High Protein Mac and Cheese: Grams per Serving by Recipe

A quarter of a pot of mac and cheese with a cottage cheese sauce has 26.6 g of protein and 421 kcal. The classic homemade pot gives 24.3 g for 573 kcal. Adding 170 g of chicken to the pot takes one serving all the way to 40.3 g. In high protein mac and cheese the first two pots differ only in the sauce, and chicken is a separate add-in.

How much protein is in regular mac and cheese?

I took two USDA entries, frozen and canned, and kept their portion weights. They have 3.4–5.6 g of protein per 100 g. A serving gives about 8–16 g. Version A, my homemade classic, sits in the last row, and its recipe comes a little further down. The frozen entry lists a 283 g container as a mean over brands, so check the weight on your own box before you compare.

Ready-made mac and cheese (USDA record)	Portion	Protein	Energy	Energy from protein
Macaroni and cheese, frozen entree	137 g (1 cup)	7.7 g	204 kcal	15%
Macaroni and cheese, frozen entree	283 g (1 container)	15.8 g	422 kcal	15%
Macaroni and cheese, canned entree	244 g (1 serving)	8.2 g	200 kcal	16%
Version A, homemade (table below)	239 g (1 of 4)	24.3 g	573 kcal	17%

The frozen cup has 7.7 g and a homemade serving three times that, though the homemade one is heavier and has more cheese. Version A uses 210 g of cheddar, which brings 48.9 g of protein and 857 kcal to the pot. Look at the last column instead. Energy from protein is 15–17% across the table, so the ready-made and the classic are the same kind of food.

What makes mac and cheese high protein?

A protein-rich sauce and a protein add-in. The pasta comes third. Even a high protein pasta moves the pot less than the sauce and the add-in do. The dry pasta supplies 29.7 g of the 97.0 g in version A. I built five pots of four servings and summed them from USDA records. Each table row is a quarter of a pot. Version A is 8 oz of dry pasta with 2 cups of whole milk, 2 tablespoons of butter, 30 g of flour and 210 g of cheddar. Versions B to E follow the recipe further down, with half the cheddar.

Version (4 servings)	Raw ingredients per serving	Protein	Energy	Protein per 100 kcal	Energy from protein
A. Classic: butter and flour sauce, whole milk, cheddar	239 g	24.3 g	573 kcal	4.2 g	17%
B. Cottage cheese sauce, enriched pasta	222 g	26.6 g	421 kcal	6.3 g	25%
C. Cottage cheese sauce, whole grain pasta	222 g	26.7 g	415 kcal	6.4 g	26%
D. Cottage cheese sauce plus braised chicken	264 g	40.3 g	491 kcal	8.2 g	33%
E. Greek yogurt sauce, enriched pasta	190 g	22.6 g	376 kcal	6.0 g	24%

The sauce is where the pots part ways. In version A it holds 67.3 g of protein and 1,444 kcal for the pot, and in version B 76.8 g and 837 kcal. Cottage cheese replaces the butter, flour and whole milk, and the cheddar is halved. That lifts a serving from 24.3 g to 26.6 g and saves 152 kcal. Whole grain pasta in version C moves the serving by 0.1 g, which is nothing. The chicken in version D is the only step that gets a serving near 40 g, and it adds 13.7 g for 70 kcal.

Per 100 kcal, version D has 8.2 g of protein and the classic has 4.2 g, so a plate of D carries about twice the protein of a plate of A at the same energy. Find the row closest to your usual pot and compare against that. If chicken is the part you like, high protein chicken recipes weighs three dinners ingredient by ingredient.

Greek yogurt in version E gives 22.6 g. It trails the cottage cheese version because I used 312 g of yogurt, two containers, against 440 g of cottage cheese. More dishes built on a tub of it are in high protein cottage cheese recipes, and a Greek yogurt base turns up again in high protein ice cream.

How do I make high protein mac and cheese?

Blend the cottage cheese with the milk until smooth. Warm it gently, melt in the cheddar and toss it with the cooked pasta. Here’s version B.

Ingredient (USDA record)	Amount	Protein	Energy
Pasta, dry, enriched	8 oz, 228 g	29.7 g	846 kcal
Cottage cheese, lowfat 2%	2 cups, 440 g	48.4 g	370 kcal
Milk, nonfat	½ cup, 114.5 g	3.9 g	39 kcal
Cheese, cheddar	1 cup shredded, 105 g	24.5 g	428 kcal
Whole pot	888 g	106.5 g	1,683 kcal

I haven’t cooked these five, so the method is the ordinary one and the numbers are arithmetic. Cook the pasta by the package, drain it, and add the sauce. If the sauce is too thick, add milk a spoonful at a time. It won’t hurt the protein. Weigh the dry pasta and the cheese and write the weights down, and you can repeat the pot.

Does chickpea or lentil pasta make it higher in protein?

Probably. But the USDA files I used have no record for it, so read the package. For comparison, chickpea flour has 22.4 g of protein per 100 g. Wheat flour has 10.3 g. Enriched pasta has 13 g per 100 g dry, and pasta with 51% whole wheat has 13.2 g. Only a pasta made from a different flour could change much. I wouldn’t guess how much.

Take the label’s protein per 100 g of dry pasta, multiply by 4 and divide by the kcal per 100 g. That is the energy share. For the enriched pasta it is 14%. Compare the box with that.

How does a serving fit into a day?

At 70 kg, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans give 1.2–1.6 g of protein per kg a day, which is 84–112 g. The range is laid out in how much protein you should eat a day. The protein calculator swaps in your own weight on that 1.2–1.6 g per kg.

A serving of version B covers 24–32% of that range, and on the Guidelines’ 2,000-calorie reference pattern it is 21% of the energy. With chicken it covers 36–48%. Three servings of the classic come to 72.8 g and 1,718 kcal. Three of version B come to 79.9 g and 1,262 kcal, so you get more protein and about 450 fewer calories.

These servings are sized for adults. If you have kidney disease, your doctor sets the protein figure, and the pot has to fit it.

I’d enter the pot in Calsa as a recipe built from its ingredients by raw weight, so each serving shows protein next to calories.