yolk	17.0	2.8	57	4.9

I worked each row from the record’s per 100 g values and its portion weight. White: 10.7 g × 0.34 = 3.6 g. Yolk: 16.2 g × 0.17 = 2.8 g. Energy uses the records’ specific Atwater factors: 55 kcal per 100 g for white, 334 for yolk. The two parts add up to 6.4 g, a little over the whole egg’s 6.2 g, because the three records are separate measurements.

Per calorie the white gives about four times the yolk’s protein, but per gram of food it’s the other way round, since the yolk has 16.2 g per 100 g and the white 10.7 g. The winner depends on what you divide by.

Mixing parts is the practical use. One whole egg plus two whites in the pan gives 13.5 g of protein for 111 kcal. Two whole eggs give 12.5 g for 148 kcal, so the mix is one more gram of protein for 37 kcal less, in 118 g of food against 101 g. If you separate eggs, weigh the white and the yolk apart and log them as two entries. High protein egg bites use the same swap, with some of the whole eggs replaced by whites.

Does cooking change the protein in an egg?

No. A large egg gives about 6.3 g of protein hard-boiled, poached or fried. Frying moves the calories, not the protein, because the pan adds fat.

Large egg, cooked	Weight (g)	Protein (g)	Energy (kcal)
Hard-boiled	50	6.3	78
Poached	50	6.3	72
Fried	46	6.3	90
Omelet	61	6.4	94

Against the raw record, fried egg has 14.84 g of fat per 100 g instead of 9.51 g, up 56%, while its protein is up only 8%.

A record is per 100 g of the food in that state, so the grams must match it. Chicken has the same trap in a bigger way, and the grams of protein in a chicken breast differ a lot between raw and cooked. Two scrambled eggs from the fast-food scrambled record weigh 96 g and give 13.3 g of protein and 204 kcal. Log that 96 g against the raw record and you get 12.1 g and 137 kcal. That’s about 66 kcal short.

How many eggs does it take to get 25 grams of protein?

Four large eggs, or seven egg whites. Four whole eggs (201 g) give 24.9 g of protein for 296 kcal. Seven whites (238 g) give 25.5 g for 131 kcal, which is 165 kcal less. The sums: 147 kcal per 100 g × 2.012 = 296 kcal for the eggs, and 55 kcal per 100 g × 2.38 = 131 kcal for the whites.

I take whole eggs most days. Four in a pan is easier than separating seven. The whites win when calories are tight, since they save 165 kcal for the same protein. A cup of liquid egg whites (243 g) is the quick version: 26.5 g of protein and 126 kcal. Sliced hard-boiled egg also works as a topping on a high protein salad, though there the chicken carries most of the protein.

The 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans came out in January 2026. They give 1.2–1.6 g of protein per kg of body weight a day and name eggs among the protein foods; how much protein you should eat a day walks through that range. At 70 kg (154 lb) that is 84–112 g, and two large eggs (12.5 g) cover 11–15% of it. A three-egg breakfast (18.7 g, 222 kcal) covers 17–22%. If you have kidney disease, the number to aim for comes from your doctor, not from this table.

For your own daily number from your height and weight, use the protein calculator. It uses the same 1.2–1.6 g per kg range and never sets it below 60 g.

Is a UK medium egg the same as a US large one?

Roughly. Not exactly. UK eggs are graded by weight under Regulation 589/2008 as kept in UK law. Medium is 53 g up to 63 g, large is 63 g up to 73 g, and very large is 73 g and over. The US classes in AMS 56 are set per dozen. A large dozen weighs at least 24 oz, which is 56.7 g per egg. An extra large dozen weighs at least 27 oz, or 63.8 g.

Both sets of weights include the shell, and the USDA records above are for the egg without it. So don’t type a carton weight into a record. My rule of thumb: large row for a UK medium, extra large row for a UK large. It isn’t a published equivalence.

How do I log an egg without guessing?

Crack it into a small bowl on the scale and write down the grams. The carton gives the class, not your egg. I started doing this when I noticed that “one egg” in my diary covered anything from a small to a jumbo. That is up to 3.1 g of protein on one egg. Seven breakfasts add it up.

Don’t weigh the egg in its shell, since the records are for the egg without it. Skip cups too: a cup of raw whole egg weighs 243 g, which is 4.86 large eggs.

Weigh your usual egg breakfast once. Don’t log it from memory. Then pick the record that matches how you cooked it. In Calsa you can type “eggs 100 g”, and the entry shows its source and the math, per 100 g × grams.