High Protein Vegetables, Ranked by Grams per Cup

Edamame tops the high protein vegetables by a wide margin: one cooked cup (155 g) has 18.5 g of protein. Green peas come next at 8.6 g a cup, then spinach at 5.3 g. Most other vegetables give 2 to 5 g. That helps on a plate. It doesn’t replace a protein food.

Which high protein vegetables give the most per cup?

In a cooked cup, edamame wins by a wide margin, then green peas and spinach. The table ranks cooked vegetables by the protein in one cup. Edamame are soybeans and peas are legumes, so the top two rows are beans eaten as vegetables, and sweet corn is a grain eaten as one. I count all three, because that’s how most people serve them.

Vegetable, cooked	Cup (g)	Protein per cup (g)	Energy per cup (kcal)	Protein per 100 kcal (g)
Edamame, frozen, prepared	155	18.5	188	9.8
Green peas, boiled	160	8.6	134	6.4
Spinach, boiled	180	5.3	41	12.9
Collards, boiled	190	5.1	63	8.2
Sweet corn, yellow, boiled	149	5.1	143	3.6
Asparagus, boiled	180	4.3	40	10.9
Brussels sprouts, boiled	156	4.0	56	7.1
Broccoli, boiled	156	3.7	55	6.8
Kale, boiled	118	3.5	42	8.2
Cauliflower, boiled	124	2.3	29	8.0

Each row is the record’s protein per 100 g times the weight of a cup, so spinach is 2.97 g × 1.8 = 5.3 g. Where a record lists only half a cup, I doubled it. Every record is from USDA’s SR Legacy set and boiled, apart from the frozen edamame.

In the middle of the table, spinach, collards and corn tie near 5 g, and a cup of broccoli has 3.7 g. That’s 12% of the 32.1 g in 100 g of braised chicken breast.

Does a cup of raw vegetables count the same as a cup cooked?

No. Cooking packs more vegetable into the cup. A cup of raw spinach weighs 30 g and has 0.9 g of protein, while a cup of boiled spinach weighs 180 g and has 5.3 g. Per 100 g the two records are close, at 2.86 g raw and 2.97 g cooked, so the leaf hasn’t changed. The cup has.

Weigh leafy greens in grams, in the state you eat them, before you log them.

Which vegetables give the most protein per calorie?

Spinach does, with 12.9 g of protein per 100 kcal. Asparagus follows at 10.9 g, edamame at 9.8 g, collards and kale at 8.2 g each, and cauliflower at 8.0 g. For scale, braised chicken breast gives 19.3 g per 100 kcal (32.1 g ÷ 166 kcal).

A cup of corn and a cup of spinach both give about 5 g of protein, but the corn costs 143 kcal and the spinach 41. If you’re filling a protein number and a calorie number at once, the last column picks the spinach.

Can vegetables replace chicken?

Not on their own. To get 25 g of protein from one vegetable, you’d need about 210 g of edamame (254 kcal), 842 g of spinach (194 kcal) or 1,050 g of broccoli (368 kcal). Braised chicken breast gets there in 78 g, which is 129 kcal. A kilo of broccoli is more dinner than I could finish.

Put that against a daily target. The 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans give 1.2–1.6 g of protein per kg of body weight a day, which how much protein you should eat a day unpacks. Take a 70 kg (154 lb) person: the range is 84–112 g a day. A cup of broccoli covers 3–4% of that range. A cup of edamame covers 16–22%, and it’s the only row that gets near a fifth of it.

So think of the other vegetables as supporting protein. They add 2 to 5 g per cup to a meal that already has a real protein food, plus fiber and volume. Fruit is weaker still, as high protein fruits shows cup by cup, and high protein beans is the better place to look when you want plants to carry real weight. If you have kidney disease, your protein target is a conversation for your doctor, not a vegetable list.

To see where you land, enter your height and weight in the protein calculator. It uses the same 1.2–1.6 g per kg range, with a floor of 60 g a day.

What does a vegetable-heavy plate look like in grams?

Take one cup each of edamame, peas and spinach.

Plate	Cup (g)	Protein (g)	Energy (kcal)
Edamame	155	18.5	188
Green peas	160	8.6	134
Spinach	180	5.3	41
Total	495	32.4	363

That is the protein of 100 g of chicken breast, in about five times the weight and twice the calories (166 kcal for the chicken).

Swapping one side is easier than rebuilding dinner. A cup of boiled potato (156 g) has 2.7 g of protein and 134 kcal. A cup of boiled green peas has 8.6 g and 134 kcal. Same calories, three times the protein. I make that swap with frozen peas.

What should I put on the plate tonight?

Pick the one dinner where a starchy side usually goes and put peas or edamame there for a week. Weigh the cooked portion once to learn what your usual cup weighs. I keep a bag of frozen edamame for exactly this, and a high protein chia pudding covers the sweet side when I want protein without cooking.

Calsa shows protein next to calories for each vegetable you log, and every entry names the source and the grams behind its number.