The 34 Best Vegetarian Foods for Protein, Ranked. #1 Has 25% More Protein Than Chicken.

The #1 highest-protein vegetarian food on Earth packs 38.6 grams of protein per 100 grams.

That’s 25% more protein than chicken breast, gram for gram.

Someone told me recently that she’d just started a fitness journey at 47 and the huge sticking point was not getting enough protein. She’d been relying on things like quinoa, beans, and lentils. “Sobering” was her word for what she found when she checked the actual numbers. This list is for her.

I pulled the USDA’s FNDDS database (the same one the government uses for national nutrition surveys), filtered to every meat-free food in the system, and ranked them by protein per 100 grams.

That’s the headline number. But I also pulled a second figure for each: protein per 100 calories, which tells you whether that protein comes lean (Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, eggs) or packaged with a ton of calories (most nuts and seeds).

That second number is the most useful thing in this article. A handful of almonds and a cup of cottage cheese both deliver protein.

One of them keeps you in your calorie budget. The other doesn’t.

Here are the 34 highest-protein vegetarian foods on Earth, counted down to the king.

34. Tofu

Tofu sits at the bottom of this list by weight and at the top by efficiency.

Protein: 7.2g per 100g, but 11.8g per 100 calories (one of the leanest sources here). At 61 calories per 100g, it’s the rare protein that doesn’t bring a calorie bill with it. Plus it’s a complete protein (all nine essential amino acids), which is something most plant foods can’t claim.

One benefit of tofu is that, unless it’s marinated, it has almost no flavor. (Smoked tofu is an obvious exception. I like to dice that to include in a salad.) So you can readily blend tofu into, say, guacamole. More protein, much the same flavor.

And store-bought guacamole generally does not include cilantro, which, for me, greatly enhances the taste. So you might try blending that in as well as the tofu if you want to improve store-bought. Tofu can also be blended into hummus, store-bought or homemade.

Lately I love my fava bean tofu. I have switched most of my tofu recipes to fava bean. I still use regular tofu for tofu scramble and my tofu coffee creamer.

But for my tofu chocolate mousse and my tofu hummus, I use the fava bean version. Awesome stuff.

Whatever kind you buy, the trick is the press. Wet tofu = sad tofu.

33. Split Peas

Protein: 8.3g per 100g, 7.1g per 100 calories. Plus 29% of your daily fiber and 20% copper at 117 calories per 100g. Yellow or green, both work the same.

Simmer with onion, carrot, celery, and smoked paprika for a thick split pea soup that beats anything from a can. Or cook them into dal with cumin and turmeric for a 30-minute weeknight dinner.

No soaking. Cooks in under an hour.

32. Peruvian Beans

Peruvian beans (canarios) are creamy, pale yellow, and an obsession in South American kitchens.

Protein: 8.5g per 100g, 4.4g per 100 calories. Plus 35% fiber and 19% copper at 192 calories per 100g. Texture is somewhere between cannellini and butter beans.

Cook them low and slow with garlic, cumin, and a bay leaf, or stew them with tomato, onion, and ají for a Lima-style frijol. Find them at Latin grocers in the dried-bean aisle.

While you’re hunting specialty beans, Carrington Farms has an interesting product: Ground Lupin Bean. You can use it sort of like TVP.

A quarter cup has 110 calories, 2 grams of fat, 14 grams of protein, and 14 grams of carbohydrate. It’s unique for a bean to have as much protein as carbohydrate. I cook it in my microwave and it’s ready in 2 1/2 minutes.

31. Kidney Beans

Protein: 8.6g per 100g, 6.8g per 100 calories. Plus 31% folate, 27% copper, and 26% fiber at 126 calories per 100g. Both red and white kidney beans rank similarly.

Stew them with smoked paprika, tomato, and corn for a meatless chili that holds its own. Or simmer them into rajma, the North Indian masala curry that ruined me for canned chili.

Cook dried, never canned. The texture is a different food.

30. Black Beans

Black beans are the all-purpose answer to “what’s for dinner.”

Protein: 8.8g per 100g, 6.7g per 100 calories. Plus 35% folate, 31% fiber, and 23% copper at 131 calories per 100g. The dark color is also anthocyanins, the same antioxidants that make blueberries famous.

They anchor my cheap weeks. Homemade seitan with nooch is really hard to beat as far as high protein, low cost, low calorie, and it’s a staple for me. Then some black beans throughout the week topped with nooch and my food bill is super low.

Pasta or oatmeal for extra calories as needed. Half my paycheck goes to savings. It’s wild. Minimal cooking aside from the once a week seitan prep.

Beans + rice = a complete protein. That’s not a wellness hack. That’s chemistry.

29. Chickpeas

Chickpeas became a snack, a dip, and a flour all at once.

Protein: 8.8g per 100g, 5.4g per 100 calories. Plus 40% folate, 39% copper, and 27% fiber at 163 calories per 100g.

Somewhere along the way I discovered how easy it is to eat 100 grams of roasted chickpeas and get 20 grams of protein from it. That habit does more for my weekly protein than any supplement ever did.

Blend them with tahini, lemon, and garlic for hummus that doesn’t taste like cement. Chickpea flour also makes socca, a gluten-free flatbread that beats half the pizza crusts out there.

28. Lentils

Lentils are the legume that thinks it’s a protein. And it’s right.

Protein: 9.0g per 100g, 7.8g per 100 calories. Plus 43% folate, 28% fiber, and 28% copper at 115 calories per 100g. Red, green, brown, French, black, beluga. Different colors, all elite.

They also keep forever. I recently decided to cook lentils that had been in a cabinet for… decades, possibly. So old they had a price tag on them (remember price tags?) that said 89 cents for a pound.

Not only were they perfectly good, they were quite tasty. Lentils cook up much faster than dry beans, with or without soaking. Why did I put off lentils for so long?

I even converted my Scottish mother-in-law’s shepherd’s pie recipe to vegetarian simply by replacing the meat with a can of lentils. One of my favorite meals. First layer: lentils, onions, tomato sauce and paste, a bit of ketchup. Second layer: she always did shredded carrot, but my favorite is green peas.

Top layer: mashed potatoes brushed with butter to brown, and pepper.

Beans take an hour. Lentils take a sitcom episode.

27. Pinto Beans

Protein: 9.0g per 100g, 6.3g per 100 calories. Plus 40% folate, 32% fiber, and 24% copper at 142 calories per 100g.

Mash them with garlic, lime, and olive oil for a refried bean upgrade (skip the lard).

A pound of dried pintos costs two bucks and feeds four people for two nights.

26. Pecans

Pecans break the lean-protein pattern in a big way.

Protein: 9.7g per 100g, but only 1.3g per 100 calories. That’s 754 calories per 100g, the highest on this list. Pecans deliver real protein, but they bring nearly twice the calories of any other entry per gram.

Toast them whole at 350°F for 8 minutes and they become a different ingredient. Eat them by the handful, not the bag.

25. Bean Sprouts

Bean sprouts are the protein hiding in plain sight at the grocery store.

Protein: 9.8g per 100g, 8.4g per 100 calories at only 116 calories per 100g. Plus 28% copper and 16% iron. The “bean” in bean sprouts is mung bean, the same legume that anchors Indian dal.

My favorite piece of bean sprout lore came from a guy who builds his whole diet around them: “Mung beans rule my world. I sprout them for delicious salads. And boil and blend them with banana, oats, raspberries and dates for delicious flapjacks.”

“Got my arms up to 17 inches and my chest up to 49 inches with this awesome bean as one of my key sources of protein. The MUNG is KING.”

I’m not promising you 17-inch arms. But the man clearly believes.

Stir-fry them with garlic, ginger, and soy for 90 seconds (any longer and they turn mushy).

24. Greek Yogurt

Greek yogurt is the leanest protein on this entire list.

Protein: 10.3g per 100g, and a staggering 17.5g per 100 calories at only 59 calories per 100g. That’s the highest protein-per-calorie ratio of any food in the ranking. Plain, nonfat, unsweetened is the version that earns that number.

Use it instead of mayo, whisk it with garlic and lemon into tzatziki, or spoon it under granola and berries with a drizzle of honey.

Skip the flavored cups. They’re dessert in disguise.

23. White Beans

Protein: 10.8g per 100g, 6.4g per 100 calories at 168 calories per 100g (from a reduced-sodium can). Plus 28% folate, 26% copper, and 26% fiber.

Simmer cannellini with garlic, escarole, and olive oil for a Tuscan classic. Cannellini, navy, great northern. Same hero, different names.

22. Edamame

Edamame is the only legume that doubles as a bar snack.

Protein: 11.5g per 100g, 8.2g per 100 calories at 140 calories per 100g. Plus 72% folate, 37% copper, and a complete amino-acid profile (one of the few plant foods that can claim that).

Boil pods in salted water for 4 minutes, drain, hit with flaky salt, and squeeze them out with your teeth.

Confession: I used to hate them. But I started adding them into the blender when I make green pesto and oh boy, it’s damn delicious.

Edamame noodles deserve a shout too. Those are so high in protein: 350 calories is 45g protein.

21. Egg

Eggs are the gold standard protein, and the data backs the hype.

Protein: 12.4g per 100g, 8.7g per 100 calories at 143 calories per 100g. Plus a complete amino-acid profile with the highest bioavailability of any food (your body uses essentially all of it). Whole egg, boiled or poached.

Before anyone emails me: the term “vegetarian” generally refers to someone who doesn’t eat meat, but does consume dairy and eggs. “Vegan” refers to someone who eats only plant-based foods and cuts out dairy, eggs, and often other animal products like honey too.

Worth knowing: in India, vegetarians don’t eat eggs either, just dairy products. If that’s your definition, skip ahead one spot.

Soft-boil for 6 minutes, peel, and pile on toast with chili crisp. One large egg = 6g protein for 70 calories. Hard to beat.

20. Cottage Cheese

Cottage cheese is the protein that 2026 turned back into a star.

Protein: 12.4g per 100g, 17.2g per 100 calories at only 72 calories per 100g. Second-highest protein-per-calorie on this list after Greek yogurt. Plain low-fat, low-sodium is the version that hits these numbers.

Spoon it onto sourdough toast with sliced tomato, flaky salt, and pepper. Or blend it smooth and use as a creamy pasta sauce base.

Paneer belongs in this conversation too. It is a very good source, but if you are on a fat-loss diet, try skimmed milk and low-fat paneer. That, and Greek yogurt if you can find it.

The texture takes getting used to. The macros do not.

19. Pine Nuts

Protein: 13.7g per 100g, only 2.0g per 100 calories at 673 calories per 100g. Plus 147% copper and 62% vitamin E in a 100g serving.

Toast them in a dry pan for 3 minutes (watch closely, they burn fast), then blend into a classic basil pesto with parmesan and garlic.

Expensive. Worth it on the right dish, overkill on the wrong one.

18. Wasabi Peas

Protein: 14.1g per 100g, 3.3g per 100 calories at 432 calories per 100g. The base is dried green peas, which is why the protein number holds up. The wasabi coating is mostly horseradish, sugar, and starch.

Not a meal. A protein-packed crunch when you need one.

17. Brazil Nuts

Brazil nuts are the protein nut with a daily-limit warning.

Protein: 14.3g per 100g, 2.2g per 100 calories at 659 calories. Plus an absolutely wild 193% copper and 90% magnesium per 100g.

They’re also nature’s most concentrated selenium source. One nut a day covers your selenium needs. Two is fine. Six and you’re overshooting your weekly limit.

One or two a day. Not a handful.

16. Walnuts

Protein: 14.6g per 100g, 2.0g per 100 calories at 730 calories. The omega-3 content (alpha-linolenic acid) is what gets researchers excited. Plus 134% copper and 39% vitamin B6.

My personal recommendation for a minced meat replacement would be crushed walnuts and slightly mashed borlotti beans, plus whatever sauce you’re making. I also found it helpful not having the carbs (rice, pasta, potatoes) with those meals and doing veg alternatives instead, so you don’t end up feeling starch-stuffed.

Buy them in the freezer aisle. They go rancid fast at room temp.

15. Hazelnuts

Protein: 15.0g per 100g, 2.4g per 100 calories at 628 calories. Plus 191% copper, 100% vitamin E, and 54% thiamin per 100g.

Roast them at 350°F for 12 minutes, rub off the papery skins, and fold into a chocolate-hazelnut spread that’s basically homemade Nutella with way less sugar.

14. Cashews

Cashews are the magic ingredient in plant-based “cheese” sauces.

Protein: 15.3g per 100g, 2.7g per 100 calories at 574 calories per 100g. Plus 247% copper, 62% magnesium, and 51% zinc.

Soak raw cashews for 4 hours, then blend with nutritional yeast, lemon, garlic, and water for a vegan “mac and cheese” sauce that fools omnivores.

No cashews in the house? You can make a great vegan cheesy sauce out of straight nooch. Just mix it with almond or cashew butter and a vegan cream cheese alternative, heat it up a little and spice it up with a bunch of smoked paprika, salt, garlic powder and a pinch of turmeric and pepper. Absolutely delicious, and quickly made too.

The plant-based dairy revolution runs on cashews.

13. Chia Seeds

Protein: 16.5g per 100g, 3.4g per 100 calories at 486 calories. Plus 123% fiber, 103% copper, and 80% magnesium per 100g. That fiber number is the highest on this whole list.

Stir 3 tablespoons into a cup of almond milk with maple syrup, let it sit overnight, and you have pudding by morning.

One honest catch: two tablespoons of chia have 3 grams of protein and close to a hundred calories, so not a good source on a per-serving basis. Nobody eats 100 grams of chia in a sitting.

They expand 10x in liquid. A little goes a long way.

12. Flax Seeds

Flax seeds are chia’s older, less Instagram-friendly cousin.

Protein: 18.0g per 100g, 3.3g per 100 calories at 545 calories. Plus 149% copper, 89% magnesium, and 82% fiber. Same omega-3 story as walnuts, just denser.

Grind them right before using (whole flax passes through undigested). The gel from soaked seeds also works as an egg substitute in baking: 1 tablespoon ground + 3 tablespoons water = 1 egg.

11. Sunflower Seeds

Protein: 19.3g per 100g, 3.3g per 100 calories at 582 calories. Plus a wild 203% copper, 174% vitamin E, and 93% phosphorus per 100g.

Someone once told me she’d be turning 70 soon, that she’d cut processed foods out of her diet about 10 years ago and it made a significant difference in her overall health, and that the next step was cutting store-bought breads (her favorite food) while adding sprouts, seeds, and beans. I think about that a lot. Seeds as an upgrade, not a chore.

A 16-oz bag costs about $3. That’s $0.20 per 100g, the best protein dollar on this list.

10. Tahini

Tahini is sesame seeds with a job.

Protein: 19.7g per 100g, 2.8g per 100 calories at 697 calories. Plus 183% copper, 85% magnesium, and 83% thiamin.

Stir before using, it separates like natural peanut butter.

9. Sesame Seeds

Sesame seeds are tahini, ungrounded.

Protein: 20.4g per 100g, 3.2g per 100 calories at 631 calories. Plus 156% copper, 82% magnesium, and 61% zinc per 100g.

Black and white sesame look the same on the nutrient panel. Use whichever looks prettier.

8. Pistachios

Protein: 21.0g per 100g, 3.7g per 100 calories at 572 calories. Plus 143% copper, 66% vitamin B6, and 58% thiamin.

Eat them in the shell so the cracking slows you down (the trick to portion control).

The green is real. The shell theatrics are the workout.

7. Almonds

Almonds are the most-eaten tree nut on Earth, and the protein backs it up.

Protein: 21.4g per 100g, 3.4g per 100 calories at 626 calories. Plus 171% vitamin E, 101% copper, and 88% riboflavin per 100g.

An ounce is 23 nuts, about 165 calories. The vitamin E content alone is worth the calorie cost.

6. Cheddar (and the rest of the cheese aisle)

Cheese is one entry on this list because it would otherwise eat half the rankings.

Cheddar: 23.3g protein per 100g, 5.7g per 100 calories at 409 calories. Plus 54% calcium and 37% phosphorus.

But other cheeses hit harder per gram: Parmesan tops 35g/100g (the highest of any cheese), Swiss hits 27g, mozzarella delivers 22g, and feta lands around 14g with much fewer calories. Pick the one your dish needs.

Hard cheese > soft cheese, gram for gram. Cottage cheese (separately listed) leans even leaner.

5. Vegetarian Chicken Substitutes

The meatless chicken category (Quorn, Gardein, Beyond Meat, Tofurky, et al.) lands at #5 with serious numbers.

Protein: 23.6g per 100g, 10.5g per 100 calories at 224 calories. Plus 77% copper, 41% B6, and 27% phosphorus per 100g. Most of these are soy-based or mycoprotein-based (Quorn), with vital wheat gluten as a binder.

My relationship with this category is complicated. Mock meats make me a little sick every time I eat them and I always promise myself I won’t buy them anymore, but they are delicious. So I have them at least once every two months or so.

A friend of mine was so excited for Beyond Meat when it first came out, because it tasted better than other meat alternatives and was a nice break from tofu and beans. Then she read the ingredient panel and decided she’d rather just eat meat at that point. I won’t go that far, but she’s onto something.

Pick a brand by ingredient list, not packaging. Shorter is usually better.

4. Peanut Butter

Peanut butter is the protein source that doubles as a household staple.

Protein: 25.9g per 100g, 5.0g per 100 calories at 520 calories (for the reduced-fat version). Plus 64% copper, 60% vitamin E, and 40% magnesium per 100g.

The sandwich math works out better than people think. One tablespoon of PB is, on average, 4.5g of protein. Two tablespoons in a whole wheat sandwich (4-5g protein per slice) = an average of 18g protein. Add more PB and you can hit well above 20g, and I’ve used exactly that as a post workout meal.

Peanut butter powder has just about 12 grams of protein in 100 calories and only about 3 grams of fat, if you want the flavor without the calorie bill.

Natural is the move. The ingredient list should say “peanuts, salt.” That’s it.

3. Peanuts

Peanuts are technically legumes pretending to be nuts, and they out-protein nearly every actual nut.

Protein: 28.0g per 100g, 4.7g per 100 calories at 599 calories. Plus 59% copper, 46% vitamin E, and 42% magnesium per 100g.

Roast them in their shells at 350°F for 20 minutes for a baseball-game snack. The cheapest entry on the nut shelf, and it’s not actually a nut.

2. Pumpkin Seeds

Pumpkin seeds (pepitas) are the seed that quietly beat every nut on this list.

Protein: 29.8g per 100g, 5.2g per 100 calories at 574 calories. Plus 142% copper, 131% magnesium, and 94% phosphorus per 100g. That magnesium number is wild, one of the highest from any food.

Toast them in a dry pan with salt and chili powder for a snack that beats potato chips. Sprinkle over Caesar salads, grain bowls, and pumpkin soup (cannibalistic but correct).

I also recently had pumpkin seed tofu for the first time and thought it was delicious. It sells under the name Pumfu if you want to hunt for it.

If you only buy one seed from this list, this is it.

1. Soy Nuts

Soy nuts beat every vegetarian food on this list, and they beat chicken breast by 25%.

Protein: 38.6g per 100g, 8.2g per 100 calories at 469 calories. That 38.6g/100g number is more than chicken breast (~31g), more than ground beef (~26g), and more than nearly any animal protein outside of biltong and bacon.

Cooked mature soybeans are a lot higher in protein than edamame or other kinds of beans (28-31g per cup). I like the black soybeans because they have almost twice the antioxidants of regular yellow soybeans.

I blend them with water, sesame seeds and blackstrap molasses to make a thick soy milk (more like a soy smoothie) and put it in oatmeal. And you can make soy “nuts” yourself by roasting them.

A complete protein, too. All nine essential amino acids in one snack.

The highest-protein vegetarian food on Earth is just a roasted bean.

The Bottom Line

The best protein source is the one you’ll actually eat.

Soy nuts don’t help if they sit in the pantry. Tofu doesn’t help if you can’t get past the texture. Greek yogurt and cottage cheese don’t help if you only buy them with the intention of eating them.

And always ask yourself “better than what?” If you are swapping white pasta for quinoa then yes. If you are eating mock meat instead of tofu then no. If you are eating nut butter instead of sugary jam then yes.

Eat a diversity of protein sources and aim to keep it as natural as possible. Fill up on vegetables alongside your protein and healthy fats. Aim for 1.2-2g of protein per kilo, depending on your health status, age and activity level.

Honestly, it isn’t difficult to get there as a vegetarian. There is protein in literally everything. An example of what I eat in a day:

Breakfast: oat and chia pudding with chopped almonds and seeds on top. Lunch: black bean and vegetable burrito with spicy tahini dressing. Snacks: granola butter on apple, hummus and vegetable sticks, mixed nuts. Dinner: peanut curry filled with lentils, vegetables, maybe even tofu, and brown rice on the side.

Like my doctor said, the only person he ever met that was in serious need of protein was a man who only ate white bread and cake.

Pick three from this list. Eat two of them this week. The “where do you get your protein” question answers itself.

A Quick Note on Protein Quality

USDA numbers measure how much protein is in a food, not how complete it is. Complete proteins (all nine essential amino acids) come from soy foods (tofu, edamame, soy nuts), eggs, dairy, and quinoa. Most beans, grains, and nuts are individually incomplete, but combining them across a day (beans + rice, peanut butter + bread, hummus + pita) covers the gaps.

Research has shown repeatedly that plant protein is just as easily digested and used for hypertrophy. And the mono-eating myth has been debunked over and over again. No one eats one singular protein source all day. Any moderately varied diet combines ample amounts of each amino acid, and it need not be combined in the same meal.

And why do people always bring up the idea of eating only one type of food? Nobody only eats quinoa in one meal, or only lentils. I don’t get it.

Your body pools the amino acids from everything you eat. That’s the whole game.