Raw Atlantic farmed salmon carries 13.4g of fat per 100g against cooked shrimp's 0.28g — a 47.9-fold gap. Count per 100 calories instead and it halves to 23-fold, which still leaves salmon the fattier food by a mile. Both rows are USDA FoodData Central: salmon at 208 calories per 100g, shrimp at 99.
Most fold-change gaps collapse once calories rather than grams are the denominator. This one does not, and that is worth saying plainly before the rest of the numbers complicate the story.
A note on state, before any of these numbers are used
The salmon row is raw and the shrimp row is cooked, so this is not a like-for-like weighing. Cooking drives off water, which concentrates everything left behind per 100g. A cooked-salmon row would therefore show more fat and more protein per 100g than the raw one used here — the fat gap above is the conservative version, not the flattering one.
Everything below is labelled with its state for that reason. Where a number would change meaning if you swapped the state, we say so rather than letting the table imply a precision it does not have.
Is salmon or shrimp healthier?
It flips depending on which number you pick: shrimp gives 2.47 times more protein per 100 calories, and salmon carries less than a third of the cholesterol per 100g. There is no single winner in this data, and a post that picked one would be hiding half the table.
| Food (USDA description) | Calories /100g | Fat /100g | Saturated fat /100g | Protein /100g | Cholesterol /100g |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fish, salmon, Atlantic, farmed, raw | 208 | 13.4g | 3.05g | 20.4g | 55mg |
| Crustaceans, shrimp, cooked | 99 | 0.28g | 0.06g | 24g | 189mg |
| Food (USDA description) | Calcium /100g | Zinc /100g | Iron /100g | Potassium /100g | Sodium /100g |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fish, salmon, Atlantic, farmed, raw | 9mg | 0.36mg | 0.34mg | 363mg | 59mg |
| Crustaceans, shrimp, cooked | 70mg | 1.64mg | 0.51mg | 259mg | 111mg |
The fat gap survives the basis change, which is unusual
Per 100g the fat gap is 47.9-fold. Per 100 calories it is 23-fold — 6.44g of fat per 100 calories from salmon against 0.28g from shrimp. Halving a 48-fold gap still leaves something enormous, which is the opposite of what a re-based comparison normally does.
The saturated share behaves the same way: 3.05g against 0.06g per 100g is 50.8-fold, and 1.47g against 0.06g per 100 calories is 24.2-fold. If you are choosing between these two on fat alone, there is nothing subtle about the answer, and it does not depend on how you count.
On protein per calorie it is not close, and shrimp wins
Shrimp gives 24.24g of protein per 100 calories against salmon's 9.81g — 2.47 times as much. By weight the two are much closer, 24g against 20.4g per 100g, because salmon's extra calories are fat rather than protein.
In practical terms: 98g of raw salmon carries 20g of protein and 204 calories, while 83g of cooked shrimp carries the same 20g for 83 calories. Same protein, less than half the energy.
Then cholesterol turns it around
Cooked shrimp carries 189mg of cholesterol per 100g against raw salmon's 55mg — 3.44 times as much, and 7.2 times as much per 100 calories (190.91mg against 26.44mg). Shrimp is the leaner food and the higher-cholesterol one at the same time, which is why "lean" and "heart-healthy" are not the same claim.
We are not going to tell you what that means for you. Dietary cholesterol guidance has moved a long way in both directions over the years and none of that argument is in this dataset. What is in the dataset is the gap, and it is large enough that anyone who has been told to watch cholesterol should see the two numbers side by side.
The minerals mostly favour shrimp
Shrimp holds 7.8 times the calcium of salmon per 100g (70mg against 9mg), 4.6 times the zinc (1.64mg against 0.36mg) and 1.5 times the iron (0.51mg against 0.34mg). Salmon takes potassium, 363mg against 259mg, and comes with less sodium, 59mg against 111mg.
Two honest caveats on that paragraph. The sodium difference is partly a cooking artefact — shrimp is very often cooked in salted water, and the USDA row reflects that. And our shrimp row carries no vitamin C value at all, so vitamin C is left out of this comparison entirely rather than printed as a zero.
So which one should you buy?
If the goal is protein for the fewest calories, shrimp, and it is not close. If the goal is fewer milligrams of cholesterol on the plate, salmon, and that is not close either. The fat in salmon is the thing people are usually buying it for, and nothing in our data describes what that fat does — we hold total fat and saturated fat, not the omega-3 breakdown, so no claim about that is made here.
Related pages worth a look
The side-by-side page for these two is salmon vs shrimp, and the individual rows sit on salmon and shrimp. Shrimp also leads our list of foods with the most protein per calorie, which is the same finding seen from the other end.
The bit that actually goes wrong at dinner
A fillet is not 100g and a handful of shrimp is not 100g either, so the table above is a rate, not a meal. The difference between a 120g portion and a 200g one is 166 calories of salmon, which is larger than most of the decisions people agonise over.
Sunn does that conversion for you without a scale. Say "salmon fillet and rice" in WhatsApp and it puts a sensible weight on it, asks one question only when the answer would really move your day, and keeps the running total where you can see it.
Written by Espen Opdahl
Founder of Sunn. Building AI-powered nutrition coaching to make healthy eating simple. Nutrition data sourced from the USDA FoodData Central database.
Medical disclaimer: This content is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider before making changes to your diet or exercise routine.