Equally adept at serving as a workday lunch or a midnight snack, a ham sandwich is a versatile, easy-to-make meal. The precise caloric value of the sandwich depends on how you create it. Although everyone has his own twist on this sandwich staple, a standard ham sandwich often includes ham, cheese and condiments between two slices of bread.
How Things Stack Up
Although a bread's variety and size of slice affect its caloric value, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that a slice of white bread contains 74 calories, while a slice of whole-wheat bread has 81 calories. Sliced, luncheon meat-style ham contains 46 calories per slice, and a single slice of low-fat American cheese has 38 calories. One tablespoon of light mayonnaise has 36 calories, and a teaspoon of yellow prepared mustard has 3 calories. If your ham sandwich is built with two slices of white bread, four slices of ham, two slices of cheese, a tablespoon of mayo and a tablespoon of mustard, the sandwich contains 447 calories. The same sandwich on whole-wheat bread has 461 calories. The ham and cheese are significant sources of protein and fat. A single slice of ham has 4.7 grams of protein and 2.4 grams of fat, while a single slice of cheese has 5.2 grams of protein and 1.5 grams of fat.