A Veggie Versus comparison guide
Lentils vs chickpeas: compare the cooked food
See the protein, fibre and energy differences in equal cooked portions, and how changing the amount changes the result.
Compare cooked with cooked
For a soup, grain bowl or salad, the useful comparison is usually the food after cooking. The records used here are mature lentils and chickpeas, boiled without added salt. A dried pulse record describes a different water content and should not be treated as the same weight of cooked food.
Both records below use 150 g of the cooked edible food. These example weights let you compare the two at the same scale without claiming a recommended serving.
| Nutrient | Lentils · 150 g | Chickpeas · 150 g |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 174 kcal | 246 kcal |
| Protein | 13.53 g | 13.29 g |
| Fibre | 11.85 g | 11.4 g |
| Folate, total | 271.5 µg | 258 µg |
| Iron | 5 mg | 4.33 mg |
What the figures actually show
At this equal cooked weight, the protein figures are close: around 13 g in each portion. Lentils supply slightly more fibre in these particular records. The chickpea portion contains more energy. That is a description of this comparison, not a reason to classify either food as good or bad.
Notice how a small difference can look larger if it is expressed only as a percentage. Keep the actual gram amounts visible and consider whether the difference matters for the amount you will use. The site calculates from the source values before rounding, rather than subtracting rounded display values.
What if your recipe uses different amounts?
| Nutrient | Lentils · 100 g | Chickpeas · 150 g |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 116 kcal | 246 kcal |
| Protein | 9.02 g | 13.29 g |
| Fibre | 7.9 g | 11.4 g |
Now the larger chickpea portion supplies more protein and fibre than the lentil portion. This does not contradict the equal-weight table. It answers a different question: what do these two different quantities contribute?
Check the food description before swapping
These records are not canned-product records. A can may include added salt, and its stated weight may include liquid. For a specific product, use its label and check whether the label refers to drained or undrained contents. The tool cannot infer a product’s salt level or a drained weight from its name.
The source records also do not describe every variety or every cooking time. Do not assume that a red split lentil cooked into a thick soup will have exactly the same per-100-g values as this generic mature lentil record. Water changes the weight of the finished food.
A practical way to use the comparison
Enter the cooked weights you intend to add to the meal. Compare protein and fibre if those are the nutrients you want to inspect, then consider how the food works in the dish. This table cannot measure texture, flavour, convenience, allergens or the overall balance of a diet. Those parts of the decision still belong to you.
Try these portions in the comparison tool →
Sources & calculation notes
- Lentils, mature seeds, cooked, boiled, without salt · FDC 172421
- Chickpeas (garbanzo beans, bengal gram), mature seeds, cooked, boiled, without salt · FDC 173757
USDA SR Legacy, final release April 2018. Calculations and interpretation prepared for Veggie Versus with AI assistance; no laboratory testing or clinical review is claimed. Full method · Suggest a correction