How to count calories in nasi campur and economy rice

Nasi campur (economy rice, or chap fan) has no fixed recipe. You choose the lauk at the counter, so two plates from the same stall can be hundreds of calories apart. That is why it helps to count the parts, not the plate.

Dish	Calories	Protein	Carbs	Fat
Nasi campur (economy rice)1 plate of rice with 1 meat and 2 vegetable dishes	600 kcal	25 g	80 g	20 g
Nasi Padang1 plate: rice with rendang, jackfruit gulai, cassava leaves and sambal	700 kcal	30 g	90 g	24 g
Nasi kandar1 plate with fried chicken, mixed curry gravy and vegetables	800 kcal	32 g	95 g	33 g

Nasi kandar works the same way, with more curry gravy poured over the rice. Nasi Padang is the Indonesian version, often with rendang and coconut milk curries.

1. Count the rice in scoops. In the Ministry of Health Malaysia (MOH) calorie list, one scoop (senduk) of white rice is 76 g and about 100 kcal. Count how many scoops the server puts on your plate.
2. Name each lauk. Fried chicken, curry fish, fried egg, sambal tempe and so on. Count the pieces or the scoops.
3. Count the gravy on its own. Curry or masak lemak gravy poured over the rice is easy to forget.
4. Add the drink. A sweet iced drink can add as much as a lauk.
5. Add it all up. Round to the nearest 10 kcal. You do not need to be exact to be useful.

Here is a worked example with MOH values: 2 scoops of rice (about 200 kcal), 1 piece of fried chicken breast (about 310 kcal), 1 scoop of kangkung goreng (41 kcal) and 1 scoop of kacang panjang goreng (40 kcal). That comes to about 590 kcal before any gravy.

Protein dishes carry most of the calories after the rice. Fried and coconut milk dishes are the heaviest.

Most stir-fried vegetable dishes are light. The exceptions are vegetables cooked in coconut milk or fried in batter.

Gravy is the part most people miss. It soaks into the rice, so you cannot see how much you got. Curry and masak lemak gravies are made with coconut milk and oil, so a generous pour adds real calories. Dhal is one of the lighter choices: the MOH list puts half a cup of dhal curry at about 50 kcal.

Three phrases help at the counter:

• Kuah sikit: a little gravy.
• Kuah asing: gravy on the side, so you choose how much to use.
• Tak nak kuah: no gravy at all.

The Ministry of Health Malaysia introduced the Malaysian Healthy Plate, also called suku-suku separuh (quarter, quarter, half). Fill a quarter of the plate with carbohydrates such as rice, ideally wholegrain. Fill a quarter with protein. Fill the other half with vegetables and fruit. The plate is based on a 10-inch plate, the standard size for most Malaysian adults.

At the nasi campur counter, that means one or two scoops of rice, one protein lauk and two vegetable dishes. Here is how two plates from the same counter compare.

Yes. Chap fan or cai fan works exactly like nasi campur: rice plus the dishes you pick. Count the rice in scoops and each dish on its own. Steamed and stir-fried dishes are usually lighter than deep-fried ones and dishes in sweet sauce.

Take a photo of your plate from above, before you mix the gravy in. Nibbs splits mixed plates such as nasi campur into each item, so the rice, the chicken and each vegetable dish are counted on their own. It uses local portion sizes for the rice and the lauk.

Check every item and portion before you save. If the server gave you two scoops of rice, change the rice to two scoops. You can also type the plate, for example "nasi campur: 2 scoops rice, ayam masak merah, kangkung, kacang panjang". If you eat the same plate most weekdays, save it as a saved food and log it again with one tap.

For other plates, see our dish calorie pages or the guide to estimating portions without a scale.