Hawaiian Food Calories: Plate Lunch, Poke and Musubi

A regular Hawaiian plate lunch, with two scoops of rice, a scoop of macaroni salad and one entree, runs about 1,000 to 1,700 calories at the big chains. A simple ahi poke bowl over a cup of rice is closer to 380 calories, and a Spam musubi is 280 to 340.

The numbers below come from the posted nutrition data at L&L Hawaiian Barbecue and Ono Hawaiian BBQ, the Spam label, and USDA FoodData Central for home portions.

Key takeaways

• The sides are half the plate: two scoops of rice and one scoop of mac salad add about 680 calories at Ono before the meat arrives.
• Mac salad is the single heaviest side: 300-350 calories a scoop, mostly from mayonnaise.
• Plain poke is lean: 4 oz of ahi shoyu poke is about 170 calories and 29 g of protein. Rice and sauces set the final total.
• Sodium adds up fast: Ono's regular plates carry about 1,000-2,400 mg, against a 2,300 mg daily limit.
• Lighter plates exist: L&L's lighter menu (brown rice and salad) runs 270-390 calories.

Hawaiian food calories at a glance

How many calories are in a Hawaiian plate lunch?

The plate lunch is built the same way almost everywhere: two scoops of white rice, one scoop of macaroni salad and a main. L&L's menu spells it out, and Ono lists its entrees with "sides not included", so you can add the pieces yourself.

At Ono, one scoop of rice is 190 calories and one scoop of mac salad is 300. That puts the sides alone at 680 calories.

Sauces are extra. Ono's katsu sauce and teriyaki sauce are each 70 calories per 2 oz, and the teriyaki sauce adds 540 mg of sodium.

L&L posts a calorie range for each plate. Most plates come as a mini (one scoop of rice) or a regular (two scoops), but the menu doesn't say which end of the range is which, and kalua pork and garlic shrimp come in one size only:

Each scoop of rice you skip saves 150 calories at L&L. Chicken katsu is the heaviest common order at both chains because the cutlet is breaded and fried, then served with sauce.

Poke bowl calories

Poke itself is cubed raw fish with shoyu, sesame oil, onion and seaweed. The fish is lean, so the base dish is light:

Add 1 tablespoon of shoyu (8 calories, 878 mg sodium) and 1 teaspoon of sesame oil (40 calories), and 4 oz of ahi shoyu poke comes to about 171 calories and 29 g of protein.

Here is how a bowl builds up:

Each topping is small on its own: 50 g of avocado is 80 calories, a tablespoon of sesame seeds is 52, and a tablespoon of mayonnaise (the base of most spicy mayo) is 94. Stack four or five and the bowl doubles. Restaurant bowls usually come with more than a cup of rice, which is why poke chains tend to land in the 400-800 range.

For more on rice portions, see how many calories are in a bowl of rice.

Spam musubi and Spam calories

Spam came to Hawaii in a big way during World War II, and it never left. Musubi, a block of rice topped with a slice of Spam and wrapped in nori, is the classic grab-and-go snack.

A homemade musubi with one 2-oz slice and about 3/4 cup of rice works out to roughly 330 calories using the Spam label and USDA rice. The slice of Spam provides most of the fat and sodium; the rice provides most of the calories. For a lighter swap, L&L's BBQ chicken musubi is 250 calories, and Ono's BBQ chicken musubi has half the sodium of its Spam version (440 mg vs 890 mg for two pieces).

Loco moco, saimin and other local favorites

Loco moco is white rice topped with a hamburger patty, a fried egg and brown gravy. L&L posts its loco moco plate at 890 to 1,440 calories, sold in mini and regular sizes. Made at home with 1 cup of rice, one 4-oz cooked patty (80/20 beef) and one egg, it is about 600 calories before gravy.

Saimin is a noodle soup unique to Hawaii, served in a light broth with kamaboko (fish cake) and green onion. L&L lists it at 480-660 calories depending on the topping: 480 with BBQ beef, 490 with Spam, 550 with BBQ chicken and 660 with chicken katsu.

Garlic shrimp is shell-on shrimp cooked in butter and garlic. L&L's plate is 530-750 calories, and its lighter garlic shrimp (brown rice and salad) is 270.

Kalua pork is pork shoulder slow-roasted until it shreds. Ono's kalua pork with cabbage entree is 480 calories with 50 g of protein. At home, 4 oz of roasted pork shoulder is about 330 calories and 26 g of protein before salt and cabbage (USDA).

Manapua, the local take on char siu bao, is 190 calories per bun at L&L.

Traditional Hawaiian foods

Before plantations and plate lunches, the Hawaiian diet was built on kalo (taro), uala (sweet potato), ulu (breadfruit), fish, limu (seaweed) and greens.

That older way of eating has been tested. In the Waianae Diet study, 20 Native Hawaiians ate a pre-contact Hawaiian diet (7% fat) for 21 days, as much as they wanted. Their intake fell from about 2,594 to 1,569 calories a day, they lost an average of 7.8 kg (17 lb), and both cholesterol and blood pressure dropped (Shintani and colleagues, 1991). It was a small, short study, but it shows how filling poi, kalo and fish are compared with the modern plate.

Sodium in Hawaiian food

Shoyu, teriyaki marinades, Spam, Portuguese sausage and mac salad all carry a lot of salt. One tablespoon of shoyu has about 878 mg of sodium, and one Ono scoop of mac salad has 506 mg.

Most adults should stay under 2,300 mg of sodium a day. Using Ono's numbers, a regular BBQ beef plate with mac salad reaches about 2,290 mg, and Spam and eggs with sides reaches about 2,390. If you watch your blood pressure, ask for sauce on the side and swap the mac salad, and talk to your doctor about the sodium target that's right for you.

How to order a lighter plate lunch

The sides carry most of the calories, so start there:

• Swap mac salad for green salad: at Ono, a 4-oz side salad is 35 calories against 300 for the mac. That saves 265 calories and about 470 mg of sodium.
• Go mini or one scoop of rice: each scoop you skip saves 150-190 calories.
• Pick a grilled main: Ono's grilled chicken breast entree is 330 calories, against 890 for chicken katsu.
• Order from the lighter menu: L&L's lighter BBQ chicken breast, salmon, grilled fish and garlic shrimp come with brown rice and salad at 270-390 calories.
• Get poke with greens or half rice: a half-cup of rice instead of a cup and a half saves about 200 calories.

A grilled chicken plate with one scoop of rice and a side salad at Ono comes to about 555 calories (330 + 190 + 35), less than half of the katsu plate.

Logging Hawaiian food

Plate lunch is easy to log once you think of it as parts: count the scoops of rice, the scoop of mac and the main, and use the chain's own numbers when you have them. For home-cooked poke, weigh the fish raw and log the shoyu and oil separately.

Nutrify lets you log a plate from a photo, then adjust each part, which helps with mixed plates like these. For more on eating out, see how to track restaurant meals with AI. If you like other regional food guides, the Japanese food nutrition guide covers sushi and ramen, and the Korean food calories guide covers kalbi and bibimbap.

To see how a plate lunch fits your day, set a target with the calorie deficit calculator.

Sources

• Ono Hawaiian BBQ, Nutrition Information (2025).
• L&L Hawaiian Barbecue, menu with posted calories (Goleta, CA location).
• Hormel, SPAM Classic nutrition facts.
• USDA FoodData Central, fdc.nal.usda.gov: yellowfin tuna raw (FDC 175159), Atlantic salmon farmed raw (175167), octopus raw (174218), shrimp cooked (175180), soy sauce (174277), sesame oil (171016), sesame seeds (170150), mayonnaise (171009), avocado (171705), edamame (168411), white rice cooked (168878), pork shoulder roasted (167844), ground beef 80/20 patty (171797), fried egg (173423), Spam (172951), poi (170431), taro cooked (168486), breadfruit raw (171714), macaroni salad with mayonnaise (2708932), haupia (2710316), lomi salmon (2706850).
• Shintani TT, Hughes CK, Beckham S, O'Connor HK. Obesity and cardiovascular risk intervention through the ad libitum feeding of traditional Hawaiian diet. Am J Clin Nutr, 1991.