How Many Calories Are In A Slice Of Pizza? [2023 Updates] (2024)

While pizza can be a delicious and convenient meal option, it can also be high in calories. Knowing the calorie count for different types of pizza is essential for those trying to watch their calorie intake.

Here, we’ll break down the calories in a slice of cheese pizza and other popular pizzas like Neapolitan, New York-style, pepperoni, Chicago-style, and Detroit-style.

How Many Calories In A Slice Of Cheese Pizza

Pizzas are recognized as one of America’s favorite cuisines since they are so delicious! But what most people don’t know is that pizzas also have a lot of sugar and carbs, which can lead to weight gain if taken too often or in excess amounts.

On average, there are roughly 250-350 calories in each slice.

According to nutrition data, pepperoni, cheese, and meat lovers' thin crust pizza with additional cheese have 250 to 400 calories.

Pepperoni and cheese account for around 260 to 280 kcal, whereas meat lovers comprise 577 kcal. Besides this, it is also rich in saturated fat and content, which can negatively affect your health.

Neapolitan Pizza

Neapolitan pizza is one of the classic styles of Italian pizza. It is traditionally made with tomatoes and mozzarella cheese. One slice of an 8-inch Neapolitan cheese pizza contains around 230 calories.

Cheese Pizza

There are 200 calories, 25 grams of carbs, 8 grams of fat, 3.5 grams of saturated fat, 9 grams of protein, and 20 milligrams of cholesterol in just one slice of a medium hand-tossed cheese pizza.

A quarter of a pie with a thin crust contains 290 calories, 25 grams of carbs, 15 grams of fat, 7 grams of saturated fat, 12 grams of protein, and 35 milligrams of cholesterol.

New York Style Pizza

The classic New York-style pizza has a thin crust pliable enough to fold over easily in your hands. A slice of an 8-inch New York-style cheese pizza contains around 250 calories.

Pepperoni Pizza

Pepperoni is one of the most popular toppings on a pizza because it adds flavor without increasing the calorie count too much. One slice of an 8-inch pepperoni pizza contains about 275 calories.

Chicago Style Pizza

Chicago-style deep dish pizzas have thick crusts and are usually filled with lots of toppings like vegetables and meats. One slice from an 8-inch Chicago-style deep dish cheese pizza has about 280 calories per slice.

Detroit Style Pizza

Detroit-style pizzas are similar to Chicago-style but have a more rectangular shape with crisp edges and crunchy crusts redolent with butter or olive oil flavorings. One slice from an 8-inch Detroit-style cheese pizza contains approximately 290 calories per slice.

Why Does Pizza Have So Many Calories?

Just some bread and tomato sauce, right?

In any case, that's not accurate. Depending on the toppings, a single pizza slice might have upwards of 400 calories. On the other hand, each serving of a cheese-only pie has roughly 220 calories.

If you're watching your calorie intake, pizza is probably safe to eat, but the nutritional effects of the toppings can quickly pile up.

Toppings

Including more healthy ingredients in your diet, such as green peppers and onions, may assist, but they won't do you any good if you sandwich them between two slices of fatty meat. Seemingly elementary: The combination of bread, sauce, and cheese makes this dish so tasty.

However, additional challenges make it hard to determine the optimal diet for optimum weight loss. The enhanced flour dough conditioner in a pizza is a mixture of wheat flour and malted barley flour, among other things.

Though it has been "enriched" with nutrients lost during manufacturing, enriched bread has less protein than unprocessed options.

Sauce

Another crucial ingredient is pizza sauce. We often simplify pizza sauce to just crushed or pureed tomatoes, but there's a lot more to it than that. Sugar, oregano, garlic, olive oil, and olives all have health benefits (carbs).

Thus, depending on how you calculate it, one slice can have anywhere from g to 11g fat. We eat pizza for the same fundamental reasons we eat burgers and fries: because we like them and our brains are programmed to need fats and carbohydrates.

The good news is that you can maintain your healthy eating habits without giving up pizza altogether; all you need to do is keep in mind how many calories are in a slice of pizza and limit your intake to that amount.

Does Pizza Have Any Nutritional Value?

Pizza is sometimes stigmatized as a junk dish, but it may actually be relatively healthy if you choose wisely regarding the sauce and toppings. The crust can also affect the nutritional value and calorie content of pizza.

The number of complex carbohydrates is increased when whole wheat flour is used instead of white flour. Whole grains have been linked to a lower risk of stroke and type 2 diabetes, so this is another benefit.

Whatever you choose to put on top of your pizza will have the most significant impact on the nutrient density of your slice. Cheese, fatty sausage, alfredo (white) sauce, and salamis, like the ever-popular pepperoni, are among high-calorie topping options.

Peppers, leafy greens like spinach, and mushrooms are standard toppings for low-calorie pizzas. There is an extensive range of possible calorie counts for pizza, so this chart should only be used as a rough guideline, except for specific restaurant dishes like those sold by Pizza Hut.

Things To Consider For Low-Calorie Pizza

Pizza is probably not the best option when it comes to eating healthy. Types that use mayonnaise or sour cream are examples of this. In and of itself, sour cream is not a healthy food.

If you encounter this word on a food's nutrition label, you should avoid it. White sauce (béchamel sauce) and other mayonnaise-based pizza sauces always have a higher calorie count than those made with different bases because of the high-fat content of their ingredients.

Suppose you want to add flavor to your meal without adding unnecessary calories. In that case, you can prepare a healthier version of this sauce at home by combining one egg yolk with avocado paste instead of the usual combination of sour cream and mayonnaise. It's much better for you, I promise, and you won't even notice a change in flavor.

Dieters are also advised to avoid white flour altogether because too much of it is just as hazardous for you as too much sugar or salt. Instead of white bread, try whole wheat crust.

The yeast concentration of specific alternative pizza dough recipes makes them less digestible than traditional French bread (white bread is easier to digest than brown one).

Consume this meal less frequently or switch to pizzas made entirely from whole wheat flour if you find that they cause your stomach to produce excess gas.

Ensure each ingredient on your healthy pizza comes from a reliable source that supplies the recommended daily allowances of essential nutrients. Choose lean meats like chicken and turkey over fatty cuts, fresh veggies over canned or pickled, and natural cheeses over processed ones.

Consult your physician if you have doubts about whether a specific substance harms your health. Almost any store in the area now has various options to help you shop for food while adhering to your healthy eating goals.

Remember that if something seems too good to be true, it generally is. It is possible to make a healthy pizza with careful meal preparation, but doing so should come at a cost. This necessitates an active lifestyle (more movement throughout the day) and a diet (no processed foods, just fruits and vegetables).

Conclusion

As you can see, there can be quite a range in the number of calories in each type of cheese pizza—from 230 to 290, depending on the size and style of the pie!

Knowing this information can help you decide better what type—and how much—pizza to eat. With this knowledge in mind, go forth and enjoy some delicious slices!

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