CAVA meals are designed to be mixed and matched. Your choice of greens or grains, protein, dips, toppings, and dressing can turn two bowls that look similar into meals with very different calories and macros.
Use the CAVA Nutrition Calculator above to compare chef-curated meals or build the nutrition for your own bowl or pita ingredient by ingredient.
Choose Your Starting Point
CAVA currently offers several ways to build a meal:
Greens + Grains Bowl combines greens with rice, lentils, or other grains.
Salad Bowl starts primarily with greens.
Grains Bowl uses options such as brown rice, saffron basmati rice, or black lentils.
Pita wraps your selected ingredients inside CAVA's pita.
This first choice matters because your base can contribute a significant amount of the meal's calories and carbohydrates before protein, hummus, feta, or dressing is added.
Build Your Own CAVA Bowl in Layers
For a customized bowl, calculate each layer separately.
A useful order is:
Base → dips and spreads → protein → toppings → dressing
For example, a bowl might include brown rice and SuperGreens, hummus, grilled chicken, feta, cucumber, pickled onions, and Greek vinaigrette.
Changing the rice to greens, adding avocado, doubling a protein, or choosing a different dressing changes the final nutrition.
This is why a generic answer to “How many calories are in a CAVA bowl?” is not very useful. The ingredients determine the total.
Rice, Lentils, and Greens Have Very Different Profiles
CAVA's bases are not nutritionally interchangeable.
Current official menu values list a side serving of:
Brown Rice: 310 calories
Saffron Basmati Rice: 290 calories
Greens such as romaine, spinach, arugula, and SuperGreens provide much fewer calories per listed serving.
Black lentils add a different balance because they contribute both carbohydrates and protein.
When building a bowl, use the exact base or combination of bases you choose rather than applying one generic “grain bowl” value.
Protein Can Change More Than the Protein Number
CAVA currently offers several protein choices and regularly introduces seasonal additions.
Depending on availability, options may include grilled chicken, steak, harissa honey chicken, spicy lamb meatballs, falafel, and glazed salmon.
These choices differ in more than protein.
A protein can also change:
- Total calories
- Fat
- Saturated fat
- Sodium
- Carbohydrates in seasoned or glazed preparations
CAVA introduced Glazed Salmon in April 2026 , for example, and now offers it both in build-your-own meals and chef-curated salmon bowls.
Always match the protein in the calculator to the current menu item rather than substituting one meat or seafood option for another.
Dips and Dressings Deserve Their Own Calculation
CAVA is known for ingredients such as:
Hummus
Crazy Feta®
Tzatziki
Red Pepper Hummus
Harissa
These spreads can contribute additional calories, fat, carbohydrates, protein, and sodium.
Dressings matter too.
Greek vinaigrette, harissa vinaigrette, skhug, lemon herb tahini, garlic dressing, yogurt dill, and other sauces each have different nutrition profiles.
A dressing may look like a small part of the bowl, but it should still be included when you want the nutrition for the meal you actually eat.
Chef-Curated Bowls Make Comparison Easier
If you order a standard chef-curated bowl without changing the ingredients, use the nutrition for the complete recipe instead of rebuilding every component.
CAVA's current menu includes meals such as:
Chicken + Rice: 700 calories
Greek Salad: 580 calories
Steak + Harissa: 620 calories
Spicy Lamb + Avocado: 800 calories
Falafel Crunch: 860 calories
Salmon + Yogurt Dill: 710 calories
The calorie differences come from the complete combination of bases, proteins, spreads, vegetables, toppings, and dressings.
If you substantially customize one of these bowls, ingredient-level calculation becomes more useful than relying on the standard recipe.
Bowl or Pita?
A pita should not be treated as nutritionally identical to the same ingredients served over greens.
CAVA's pita itself contributes calories and carbohydrates to the finished meal. The official current menu lists a Side Pita at 320 calories , while build-your-own pita meals can range much higher once fillings are added.
If you switch between a bowl and pita, make sure the calculator reflects the meal format as well as the fillings.
Do Not Forget Pita Chips and Drinks
Side items can make a noticeable difference to the complete order.
CAVA currently lists:
Classic Pita Chips: 280 calories
Sumac Sour Cream + Onion Pita Chips: 290 calories
The drinks menu also ranges from zero-calorie unsweetened tea to sweetened lemonades and specialty drinks containing several hundred calories.
For a complete calculation, think:
Bowl or pita + side + drink
rather than looking at the entrée alone.
CAVA Nutrition Questions
How many calories are in a CAVA bowl?+
How do I calculate a custom CAVA bowl?+
Is a CAVA salad always lower in calories than a grain bowl?+
Does CAVA hummus add calories?+
Does CAVA have high-protein bowls?+
Are CAVA nutrition values exact?+
Calculate Your Actual CAVA Order
The most useful CAVA nutrition result comes from matching the calculator to the meal in front of you.
Start with your bowl or pita , select the correct base and protein , then include every dip, topping, dressing, side, and drink you order.
That gives you a much more meaningful nutrition total than relying on an average number for a “CAVA bowl.”