Cooked Broccoli Nutrition Facts for a Half-Cup Portion

Broccoli appears in many food guides, but the preparation beside its name is easy to overlook. This card describes broccoli that has been boiled, drained, and prepared without salt. The USDA reference portion is a half cup of chopped cooked broccoli weighing 78 grams. It does not describe raw florets, a creamy broccoli casserole, or a frozen product already mixed with sauce. For that cooked portion, the calculated values are approximately 27 calories, 5.6 grams of total carbohydrate, and 2.6 grams of dietary fiber. Fiber forms part of the carbohydrate total. These selected figures help explain one vegetable serving, but they are not a complete account of everything broccoli contains. The card avoids adding vitamin or mineral numbers that have not been included in its stated calculation. The source is USDA FoodData Central, SR Legacy, food 169967, “Broccoli, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt.” Its per-100-gram values are 35 calories, 7.18 grams of carbohydrate, and 3.3 grams of fiber. Multiplying by 0.78 gives the half-cup reference. The result is rounded to whole calories and one decimal place for the displayed gram amounts. Natural variation and cooking differences mean these are approximate food-composition values. The drained wording matters because the serving is the edible cooked vegetable, not the water in which it was boiled. If you weigh broccoli before cooking, use an appropriate raw entry instead. The water content and weight can change during preparation. A raw portion cannot simply be relabeled as the same weight cooked without checking the basis of the calculation. Chopping also affects a volume measure. Large florets leave different spaces in a cup than smaller pieces, so a loosely filled bowl does not necessarily match the reference weight. A scale provides a clearer connection to 78 grams when consistency is needed. That does not mean the pictured bowl or a particular number of florets establishes an exact serving; the written measure is what supports the numbers. For an everyday meal, broccoli may be served with a grain, a protein food, or other vegetables according to preference. If you add butter, oil, cheese, or a sauce, those ingredients change the finished dish and need separate accounting. This card does not claim that a sauced serving has the same nutrition as plain boiled broccoli. A packaged prepared product should be checked against its own label. Use the reference to understand the ingredient rather than rank an entire meal by its calorie count. Healthy eating can include variety and enjoyment, and a vegetable's nutrient figures do not establish a guaranteed outcome. Keep the preparation and serving weight together whenever you use the facts. Source: USDA FoodData Central, https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/food-details/169967/nutrients.