Harees calories: wheat and meat, per 100 g

Harees is wheat cooked slowly with meat until both break down into a smooth, thick porridge, and across the Gulf it is a fixture of Ramadan and Eid. The figure here comes from section 2 of the Food Composition Tables for the Kingdom of Bahrain: composite dishes prepared in Bahraini homes, then analysed in the laboratory.

The tables do not print the recipe, so the source cannot answer what people ask most: whether the meat was chicken or lamb, how much wheat went in against meat, and whether ghee was stirred in or poured on top. It is the only harees row, so read it as the sample that was analysed, not a standard every pot will match.

Most of every 100 g of harees is water. Water carries no energy, so the more of it a dish holds, the less room is left for the parts that do. That is why harees reads 76 kcal per 100 g while drier foods sit far above it: Arabic bread, a shawarma sandwich and chicken machboos all carry more energy per 100 g, and each holds less water.

Of what remains, carbohydrate from the wheat is the largest part, 10.5 g, roughly twice the 5.1 g of protein. Fat is the smallest of the three at 1.5 g, and fibre is smaller still at 0.5 g.

The reverse holds in your own kitchen: a pot cooked down until it is stiff holds less water, so each 100 g of it carries more energy than this sample, and a looser pot carries less.

The analysed harees has 5.1 g protein per 100 g, about the same as chicken machboos, with less than half the machboos energy. Because so much of harees is water, its protein comes with comparatively little energy, but it also takes a good weight of harees to collect it.

Searches often ask about chicken, mutton or beef harees separately. The tables do not say which meat was in the analysed pot and publish no row for any of them, so this page cannot split the figure by meat. The protein calculator gives a daily range for your weight and goal, and the guide to macros and nutrition shows how protein, carbohydrate and fat fit across a day.

Harees is eaten from a bowl, so people look for a per-cup figure, but none is given here: no source used for this reference publishes what a cup of harees weighs, and the grams in a cup change with how thick the harees is cooked.

1. Put your empty bowl on a kitchen scale, set it to zero and spoon in your portion.
2. Open the food calorie calculator, search for harees and choose its row.
3. Enter the grams. The calculator scales the same record that heads this page.
4. Count toppings on their own. Ghee, sugar or cinnamon added at the table are separate foods; any the calculator does not list is left out, not guessed.

The calorie calculator then estimates what your day needs, and the macro calculator divides that target into protein, carbohydrate and fat.

Similar spellings get mixed up in search. Hareesa is a semolina cake soaked in syrup, and harissa is the chilli paste of North African cooking. Neither has an analysed row here, and harees figures must not be used for either: both are entirely different foods from wheat cooked with meat. The row also does not cover:

• Chicken, lamb or beef harees as separate dishes. The meat is not recorded.
• Harees made with another grain, or much thicker or thinner. Water drives the figure.
• Today's pot. The Bahrain tables were published in 2011, and home recipes differ from one family to the next.

Foods with no usable published analysis are listed on the food calories page with the reason, rather than given an estimate.

Harees is a Ramadan regular, and in Ramadan the day's eating moves into the hours between iftar and suhoor. The Ramadan meal plan spreads a daily target across iftar, the evening and suhoor, and the guide to training through Ramadan covers session timing, hydration and recovery. If you break the fast with dates, they have their own page.

The rest of the year, harees fits a training week like any mixed meal: its protein counts towards your daily range and its carbohydrate towards your fuel.

Everything here describes a food, not a diet for you. If you manage a medical condition or follow a prescribed eating plan, agree your meals with a doctor or a registered dietitian.