Meat, Grills & Lauk · Philippines

How Many Calories in Pork BBQ?

Also known as Filipino Pork Barbecue, Pork BBQ Skewer, Inihaw na Baboy, BBQ Stick.

Thin slices of pork marinated in soy, banana ketchup, calamansi, brown sugar and 7-Up, threaded on a stick and grilled over charcoal. Sold from street carts for 20 to 40 pesos.

130kcal / 1 stick
One standard street stick of pork BBQ is about 130 calories for roughly 45g of grilled pork with its sweet glaze. About 100 calories is the pork and 30 is the sugar in the marinade and basting sauce. Three sticks with 1 cup of rice is about 650 calories.

Nutrition facts

Per 1 stick (45g)AmountPer 100g
Calories130 kcal289 kcal
Protein9 g20 g
Carbs8 g18 g
Fat7 g16 g

Where the calories come from

Grilled pork shoulder with some fat38g
95 kcal
Brown sugar and banana ketchup glaze6g
25 kcal
Soy calamansi marinade absorbed3g
10 kcal

The real talk

Pork BBQ is fairly reasonable per stick. Most vendors use kasim (shoulder) with a bit of fat, which grills to about 220 calories per 100g, so a 40 to 45g stick is around 100 calories of meat. The marinade is where the sugar lives: brown sugar, banana ketchup and 7-Up, then a basting sauce with more of the same. About 8g of sugar sticks to each skewer, which is 30 calories. Kawaling Pinoy's recipe card shows 175 per stick, but that counts a full 3 cups of brown sugar across 50 skewers as if all of it ended up on the meat.

The stick size is the real variable. A 20 peso street stick is thin, maybe 35g, and lands near 100 calories. The fat 40 peso sticks outside a restaurant can be 80g of pork with visible fat chunks between the slices, and those are 230 to 250 calories each. Ask yourself whether it is 3 bites or 6 bites and you have your answer.

Nobody eats one. The normal order is 3 to 5 sticks with rice, and vendors sell them in a pile for a reason. Five standard sticks is 650 calories before rice. With 1 cup of rice that is 910 calories, and the sweet glaze makes rice go down fast. Compared to a 150g slab of liempo at 600 calories, BBQ is actually the leaner ihaw choice if you stop at 3 sticks.

How many calories in 2, 3 or 4 sticks?

How manyCaloriesProtein
1 stick130 kcal9 g
2 sticks260 kcal18 g
3 sticks390 kcal27 g
4 sticks520 kcal36 g
5 sticks650 kcal45 g
6 sticks780 kcal54 g

How the portions compare

130 kcal
1 stick
390 kcal
3 sticks
650 kcal
3 sticks with 1 cup rice

Pork BBQ variants, ranked by calories

VariantCaloriesNotes
Chicken BBQ stick90 kcalBreast or thigh, same glaze
Thin street stick (35g)100 kcalThe 20 peso kind
Standard stick (45g)130 kcalMost carts
Fat restaurant stick (80g)240 kcalVisible fat chunks between slices
Stick with extra basting and fat cubes280 kcalAristocrat style jumbo

How to eat it lighter

Common questions

How many calories in 5 sticks of pork BBQ?
About 650 calories for 5 standard street sticks, or around 1,200 for 5 jumbo sticks. With rice add 260 per cup.
Is pork BBQ healthy?
Per stick it is fine: about 9g of protein for 130 calories. The problems are the sugar glaze (about 8g per stick) and the habit of eating 5 with 2 cups of rice.
How much sugar is in pork BBQ?
About 8g per stick from the brown sugar, banana ketchup and 7-Up in the marinade and basting sauce. Five sticks is 40g of sugar, roughly a can of soft drink.
Pork BBQ or liempo, which is lower in calories?
Pork BBQ. Three sticks is about 390 calories, while a standard 150g liempo slab is about 600, because BBQ uses shoulder and liempo uses belly.

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

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