How Many Calories Are in a Leg of Chicken? Drumstick, Thigh & Whole Leg

So, how many calories are in a leg of chicken? A whole roasted leg — drumstick and thigh still joined, with the skin on — has about 445 calories and about 52 g of protein. That is the headline number, and the rest of this post shows exactly where it comes from, how it changes when you take the skin off, and what happens when the leg is fried instead of roasted.

What counts as a leg of chicken?

A chicken leg, also sold as a leg quarter, is the whole back leg of the bird: the drumstick and the thigh joined together at the joint. Shops sometimes sell the two parts separately, which is why you will see drumstick-only and thigh-only figures quoted as well. All the numbers in this post are for roasted chicken, measured per 100 g of meat, using standard USDA-style values. A leg’s meat is roughly half drumstick and half thigh, which is why the whole-leg figure below is built from 100 g of each.

Chicken leg calories per 100 g

The table below is the single basis for every number in this post. With skin means the roasted meat eaten with its skin; meat only means the skin has been removed after roasting.

Cut (roasted)	Calories per 100 g	Protein per 100 g
Drumstick, meat + skin	216	27 g
Drumstick, meat only (skin removed)	172	28 g
Thigh, meat + skin	229	25 g
Thigh, meat only (skin removed)	209	26 g

How many calories are in a whole chicken leg?

Here is the worked figure, shown openly so you can check it. A whole roasted leg with skin is treated as about 100 g of drumstick meat plus about 100 g of thigh meat: 216 calories (drumstick, meat + skin) + 229 calories (thigh, meat + skin) = 445 calories. The protein adds up the same way: 27 g + 25 g = 52 g of protein. That 445-calorie, 52 g-protein figure is the one to remember for a standard roasted leg quarter with the skin on.

Take the skin off and the same leg drops to about 381 calories: 172 (drumstick, meat only) + 209 (thigh, meat only) = 381 calories, with about 54 g of protein. Yes, the skinless leg shows slightly more protein — that is because skin adds fat but no protein, so removing it leaves meat that is a little more protein-dense per 100 g. The skin-off saving on a whole leg is 445 − 381 = 64 calories.

Drumstick only

The drumstick is the lower part of the leg — the piece with the bone you hold. Per 100 g of roasted meat with the skin on, a drumstick has 216 calories and 27 g of protein; with the skin removed, it has 172 calories and 28 g of protein. A single drumstick’s meat is roughly 100 g, so those per-100 g figures are a good guide to one drumstick as served. Of the two parts of the leg, the drumstick is the leaner one: it carries a little less fat than the thigh, which is why its calorie count is lower both with and without the skin.

Thigh only

The thigh is the upper part of the leg, meatier and juicier than the drumstick, and it shows in the numbers. Per 100 g of roasted meat with the skin on, a thigh has 229 calories and 25 g of protein; with the skin removed, it has 209 calories and 26 g of protein. The thigh’s extra fat is also what keeps it moist and forgiving in the oven — it is much harder to dry out a thigh than a chicken breast. If you are choosing between the two parts purely on calories, the drumstick wins by a small margin; if you are choosing on flavour and texture, most people pick the thigh.

Skin on vs skin off

The skin is where the two parts differ most. On a drumstick, removing the skin saves 44 calories per 100 g (216 down to 172). On a thigh, it saves 20 calories per 100 g (229 down to 209). The drumstick’s skin is a bigger share of its weight, so it makes a bigger difference there. Over a whole leg, as shown above, taking the skin off saves about 64 calories. Crispy skin is also where much of the flavour lives, so this is a genuine trade-off rather than a free win: keeping the skin costs 64 calories on a whole leg, and for many people that is a price worth paying for a roast dinner.

What about a fried or breaded chicken leg?

Frying changes the picture. As a typical figure, a breaded and fried chicken leg has about 30% more calories than the same leg roasted. Applied to the headline figure, that takes a whole leg from about 445 calories roasted to about 580 calories fried (445 × 1.30 is about 579). Per 100 g, a fried drumstick lands around 280 calories and a fried thigh around 300 calories, versus 216 and 229 roasted. The extra calories come from two places: the breading itself, which is refined flour, and the oil it soaks up in the fryer. An oven-baked fried-style leg with a light crumb coating sits somewhere between the two, closer to the roasted figure if the coating is thin and the oil is sprayed rather than pooled.

Is a chicken leg healthy?

Yes, as part of a balanced diet, a roasted chicken leg is a genuinely good food. It is dark meat, which means it is slightly fattier than breast meat — compare skinless breast at about 165 calories and 31 g of protein per 100 g with skinless drumstick at 172 calories and 28 g, and skinless thigh at 209 calories and 26 g. Our white meat chicken guide explains the breast-versus-dark-meat split in full. What dark meat gives back is more iron and zinc than breast meat, plus a richer flavour and a texture that stays juicy. It is also very high in protein: a whole leg’s 52 g covers a large share of most people’s daily protein needs, as our calories in protein guide sets out. Roasted and skinless, a chicken leg is a lean, nutrient-dense choice; fried, breaded and eaten often, it becomes a much heavier one. The cooking method, as usual, matters more than the cut.