High-protein recipes
The most protein per serving from this week’s cheap, in-season produce.
7329 recipes
Every recipe here delivers at least ten grams of protein per serving. That is a moderate threshold on purpose — high enough to matter for a meal, low enough that plant-based dishes built on beans, lentils, and dairy qualify alongside the obvious meat ones.
Protein per serving is not the same as protein per dollar, and the two often disagree sharply. Sorting this list by cost rather than by protein tends to surface eggs, chicken thighs, and legumes, which is a fair reflection of where the cheap protein in a supermarket actually is. Our protein pages track the per-pound price of each cut if you want to work the other direction.
Figures come from the source recipe where it published nutrition data, and are computed from USDA FoodData Central values for the matched ingredients where it did not.
- Slow Cooker ChickenRecipe by Budget Bytes~$1.61 / serving 2 in-season
- Salmon MarinadeRecipe by The Recipe Critic~$1.75 / serving 2 in-season
- Chicken Pizza with Creamy Garlic SauceRecipe by Natasha's Kitchen~$24.52 / serving 3 in-season
- Mango Chicken Cheesy NachosRecipe by Foodie Crush~$7.97 / serving 2 in-season
- Homemade Cinnamon Swirl BreadRecipe by Sally's Baking Addiction~$6.64 / serving 0 in-season
- California Pizza RecipeRecipe by Natasha's Kitchen~$21.06 / serving 3 in-season
- Caprese Zucchini SaladRecipe by Foodie Crush~$13.63 / serving 4 in-season
- Homemade Ham & Cheese PocketsRecipe by Sally's Baking Addiction~$7.58 / serving 0 in-season
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Ten grams per serving is a moderate bar, chosen so that dishes built on beans, lentils, eggs, and dairy qualify alongside the obvious meat ones. If you are targeting a specific daily intake, the useful figure is protein per serving against the calories that come with it, not protein alone — a number that looks good on a 600-calorie plate is a different proposition on a 250-calorie one.
Sorting this list by cost rather than by protein is the more revealing view, because it shows where cheap protein in a supermarket actually is. It is consistently eggs, chicken thighs and leg quarters, and legumes. The premium cuts and the marketed high-protein products almost never appear near the top, which is a fair reflection of reality rather than a quirk of our data.
Two limits worth stating. Where a source blog published its own nutrition figures we use them, and blogs calculate those inconsistently. Where it did not, we compute from USDA FoodData Central values for the ingredients we could match, which is reliable for whole foods and less so for anything processed. Either way, treat the number as a good estimate rather than a laboratory result.
For the cost side of the same question, our guide to protein per dollar ranks every cut we track by grams of protein per dollar spent.
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