High Protein Meal Prep: Five Boxes From One Cook

High protein meal prep can be one cook for a week of lunches. Take 750 g of raw chicken breast, 750 g of cooked rice and 500 g of broccoli, and split them into five boxes. Each box holds about 40 g of protein for 419 kcal. The chicken alone carries 168.9 g of protein, according to the USDA record for raw breast. Rice and broccoli add the rest of the 40 g in each box.

How do I do high protein meal prep in one cook?

Start with the scale. Weigh the protein raw, add the rest, and divide by the number of boxes. The table below is one Sunday cook for five lunches, with every ingredient in grams and the totals added up from the rows.

Ingredient	Weight	Protein	Energy
Chicken breast, raw	750 g	168.9 g	842 kcal
White rice, cooked	750 g	20.2 g	975 kcal
Broccoli, raw	500 g	12.8 g	160 kcal
Olive oil	13.5 g	0.0 g	119 kcal
Total		201.9 g	2096 kcal
Per box (divide by 5)		40.4 g	419 kcal

Each box has 150 g of raw chicken, which is 33.8 g of protein. It also has 150 g of cooked rice, 100 g of broccoli and a fifth of a tablespoon of oil. Weigh the rice cooked, after it comes off the stove. Weigh the chicken raw, before it goes in the pan, and keep that number for the whole batch.

Plan the portion first. A box with 40 g of protein is a big lunch, and whether a body can use that much in one sitting is the question behind how much protein can your body absorb. For a smaller one, use 100 g of chicken per box, so the batch needs 500 g. The chicken then gives 22.5 g, and the rice and broccoli add about 6.6 g, for 29.1 g in total.

For scale, the 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines set 1.2–1.6 g of protein per kg of body weight a day. For a 70 kg (154 lb) adult that is 84–112 g, so one box covers about a third to a half of the day. How much protein should I eat a day explains how that range was set. Your own height and weight go into the protein calculator, which applies the same range.

What are some high protein meal prep ideas besides chicken?

Eggs, lentils and cottage cheese cover the protein without chicken. Two boxes below use none, both with every ingredient in grams.

First, a lentil and egg box. It’s fine cold, so it suits a desk lunch with no microwave. High protein lunch ideas for work sorts packed lunches by whether your office has a fridge or a microwave.

Ingredient	Weight	Protein	Energy
Lentils, boiled	200 g	18.0 g	232 kcal
Egg, hard-boiled	100 g	12.6 g	155 kcal
Spinach, baby, raw	60 g	1.7 g	12 kcal
Olive oil	4.5 g	0.0 g	40 kcal
Total		32.3 g	439 kcal

The second is a tray of egg and cottage cheese bites for breakfast. Whisk the eggs with the cottage cheese and spinach and bake the mix in a small tin. The table is the whole tin, one breakfast.

Ingredient	Weight	Protein	Energy
Egg, whole, large, raw	150.9 g	18.7 g	222 kcal
Cottage cheese, 1% fat	113 g	14.0 g	81 kcal
Spinach, baby, raw	30 g	0.9 g	6 kcal
Olive oil	4.5 g	0.0 g	40 kcal
Total		33.6 g	349 kcal

Both sit near 30–35 g of protein, and the egg bites are the lighter one at 349 kcal, so I’d add a piece of fruit or a slice of bread to either one if lunch has to last the whole afternoon. The lunch side of this is high protein lunch meal prep, and the morning side is high protein breakfast meal prep.

How long does high protein meal prep keep?

Cooked leftovers keep for 3–4 days in the refrigerator, or 3–4 months in the freezer, according to the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service. Five boxes cooked on Sunday won’t all last until Friday in the fridge, so the week needs a plan.

My fix: freeze two boxes on cooking day and eat the others first. A frozen box moves to the refrigerator the night before, and it’s good for 3–4 days after thawing.

Day	Box	Where it comes from
Sunday	Cook, weigh, pack	Freeze two boxes right away
Monday	Box 1	Refrigerator, day 1
Tuesday	Box 2	Refrigerator, day 2
Wednesday	Box 3	Refrigerator, day 3
Thursday	Box 4	Freezer, moved to the refrigerator on Wednesday night
Friday	Box 5	Freezer, moved to the refrigerator on Thursday night

Cook a small second batch on Wednesday for fresher food.

Three handling rules come from the same USDA page. Cook poultry to 165°F (74°C), checked with a food thermometer. Refrigerate leftovers within 2 hours of cooking, and divide big batches into shallow containers so they cool quickly. Reheat to 165°F before you eat.

How do I get the grams right when I cook a big pot?

Weigh the finished pot, then weigh your scoop. A mixed pot doesn’t have a label, so the batch gives you the numbers. Protein per portion equals the portion weight divided by the pot weight, times the batch protein. You get the batch protein by adding the raw ingredients, and the chicken record gives 22.5 g per 100 g.

Say the finished pot above weighs 1,800 g. A scoop of 360 g is a fifth of it, and a fifth of 201.9 g of protein is 40.4 g. It works for chili, curry, high protein soup or a tray bake.

Weigh 150 g of cooked chicken and pick the raw record, 22.5 g per 100 g instead of 32.1 g, and you undercount protein by about 30%. A cooked weight needs a cooked entry, and a raw weight needs a raw one. Don’t forget the oil. One tablespoon (13.5 g) is 119 kcal, and it’s all in the pot.

Anyone with kidney disease should get their protein target from a doctor before filling five boxes. The same goes during pregnancy.

Calsa has “Copy to today”, which repeats a meal from an earlier day with the same grams, so logging a prepped box takes a tap.