Chicken, Turkey & Lean Meats
Protein in Duck Breast: Protein, Calories, and Meal Ideas
Cooked duck breast is a complete high-protein poultry food with about 19 g protein per 100 g, but calories and fat vary greatly depending on skin.
Protein per serving
19g
100 g cooked duck breast
Calories per serving
337
100 g serving
Protein per 100g
19g
337 calories per 100 g
Protein density
5.6g
protein per 100 calories
Duck Breast Nutrition Snapshot
| Measure | Amount | Protein | Calories |
|---|---|---|---|
| Typical serving | 100 g cooked duck breast | 19g | 337 |
| Per 100 g | 100 g | 19g | 337 |
| Protein density | 100 calories | 5.6g | 100 |
Representative source entry: Duck, domesticated, breast, meat and skin, cooked, roasted. This guide uses a cooked duck breast benchmark. Skin-on, skinless, raw, roasted, pan-seared, smoked, confit, wild, and restaurant duck breast can differ by fat, water, sodium, and added sauce.
Good for weight loss? Fair
Duck breast can fit weight loss in measured portions, especially skinless, but skin-on duck breast, rendered fat, sauces, glazes, potatoes, rice, and restaurant sides can raise calories quickly.
Good for muscle gain? Good
Duck breast provides complete protein and enough calories to support muscle-gain meals, especially with rice, potatoes, pasta, fruit, bread, or vegetables.
Meal Ideas with Duck Breast
Sliced duck breast with roasted vegetables and rice
Skinless duck breast salad with potatoes
Pan-seared duck breast with quinoa and greens
Duck breast wrap with yogurt sauce and salad
How to Use Duck Breast
Quick Answer
Cooked duck breast has about 19.0 g protein per 100 g when using a skin-on cooked duck breast benchmark. It is a high-protein, complete animal protein, but the calorie and fat total can change sharply depending on whether the skin and rendered fat are included.
- Protein class: high by weight because 19.0 g per 100 g falls in the 15-24.9 g range.
- Protein quality: complete, meaning duck breast provides all essential amino acids.
- Best format for this guide: cooked duck breast. Skin-on, skinless, smoked, confit, roasted, pan-seared, and restaurant versions can differ greatly.
100g, Skin-On, and Skinless Duck Breast
The protein number is simple: use about 19 g protein per 100 g for cooked duck breast when tracking the skin-on benchmark. The nutrition problem is fat, because duck skin can add a large amount of calories even when the protein serving looks the same.
- 100 g cooked duck breast: about 19.0 g protein.
- Skin-on duck breast: usually higher calories because the skin and attached fat are included.
- Skinless duck breast: usually leaner and may have a higher protein percentage by weight than skin-on duck breast.
- If your tracking app has separate entries for meat only versus meat and skin, choose the entry that matches what you actually ate.
Types of Duck Breast
Duck breast labels are not interchangeable. Breed, wild versus domestic duck, skin, cooking method, added fat, curing, smoking, and sauce can all change calories and serving weight while the protein remains useful.
| Duck breast type | What it means | Protein tracking note |
|---|---|---|
| Cooked skin-on duck breast | Duck breast cooked with the skin and fat layer included. | Closest match to the 19 g per 100 g benchmark; calories are usually much higher than skinless. |
| Cooked skinless duck breast | Duck breast meat with skin and visible fat removed. | Use a meat-only entry when available; it is typically leaner than skin-on duck. |
| Raw duck breast | Uncooked breast before roasting, pan-searing, or grilling. | Do not mix raw and cooked weights because cooking changes water and fat. |
| Pan-seared duck breast | Often cooked skin-side down so fat renders into the pan. | Track skin-on or skinless based on what you ate, plus oil, sauce, or glaze. |
| Roasted duck breast | Duck breast cooked in an oven, sometimes with skin and fat rendered. | Use cooked weight and account for skin, fat, gravy, and sauce. |
| Grilled duck breast | Duck breast cooked over direct heat, often served sliced. | Use cooked weight; check whether the skin was removed before eating. |
| Smoked duck breast | Duck breast preserved or cooked with smoke, often packaged. | Use the product label because sodium, serving size, and moisture vary. |
| Duck breast confit | Duck cooked or stored with rendered duck fat. | Track as a prepared dish; calories can be much higher than plain cooked breast. |
| Magret duck breast | Large breast from duck raised for foie gras, often served skin-on. | Protein is useful, but fat layer can be substantial; use label or recipe details. |
| Wild duck breast | Breast meat from wild duck rather than domestic duck. | Often leaner, but use a wild-game entry if available. |
| Restaurant duck breast | Duck served with glaze, sauce, butter, potatoes, rice, or sides. | Track the duck and sides separately when possible; sauces can change calories quickly. |
Skin-On vs Skinless: Why Calories Change
Duck breast is different from chicken breast because the skin and fat layer are a major part of the final calorie total. A skin-on portion can still be high protein, but it is not automatically a lean protein choice.
- Choose skinless duck breast when the goal is more protein with fewer calories.
- Choose skin-on duck breast when flavor, satiety, and calories are useful, but track it honestly.
- Rendered fat left in the pan does not count the same as fat eaten on the plate, so match the database entry to the served portion.
Best Meal Uses
Duck breast works best as a flavorful complete-protein centerpiece rather than an everyday lean-protein default. It pairs well with vegetables, potatoes, rice, grains, citrus, herbs, and lower-fat sides that balance the richer meat.
- For weight-loss meals, use skinless duck breast or a smaller skin-on portion with vegetables and a measured starch.
- For muscle-gain meals, pair duck breast with rice, potatoes, pasta, quinoa, fruit, or bread when you need more training fuel.
- For meal prep, slice cooked duck breast and keep sauces separate so the protein serving is easier to track.
Tracking Mistakes to Avoid
The biggest duck breast mistakes are using a skinless entry for a skin-on meal, using raw values for cooked weight, and ignoring fat-rich sauces or glazes. These mistakes can undercount calories even when protein looks correct.
- Weigh cooked duck breast if using cooked nutrition values.
- Use a skin-on entry when you eat the skin and visible fat.
- Track oil, butter, duck fat, honey glaze, orange sauce, gravy, potatoes, rice, noodles, and wine sauces separately.
- Use package labels for smoked, cured, frozen, or ready-to-eat duck breast.
How Duck Breast Compares for Protein Density
Duck Breast works as a meat or poultry protein with about 19 g protein and 337 calories per 100 g. That equals 5.6 g protein per 100 calories, or about 17.7 calories per gram of protein. This density number is useful because two foods can both look high protein while one needs far more calories to deliver the same protein target.
Duck Breast is less protein-dense than the related foods shown below, so portions, add-ins, and the rest of the meal matter more. Meat and poultry values change with cut, fat trim, skin, cooking yield, and whether the entry is raw, cooked, deli, ground, or roasted. Use the comparison table as a planning shortcut: choose the higher-density option when calories are limited, and choose the more calorie-dense option when appetite is low or muscle-gain meals need to be easier to finish.
| Food | Serving protein | Protein / 100g | Protein / 100 cal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Turkey Breast | 44g | 29g | 21.5g |
| Chicken Thigh | 34g | 23g | 12.8g |
| Sirloin Steak | 37g | 25g | 12.1g |
| Duck Breast | 19g | 19g | 5.6g |
Best Uses for Duck Breast
For Weight Loss or Calorie Control
Duck Breast can still fit a weight-loss plan, but the serving needs more attention because calories rise faster than they do with very lean proteins. Use it intentionally, measure portions, and let leaner foods or vegetables carry more of the plate volume. For this page's representative serving, 100 g cooked duck breast gives about 19 g protein. If your meal target is 30 g protein, that is roughly 1.6 typical servings, or about 157.9 g by weight. This is why weighing the first few servings is useful: it turns a vague protein food into a repeatable meal component.
For Muscle Gain or Higher-Calorie Meals
Duck breast provides complete protein and enough calories to support muscle-gain meals, especially with rice, potatoes, pasta, fruit, bread, or vegetables. When using duck breast for muscle gain, the question is not only whether it contains protein; it is whether the whole meal has enough total protein, carbohydrates, and calories to support training. If you need leaner protein, compare against chicken breast, turkey breast, pork tenderloin, shrimp, cod, or egg whites. If you need more calories, fattier cuts or larger portions can fit muscle-gain meals. A practical muscle-gain plate is to keep the duck breast portion consistent, then adjust rice, pasta, oats, potatoes, bread, beans, oil, nuts, or dairy up or down depending on your calorie target.
For Meal Prep and Repeatable Tracking
Duck Breast is easiest to track when the serving method stays the same from week to week. Choose one default serving, log it with the matching raw, cooked, dry, drained, or label-based entry, and then build meals around that known number. Good repeatable options include Sliced duck breast with roasted vegetables and rice, Skinless duck breast salad with potatoes, Pan-seared duck breast with quinoa and greens, and similar meals where the protein portion is measured before sauces and toppings are added.
Exact Serving Conversions
Serving conversions help when your food scale, recipe, or tracking app uses a different unit than this page. For Duck Breast, 1 oz is about 28.35 g and provides roughly 5.4 g protein and 95.5 calories based on the representative per-100-g values. Half of the typical serving gives about 9.5 g protein and 168.5 calories, while a double serving gives about 38 g protein and 674 calories.
Use gram targets when precision matters. To get 25 g protein from duck breast, you need about 131.6 g, which is roughly 443.4 calories. To get 30 g protein, use about 157.9 g and 532.1 calories. To get 40 g protein, use about 210.5 g and 709.5 calories. These estimates are based on the USDA or representative source entry listed below, so the label on your exact product should win when there is a difference.
| Target | Approx. amount | Calories | Typical servings |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25g protein | 131.6g | 443.4 | 1.3x |
| 30g protein | 157.9g | 532.1 | 1.6x |
| 40g protein | 210.5g | 709.5 | 2.1x |
Raw, Cooked, Dry, or Label Weight?
The best tracking rule for Duck Breast is simple: match the database entry to the state of the food when you weighed it. This page uses Duck, domesticated, breast, meat and skin, cooked, roasted as the representative source entry, with the serving shown as 100 g cooked duck breast. This guide uses a cooked duck breast benchmark. Skin-on, skinless, raw, roasted, pan-seared, smoked, confit, wild, and restaurant duck breast can differ by fat, water, sodium, and added sauce.
For meat and poultry, use a raw entry for raw weight and a cooked entry for cooked weight. Skin, bones, breading, marinades, pan oil, and sauces should be separate entries. If you batch cook, portion after cooking only when your tracker entry is also cooked. If you weigh before cooking, use a raw or dry entry and divide the finished batch into servings after cooking. If you are eating a packaged product, the label is normally the most specific source because brands can change water, sodium, sugar, fat, fortification, and serving size.
The most reliable workflow is to choose one method and repeat it: weigh the food, choose the matching raw, cooked, dry, drained, or packaged entry, then log oils, sauces, toppings, sides, and drinks separately. This avoids the most common protein tracking error, which is accidentally counting a prepared meal as if it were a plain serving of duck breast.
Common Mistakes with Duck Breast
Most mistakes with Duck Breast are not about the protein number itself; they are about matching the wrong food form, ignoring preparation, or forgetting the extra ingredients that travel with the serving. Avoid these issues before comparing your intake against a daily target from the protein calculator.
- Using a generic duck breast entry when the actual food is cooked, raw, flavored, breaded, sweetened, packed in oil, or from a specific brand.
- Counting Duck Breast as the entire meal even when the real calorie load comes from oil, dressing, sauce, bread, rice, tortillas, cheese, nuts, or toppings.
- Estimating by eye instead of weighing the first few times. A small portion change can move the meal by 5-15 g of protein or by a few hundred calories for calorie-dense foods.
- For meat and poultry, use a raw entry for raw weight and a cooked entry for cooked weight. Skin, bones, breading, marinades, pan oil, and sauces should be separate entries.
- Use cooked weight when tracking cooked duck breast.
- Use a skin-on entry when you eat the skin and visible fat.
- Use a skinless or meat-only entry when the skin is removed.
- Track oil, butter, duck fat, orange sauce, honey glaze, gravy, rice, potatoes, and noodles separately.
Building a High-Protein Meal with Duck Breast
Start with the protein target, not the recipe name. A light snack might only need 10-20 g protein, while a main meal often works better at 30-45 g protein depending on body size, meal frequency, and training. With Duck Breast, a 30 g protein meal is approximately 157.9 g of the representative food before sides and toppings. If that portion feels too large, combine a smaller amount of duck breast with another protein from the related-food list.
A balanced plate usually needs more than protein. Pair duck breast with a fiber source, a carbohydrate source if you train or need energy, and enough fat to make the meal satisfying. For lower-calorie meals, keep sauces light and increase vegetables. For higher-calorie meals, add rice, pasta, potatoes, bread, oats, beans, dairy, nuts, seeds, avocado, or oil depending on the type of food and your goal.
If the meal is meant to be repeated, write down the exact version that worked: the grams of duck breast, the cooking method, the sides, and the sauce. That gives you a reusable meal template instead of a one-time estimate, and it makes future protein targets easier to hit without redoing the math every day.
Tracking Tips
- Use cooked weight when tracking cooked duck breast.
- Use a skin-on entry when you eat the skin and visible fat.
- Use a skinless or meat-only entry when the skin is removed.
- Track oil, butter, duck fat, orange sauce, honey glaze, gravy, rice, potatoes, and noodles separately.
Compare Similar Protein Foods
Related Calculators and Guides
Chicken and Meat Protein Chart
Compare duck breast with chicken breast, turkey breast, chicken thigh, lean beef, pork, and other complete proteins.
Turkey Breast Protein
Use this when you want a leaner poultry comparison with less skin-related fat variability.
Protein Food Calculator
Add cooked duck breast, skin, rendered fat, glaze, rice, potatoes, vegetables, and sauces by serving.
Common Questions
How much protein is in 100 g of duck breast?
Cooked duck breast has about 19.0 g protein per 100 g using a skin-on cooked duck breast benchmark. Skinless duck breast can differ, so use the matching entry when available.
Is duck breast a complete protein?
Yes. Duck breast is a complete animal protein and provides all essential amino acids.
Is duck breast lean?
Duck breast can be leaner when the skin and visible fat are removed. Skin-on duck breast is much higher in fat and calories than skinless duck breast.
Should I track duck breast raw or cooked?
Track it the same way you weighed it. If you weigh cooked duck breast, use cooked values. If you weigh raw duck breast, use raw values.
Is duck breast good for weight loss?
It can fit weight loss, especially skinless or in a smaller measured portion. Skin-on duck, duck fat, sauces, glazes, potatoes, rice, and restaurant preparations can raise calories quickly.
Is smoked duck breast the same as cooked duck breast?
Not always. Smoked duck breast can differ in sodium, moisture, fat, and serving size. Use the product label when available.
Sources reviewed
- USDA FoodData Central - U.S. Department of Agriculture
- International Society of Sports Nutrition Position Stand: protein and exercise - Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition