High Protein Flour: Vital Wheat Gluten, Soy, Chickpea and More

High protein flour is a short list. Vital wheat gluten tops it with 75.2 g of protein per 100 g, and soy flour follows at 49.8 g. Ordinary bread flour has 14.3 g and all-purpose has 10.3 g. The table below compares twelve flours, and every figure comes from a USDA FoodData Central record.

Which high protein flour has the most protein?

Gluten sits so far ahead that the order below it is the interesting part: soy flour, then almond, chickpea, coconut and the wheat flours. The table sorts twelve flours by protein per 100 g.

Flour (USDA record)	Protein per 100 g	Energy per 100 g	Protein per 100 kcal
Vital wheat gluten	75.2 g	370 kcal	20.3 g
Soy flour, low-fat	49.8 g	372 kcal	13.4 g
Almond flour	26.2 g	578 kcal	4.5 g
Chickpea flour	22.4 g	387 kcal	5.8 g
Coconut flour	16.1 g	424 kcal	3.8 g
Whole wheat flour	15.1 g	346 kcal	4.4 g
Bread flour	14.3 g	372 kcal	3.8 g
Oat flour	13.2 g	386 kcal	3.4 g
All-purpose flour	10.3 g	364 kcal	2.8 g
Buckwheat flour	8.9 g	334 kcal	2.7 g
Rye flour	8.4 g	351 kcal	2.4 g
Cake flour	8.2 g	362 kcal	2.3 g

Per 100 kcal the order changes. Almond flour has 26.2 g of protein per 100 g against 14.3 g for bread flour. It also carries 578 kcal, so it gives only 4.5 g per 100 kcal. Gluten and soy flour stand out at 20.3 g and 13.4 g. The other ten give 2.3–5.8 g.

Is bread flour a high protein flour?

Next to all-purpose, yes. Next to the rest of the table, it sits in the middle. The bread flour record lists 14.3 g of protein per 100 g. The all-purpose record lists 10.3 g. Whole wheat flour is a little higher than both, at 15.1 g.

The names mislead, though. USDA records for the same kind of flour disagree.

Flour (USDA record)	Data type	Protein per 100 g	Energy per 100 g
Bread flour	Foundation	14.3 g	372 kcal
Bread flour	SR Legacy	12.0 g	361 kcal
All-purpose, unbleached	Foundation	13.1 g	367 kcal
All-purpose, bleached	Foundation	10.9 g	375 kcal
All-purpose, bleached	SR Legacy	10.3 g	364 kcal

Unbleached all-purpose in one record has 13.1 g, which beats the SR Legacy bread flour at 12.0 g. A bag labeled “bread flour” isn’t guaranteed to beat one labeled “all-purpose”, and the nutrition label on your own bag beats my table.

How much flour does it take to get 20 g of protein?

The top two need far less flour than the rest. The sum is 20 g ÷ protein per 100 g × 100, using the gluten record and the others in the first table.

Flour	Weight for 20 g of protein	Energy in that weight
Vital wheat gluten	27 g	98 kcal
Soy flour, low-fat	40 g	149 kcal
Chickpea flour	89 g	346 kcal
Whole wheat flour	132 g	458 kcal
Bread flour	140 g	520 kcal
All-purpose flour	194 g	705 kcal

All-purpose flour needs 194 g for 20 g of protein, which is 705 kcal. Gluten needs 27 g and 98 kcal.

For scale, the 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans give a protein goal of 1.2–1.6 g per kg of body weight a day. That’s 84–112 g at 70 kg (154 lb), so 20 g is 24% of the 84 g low end.

To turn that range into your own grams, the protein calculator takes your height and weight, and how much protein you should eat a day explains where it comes from.

If you’d rather get the 20 g from something you drink or spoon, high protein milk and high protein yogurt work through the same sum.

How much does vital wheat gluten raise the protein of bread?

A lot, at about the same energy. Swap 10 g of every 100 g of all-purpose flour for gluten and its protein goes from 10.3 g to 16.8 g per 100 g. The table shows three base flours with 0, 10 and 20 g of gluten per 100 g of mix.

Base flour	Plain	10 g of gluten per 100 g	20 g of gluten per 100 g
All-purpose flour	10.3 g	16.8 g	23.3 g
Bread flour	14.3 g	20.4 g	26.5 g
Whole wheat flour	15.1 g	21.1 g	27.1 g

Bread shows the effect best. Take 500 g of bread flour for a loaf cut into 12 slices, then swap 50 g of it for gluten.

Loaf (dry ingredients)	Flour	Protein, whole loaf	Per slice (÷ 12)
Plain bread flour	500 g	71.5 g, 1,860 kcal	6.0 g, 155 kcal
450 g bread flour and 50 g gluten	500 g	101.9 g, 1,859 kcal	8.5 g, 155 kcal

Protein per slice goes from 6.0 g to 8.5 g. The energy stays at 155 kcal, because gluten and bread flour have almost the same energy per 100 g: 370 kcal against 372 kcal.

Twelve slices is an arbitrary count. At 100 g of gluten in 400 g of bread flour, the arithmetic gives 11.0 g a slice at the same 155 kcal. That loaf exists only on paper for me, so treat the 11.0 g as arithmetic. Cut ten thicker slices and the gluten loaf gives 10.2 g a slice, against 7.2 g for the plain one. Cut sixteen thin slices and it’s 6.4 g against 4.5 g. The gluten loaf has 43% more protein per slice at any slice count, so weigh your own slice before you log it.

I’d start at 10% of the flour weight. The 10% is my own starting point, as no source offers a figure. If baking isn’t the plan, high protein bread shows what store loaves give per slice.

Can I swap high protein flours one for one?

I wouldn’t. The records tell me nothing about how these flours behave in dough or batter, so this article stays on the nutrition side. If you try a swap, weigh the result and recalculate.

Vital wheat gluten and wheat flours contain gluten, so they’re out if you avoid it. Concentrated protein suits healthy adults. With kidney disease, during pregnancy or breastfeeding, or under 18, check with a doctor before adding it.

How do I log high protein flour?

By weight, because cups hide a lot. The records give a cup of soy flour as 88 g and a cup of bread flour as 137 g. The cup of all-purpose is 125 g. That’s a 49 g spread. Weigh the flour you put in the bowl, log it with the brand’s label, and divide the batch by the number of slices or rolls.

I enter the loaf in Calsa as a recipe with the flour weights above, and each ingredient keeps its source.