Sesame Seeds Nutrition: Everything Per 100g Explained

Every nutrition site lists sesame per 100g. Fine for comparing foods, useless for anything else.

Because 100g of til is about two-thirds of a cup. You're not eating that. You're eating a spoonful. So every impressive calcium number you've read needs dividing by roughly ten before it means anything real.

This page gives you both: the full sesame seeds nutritional value per 100g, and what that actually works out to when you sprinkle some on your dal.

Macronutrients (per 100g)

Nutrient	Amount
Calories	570 to 590 kcal
Protein	17 to 18 g
Total fat	48 to 50 g
Saturated fat	7 to 8 g
Monounsaturated fat	18 to 19 g
Polyunsaturated fat	21 to 22 g
Carbohydrates	23 to 24 g
Dietary fibre	11 to 12 g (unhulled)
Sugars	~0.3 g

 

Source values follow USDA FoodData Central. Ranges account for variation between hulled and unhulled seeds and between growing regions.

The fat number usually raises eyebrows. Nearly half the weight of a sesame seed is fat, which explains the calorie count.

The composition saves it though. About 80% of that fat is unsaturated. Saturated fat is a small slice. So it's calorie-dense, but the calories are decent ones. Same story as peanut butter calories, where the number looks high until you see what it's made of.

Carbs at 23 to 24g look higher than expected until you subtract fibre. Net carbs land closer to 11 to 12g per 100g, and under 2g in a real serving.

Key Micronutrients (per 100g)

Nutrient	Amount (unhulled)	Amount (hulled)
Calcium	950 to 975 mg	60 to 130 mg
Iron	14 to 15 mg	2 to 5 mg
Magnesium	340 to 350 mg	320 to 340 mg
Zinc	7 to 8 mg	6 to 7 mg
Copper	4 to 4.5 mg	1.5 to 2 mg
Manganese	2 to 2.5 mg	1.5 to 2 mg
Phosphorus	620 to 630 mg	570 to 600 mg
Thiamine (B1)	0.7 to 0.8 mg	0.7 to 0.8 mg
Vitamin B6	0.7 to 0.8 mg	0.7 to 0.8 mg
Vitamin E	0.2 to 0.3 mg	0.2 to 0.3 mg

That hulled versus unhulled gap is the most important thing on this page, so don't skim past it.

Taking the coat off strips out most of the calcium and a big chunk of the iron. We're not talking marginal. It's roughly a tenfold difference for calcium.

Most white sesame sold in India is hulled. Most black sesame isn't. So if you're buying white til for the minerals, the numbers in your head are off by about 10x.

What This Looks Like in a Real Serving

Here is the same data at 1 tablespoon (roughly 9g) and 2 tablespoons (roughly 18g), using unhulled values.

Nutrient	1 tbsp (9g)	2 tbsp (18g)
Calories	52 kcal	104 kcal
Protein	1.6 g	3.2 g
Fat	4.4 g	8.8 g
Fibre	1.0 g	2.1 g
Calcium	86 mg	172 mg
Iron	1.3 mg	2.6 mg
Magnesium	31 mg	62 mg
Zinc	0.7 mg	1.4 mg

This is the honest version. A spoon of til isn't going to transform anything. It's 86mg of calcium against a daily need of around 1000mg, and 1.3mg of iron against 8mg for men or up to 18mg for premenopausal women.

What makes it worth doing is that it costs you nothing. Sprinkle it on food you're already making, twice a day, and it quietly adds up without you having to think about it.

One catch worth knowing: whole sesame seeds often pass straight through undigested. So the numbers above are what the seed contains, not necessarily what you absorb. Grind them, or eat them as a butter, and the numbers start counting. It's the same thing that happens with whole nuts versus nut butter.

How Sesame Compares to Other Seeds

Per 100g	Sesame	Pumpkin	Sunflower
Calories	570 to 590	560 to 575	580 to 590
Protein	17 to 18 g	19 to 24 g	19 to 21 g
Fat	48 to 50 g	45 to 49 g	50 to 52 g
Fibre	11 to 12 g	6 to 18 g	8 to 9 g
Calcium	950 to 975 mg	45 to 55 mg	70 to 80 mg
Iron	14 to 15 mg	8 to 9 mg	5 to 6 mg
Magnesium	340 to 350 mg	530 to 590 mg	320 to 330 mg
Zinc	7 to 8 mg	7 to 8 mg	5 to 6 mg

Three things jump out.

Calorie density is basically identical across all three, so swapping one for another changes nothing there. Pumpkin seeds win on protein and magnesium by a clear margin. And sesame's calcium isn't just higher, it's in a different league entirely, roughly twenty times pumpkin seeds.

That calcium number is the whole reason to keep sesame specifically around instead of treating all seeds as interchangeable.

Want it in a form where the minerals are actually reachable? Our Black Sesame Seed Butter is ground from whole unhulled seeds, which handles the hull problem and the digestion problem at once.

FAQs

Is 100g of sesame a normal serving?

Not even close. That's two-thirds of a cup and around 580 calories. A normal serving is 1 to 2 tablespoons, so 9 to 18g. Nutrition data uses 100g so different foods can be compared fairly, not because anyone eats that much.

Is sesame high in calories?

By weight, yes. 570 to 590 kcal per 100g, similar to most nuts and seeds. But a real tablespoon is only about 52 calories, which is nothing. It only becomes an issue if you're eating it by the handful instead of the spoon.

Do hulled and unhulled actually differ that much?

Massively. Unhulled keeps the coat, which is where most of the calcium, iron and fibre live. That's 950 to 975mg of calcium per 100g versus 60 to 130mg for hulled. Iron shows a similar gap. Protein and fat barely change.

How much calcium is in a tablespoon of sesame seeds?

Around 86mg from unhulled seeds, which is roughly 8 to 9% of the daily requirement for most adults. From hulled white sesame it drops to around 6 to 12mg. Grinding matters here too, since whole seeds that pass through undigested deliver none of it.

Is sesame seed nutrition different when roasted?

Only slightly. Light roasting reduces moisture content, which marginally concentrates everything by weight. Heavy roasting can degrade some of the unsaturated fats and heat-sensitive vitamins. For practical purposes, lightly toasted and raw sesame are nutritionally very close.

For what these numbers actually mean for your health, rather than just the data, read Sesame Seeds Benefits: Nutrition, Calcium, Protein & More.For the full hulled versus unhulled comparison, read Black Sesame Seeds vs White Sesame Seeds.

Short version of sesame seeds nutritional value per 100g: high calcium, decent protein, mostly good fat, and a big calorie number that stops mattering once you remember 100g is ten times what you'll actually eat.

Scale it to a spoon, buy unhulled if minerals are the point, and grind it. Seed butters are here if that's easier than doing it yourself.