Meat, Grills & Lauk

How Many Calories in Kerang Masak?

Cockles cooked in sambal or kicap sauce, a classic hawker lauk where the shellfish itself is surprisingly lean and the sauce does most of the calorie work.

300kcal / 1 hawker serving (cockles in sambal or kicap sauce)
A standard hawker serving of kerang masak comes in at around 300 calories for roughly 180g, with 20g protein, 16g carbs, and 17g fat. The cockles themselves are only about 105 calories. The other 200-odd calories come from the oil in the sambal base, the chili paste and aromatics, and the palm sugar. Order the kicap version and you drop to around 230 calories. These are ballpark estimates though, not lab results.

Nutrition facts

Per 1 hawker serving (cockles in sambal or kicap sauce) (180g)AmountPer 100g
Calories300 kcal167 kcal
Protein20 g11 g
Carbs16 g9 g
Fat17 g9 g

Where the calories come from

Shelled cooked cockles (kerang)130g
105 kcal
Cooking oil in sambal base18g
145 kcal
Chili paste, aromatics (shallots, garlic, belacan)25g
25 kcal
Sugar and seasoning7g
25 kcal

The real talk

Kerang masak is blood cockles cooked in either a spicy sambal or a soy sauce (kicap) gravy. The cockles themselves are genuinely lean, around 105 calories for 130g of shelled meat, with decent protein for a shellfish. The problem is the sambal. That chili paste base with belacan, shallots, palm sugar, and a generous pour of cooking oil adds roughly 200 calories on its own. So you are looking at about 300 calories for the whole thing, which is not bad as a lauk to go with rice, but you want to be honest with yourself about how much gravy you are scooping up. To be clear, these numbers are a ballpark estimate because solid nutrition data for this specific dish is thin. Take the figures as a useful guide, not gospel.

What actually changes the maths here is the sauce version and how heavy the cook's hand is with oil. Go for kerang masak kicap instead of sambal and you save roughly 70 calories per serving, dropping to around 230. The sambal petai version adds stink beans and bumps it up to about 330. If you are at a nasi campur stall, use a slotted spoon to grab mostly cockles and leave some of the oil-heavy gravy behind. You can easily cut 50 to 80 calories that way. Kerang is also a solid protein choice at 20g per serving, so pairing it with plain rice and a vegetable is genuinely one of the smarter hawker plate combinations you can put together.

Kerang Masak variants, ranked by calories

VariantCaloriesNotes
Kerang masak kicap (soy sauce)230 kcalSoy sauce base with minimal oil; lighter and lower fat than sambal version
Kerang masak sambal (standard)300 kcalTypical sambal with chili paste, belacan, oil, and palm sugar; most common hawker version
Kerang sambal petai330 kcalSambal kerang with petai (stink beans) added; petai adds minimal calories but slightly more carbs

How to eat it lighter

Common questions

How many calories in Kerang Masak?
About 300 calories for a standard hawker serving of roughly 180g. The cockles themselves are only around 105 calories. The sambal base with oil, chili paste, and palm sugar accounts for most of the rest. The kicap version is lighter at around 230 calories.
What exactly is kerang masak?
Kerang is blood cockles, and masak just means cooked. You get small shelled cockles stir-fried in either a spicy sambal sauce (chili paste, belacan, shallots, palm sugar, oil) or a darker soy-based kicap sauce. It is a common lauk at nasi campur stalls across Malaysia.
Is kerang masak a healthy choice for someone losing weight?
The cockles themselves are a good lean protein at 20g per serving. The issue is the oil-heavy sambal base. It is a decent choice if you pick the kicap version and avoid drowning your plate in the gravy. Not the lowest calorie lauk out there, but not a disaster either.

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See all Meat, Grills & Lauk calories, ranked →

Calorie and macro figures are estimates for a typical hawker or kopitiam serving. Actual numbers vary by stall, recipe and portion size. Use them as a guide, not gospel.

New to all this? Read how I went from 128kg to 86kg without cutting rice →

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