High Protein Vegan Foods, Ranked by Protein per 100 Calories

The high protein vegan foods that give the most for their calories are tofu, tempeh and edamame. Half a cup of firm tofu (126 g) has 21.8 g of protein for 181 kcal. I took fourteen vegan foods in portions you’d really eat and worked out protein per serving and per 100 kcal. The table also holds nut butter and grains, mostly fat or starch.

Which high protein vegan foods give the most per serving?

I sorted the table by protein per 100 kcal, which shows how much food it takes to get the same protein. Household portions come from the USDA record when it lists one, and where it doesn’t, the weight is my choice and the table shows it.

Food (state)	Portion	Protein	Energy	Protein per 100 kcal
Vital wheat gluten (dry flour)	30 g	22.5 g	111 kcal	20.3 g
Firm tofu, raw	126 g (half a cup)	21.8 g	181 kcal	12.0 g
Tempeh, cooked	100 g	19.9 g	195 kcal	10.2 g
Edamame, frozen, prepared	155 g (1 cup)	18.5 g	188 kcal	9.8 g
Soy milk, unsweetened	250 g	8.9 g	96 kcal	9.2 g
Lentils, boiled	198 g (1 cup)	17.9 g	230 kcal	7.8 g
Black beans, boiled	172 g (1 cup)	15.2 g	227 kcal	6.7 g
Green peas, boiled	160 g (1 cup)	8.6 g	134 kcal	6.4 g
Pumpkin seeds, raw	30 g	9.0 g	154 kcal	5.8 g
Hemp seed, hulled	30 g (3 tbsp)	9.5 g	166 kcal	5.7 g
Chickpeas, boiled	164 g (1 cup)	14.5 g	269 kcal	5.4 g
Peanut butter, creamy	32 g	7.7 g	189 kcal	4.1 g
Quinoa, cooked	185 g (1 cup)	8.1 g	222 kcal	3.7 g
Rolled oats, dry	40 g	5.4 g	152 kcal	3.6 g

Wheat gluten is a dry flour, and seitan is made from it with water. There’s no seitan entry in the database.

Read the portions too. A cup of chickpeas gives 14.5 g of protein and costs 269 kcal, the most calories of any bean here. Peanut butter is a topping. A 32 g serving gives 7.7 g of protein and 189 kcal, a lot of energy for a small gain.

Which vegan foods give the most protein per calorie?

Soy foods and gluten win by a wide margin, at 9.2–20.3 g per 100 kcal. Beans, lentils and peas sit at 5.4–7.8 g, and seeds, nut butter and grains at 3.6–5.8 g. Nobody should drop seeds or oats over that. They’re mostly fat or starch, so their protein arrives with a lot of energy. If eggs and dairy are fine for you, high protein vegetarian foods ranks fourteen foods by the calories each gram of protein costs.

When I plan a meal I build around tofu, tempeh or edamame if I want protein for few calories. If I want a meal that keeps me full, I use lentils. The same USDA lentil record lists 7.9 g of fiber per 100 g. Seeds and nut butter go on top. A swap shows it. Half a cup of tofu in place of a cup of chickpeas gives 7.3 g more protein and 88 kcal less. A cheap swap.

To reach 20 g of protein you need 116 g of firm tofu (167 kcal) or 222 g of boiled lentils (257 kcal). Tofu gets you there for 90 kcal less. Lentils bring fiber. Tofu itself varies a lot, and how much protein does tofu have splits firm from silken.

The state you weigh in can spoil the numbers. Raw lentils have 24.6 g of protein per 100 g, and boiled lentils have 9.0 g, because boiling adds water. Log 200 g of boiled lentils as raw and you count about 2.7 times too much protein. I’ve made this slip with a bag of dry lentils. Weigh the food in the state its record describes.

Is plant protein as good as animal protein?

For most adults who eat enough food, yes. A 2019 review by Mariotti and Gardner in Nutrients put the digestibility of soy protein isolate, pea protein, wheat flour and lupine flour at 89–92%. Egg is 91%, meat 90–94% and milk protein 95%. The authors call the difference between plant and animal sources only a few percent.

The review also looked at what vegans really eat. In the EPIC-Oxford cohort, vegans averaged 0.99 g of protein per kg of body weight a day. Meat-eaters averaged 1.28 g/kg. The authors conclude that most vegetarians, vegans included, have an adequate intake overall. They still see a modest risk of too little protein in a fraction of vegans. A low reading, they note, can mean eating too little in general, and for older adults they call the question more complicated. If you’re older and eating little, raise it with your doctor.

Lysine is the amino acid that runs low in cereals such as wheat. The authors find no need to pair foods in one meal and say a reasonable variety across the day is enough. The Dietary Guidelines tell vegetarians and vegans to diversify plant protein sources for amino acid balance. In my own week that variety is lentils one day, tofu another and a can of beans on a third.

What does a vegan day of 85 g of protein look like?

Seven ordinary foods do it. A 70 kg adult who follows the Guidelines’ 1.2 g/kg needs 84 g a day, the low end of the 1.2–1.6 g/kg range. I built a day from the table above and added the rows myself.

Ingredient	Grams	Protein	Energy
Rolled oats, dry	40 g	5.4 g	152 kcal
Soy milk, unsweetened	250 g	8.9 g	96 kcal
Hemp seed, hulled	20 g	6.3 g	111 kcal
Lentils, boiled	198 g	17.9 g	230 kcal
Firm tofu, raw	150 g	25.9 g	216 kcal
Edamame, frozen, prepared	100 g	11.9 g	121 kcal
Pumpkin seeds, raw	30 g	9.0 g	154 kcal
Total		85.3 g	1080 kcal

The day delivers 85.3 g of protein in 1,080 kcal, and tofu and lentils carry more than half of it, which is the part of the plan I’d copy first. The oats, soy milk and hemp breakfast alone makes 20.6 g, so a vegan breakfast can do real work. High protein vegan breakfast weighs five ideas built on tofu, chickpea flour and hemp seed. On a 1,600 kcal day, the other 520 or so are free for vegetables, fruit, rice and anything else you like.

Want the top of the range, 112 g? Add 100 g of cooked tempeh, which has 19.9 g of protein and 195 kcal. The day then reaches 105.2 g for 1,275 kcal. A second serving of lentils closes the gap. For full plates, high protein vegan meals works out five, each weighed ingredient by ingredient.

What should I watch when plants carry the protein?

Processed products and nutrient gaps. The Guidelines say to significantly limit highly processed vegan foods. They also say vegan diets show broader shortfalls than vegetarian ones, protein among them. Their advice is to monitor your status periodically, especially iron, vitamin B12, vitamin D, calcium and iodine. A doctor can check that.

To see protein, fat and carbs in grams for your own calorie goal, use the macro calculator. It sets protein at 1.2–1.6 g per kg of reference weight, the range used here.

If you have kidney disease, your doctor sets the protein target for a day like this, and pregnancy, breastfeeding and anyone under 18 are outside these figures too.

Start with two foods from the top half of the table. Weigh a normal portion of each, cooked, and write down the grams, since that number is what the rest of your day builds on. If you eat eggs and dairy too, high protein vegetarian meals has six plates, from a bowl of lentils to firm tofu.

In Calsa a line like “tofu 150 g, lentils 200 g” is one entry, and each food keeps its own grams and source on screen.