13 High-Volume, Low-Calorie Foods That Fill You Up

Volume eating helps you stay fuller for longer while tamping down your caloric intake.

Eating as much food as you want doesn’t have to be some child-like fantasy. If you load your plate with high-volume, low-calorie foods, you can eat a lot of food while keeping your calorie intake relatively low. That’s the idea behind volume eating, a style of dieting that’s gained followers on social platforms like Instagram and Reddit.

To volume eat, choose foods that provide the most physical volume relative to the calories they contain. A similar approach is at the heart of the Volumetrics diet, developed by nutrition scientist and researcher Barbara Rolls, whose research has focused extensively on energy density, fullness, and weight management. In this article, we’ll explore the benefits of volume eating and list the foods that fill you up for fewer calories.

TL;DR

High-volume, low-calorie foods — think leafy greens, broth-heavy soups, potatoes, and berries — take up more space in your stomach because they contain more fiber and water, while keeping calories low. They’re a viable choice for anyone who wants to lose weight, keep weight off, or who gets hungry soon after their last meal.

The 13 Best High-Volume, Low-Calorie Foods

Volume eating is about consuming as much food as you can for as few calories as possible. Most of the research on volume eating — much of it conducted by Rolls and colleagues — focuses on its effects on weight loss and weight management. The logic is pretty straightforward. That is, foods that fill your stomach for fewer calories can make it easier to eat less overall. And the best foods for volume eating tend to contain plenty of water, fiber, or both, which gives them more physical volume than calorie-dense foods like candy or French fries.

Below are 13 foods that give you a lot of food, calorie-for-calorie. The calorie estimates come from USDA FoodData Central to give you a general idea of how much physical food you can eat for the calories, but exact numbers can vary by variety and preparation.

• Leafy greens: A cup of raw spinach has only about 7 calories. Lettuce, spinach, kale, and other leafy greens are largely water, making them one of the easiest ways to bulk up salads, bowls, and wraps for virtually zero calories.
• Cucumber: One cup of sliced cucumber with the peel has roughly 16 calories. Cucumbers are more than 95 percent water, so use them to add crunch to salads, sandwiches, or snack plates.
• Zucchini: At just 20 calories per cup, zucchini’s high water content makes it useful for bulking up stir-fries, pasta dishes, egg scrambles, and soups without changing the calorie count much.
• Cauliflower: A cup of raw cauliflower comes in at roughly 25 to 30 calories. Cauliflower gives you more texture and substance than leafy greens while still being mostly water, and its relatively high fiber content adds a little more staying power.
• Broccoli: A cup of chopped raw broccoli has roughly 30 calories. Broccoli is low in calorie density but provides a solid amount of fiber, which can help make a big serving feel more substantial.
• Watermelon: One cup of diced watermelon has around 45 calories. Watermelon is more than 90 percent water, so you can eat a fairly generous portion for a relatively modest calorie count.
• Berries: A cup of strawberries packs around 50 calories, with other berries varying somewhat but in that general range. Their combination of water and fiber makes berries a filling way to add sweetness to yogurt or oatmeal — or they’re also a great snack.
• Broth-based soups: Calories vary considerably depending on what’s floating around in the broth, but broth-based soups can pack a lot of food and water into a relatively low-calorie bowl. Vegetable-heavy soups with lean protein (think chicken noodle) tend to fit the volume-eating approach better than creamy soups or those loaded with calorie-dense add-ins (like bacon and cheese).
• Air-popped popcorn: Three cups of air-popped popcorn contain about 90 to 100 calories. That gives you a much larger snack than a small handful of chips. Instead of high-calorie butter and oil, opt for calorie-free popcorn seasoning. 
• Potatoes: A medium baked potato has around 160 calories. Potatoes aren’t as low in calories as watery vegetables, but they can be surprisingly filling for the calories they provide; frying them or loading them with butter and cheese changes that equation fast.
• Oats: A cup of cooked oatmeal has roughly 150 calories. Oats absorb a lot of water as they cook, turning a small dry serving into a much larger bowl, while their soluble fiber helps to fill up your stomach.
• Plain Greek yogurt: A cup of plain nonfat Greek yogurt generally lands around 130 to 150 calories. Greek yogurt earns its spot less for fiber or sheer volume, and more for its protein, which can make a low-calorie serving more satisfying, especially when you pile fruit on top.
• Beans: One cup of cooked black beans has roughly 225 calories. That’s considerably more calorie-dense than cucumber or broccoli, but the combination of fiber and protein can make beans useful for adding both bulk and heartiness to soups, salads, grain bowls, and tacos.

How to Use Volume Eating Without Overthinking It

The most prevalent use case for volume eating is weight loss and weight management. A 2007 randomized controlled study compared a low-fat diet with a low-fat diet that also emphasized water-rich foods, mainly fruits and vegetables, in women with obesity. Among those who completed the year-long study, the group eating more water-rich foods lost about a kilogram and a half more weight on average. And a separate review in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association found that increasing your intake of low-energy-dense foods can help you stay full while reducing calories and managing your weight.

The core advice comes down to eating more food for fewer calories. To help steer you in the right direction, here are a few actionable tips you can apply to your meal prep today to increase food volume.

• Start with protein. Protein contains amino acids your body uses to build and repair tissue, support cells, and build and maintain muscle. It’s also generally more satiating than carbohydrates or fat, which makes it a useful anchor for a filling meal. Pick your protein first, then build the rest of your plate around it with higher-volume foods.
• Prioritize vegetables and fruits. Most of the water-rich foods highlighted in the research are fruits and vegetables. If you want to fill yourself up for fewer calories, start swapping some more calorie-dense sides or ingredients for a larger serving of produce.
• Become a salad and soup person. Broths and leafy vegetables provide a lot of volume for relatively few calories, making soups and salads an easy way to build a larger meal. If you go the soup route, fill the pot with vegetables and lean protein instead of relying heavily on ingredients like cream, bacon, cheese, or large amounts of starch. For a salad, chop up as many water-rich veggies as you’d like — cucumber, bell pepper, celery, lettuce — and mix them with a lower-calorie dressing, lean protein like chicken, and a little cheese to make something that actually suits your flavor profile.
• Reverse engineer your favorite foods. If you don’t enjoy what you’re eating, you probably won’t stick with it. Pick a few of your favorite foods and make a lower-calorie, higher-volume version of the dish. If you like a chicken Caesar wrap, for example, use a lower-calorie tortilla, pile in more lettuce, and swap some of the croutons for cucumber. You still get the crunch and familiar flavor, just with more food for fewer calories.

Frequently Asked Questions

Bottom Line on High-Volume, Low-Calorie Foods

High-volume, low-calorie foods let you create bigger, more satisfying meals without sending the calorie count through the roof. Prioritizing foods rich in water and fiber, and pairing them with protein, can make eating fewer calories feel a lot less like eating less food. The goal of volume eating is to get more mileage out of the calories you do eat, so satisfying portions don’t blow past your target. For more ideas, check out our guide to low-calorie cheese.