Dry brown lentils carry 24.63 grams of protein per 100 grams, more than chicken breast at 22.5 and roughly double eggs at 12.56. Across the 49 grocery foods we priced, the highest-protein foods by weight are legumes, cheese, nuts, and lean meat, in that scrambled order. Here’s the whole list.
One thing to get straight before the table. This ranks foods by protein density, not by price. The cheapest-per-dollar question is a different study and we ran that one separately.
| Food | Protein per 100 g | Price per 100 g |
|---|---|---|
| TVP (textured vegetable protein) | 50.00 g | $2.23 |
| Rotisserie chicken, cooked meat | 28.93 g | $0.59 |
| Brown lentils (dry) | 24.63 g | $0.32 |
| Sardines, canned and drained | 24.62 g | $1.22 |
| Dry roasted peanuts | 24.35 g | $0.61 |
| Red lentils (dry) | 23.91 g | $0.43 |
| Mozzarella, low-moisture part-skim | 23.75 g | $0.79 |
| Green split peas (dry) | 23.12 g | $0.31 |
| Cheddar cheese | 22.87 g | $1.25 |
| Chicken breast (boneless, skinless) | 22.50 g | $0.92 |
| Navy beans (dry) | 22.33 g | $0.29 |
| Peanut butter | 22.21 g | $0.44 |
| Black beans (dry) | 21.60 g | $0.27 |
| Pork loin chops (boneless) | 21.55 g | $0.97 |
| Pinto beans (dry) | 21.42 g | $0.22 |
Source: USDA FoodData Central + US store prices, July 2026. Full methodology at /methodology/.
What food has the most protein per 100 grams?
TVP, at a flat 50 grams, and I’d put an asterisk on it. That figure is the manufacturer’s label value for a defatted soy product that has had most of its fat and moisture stripped out. It’s real, it’s just not a food anyone eats 100 grams of dry.
The most protein-dense thing in the list that behaves like actual food is cooked rotisserie chicken meat at 28.93 grams. It ranks that high partly because roasting drives off water, and water is the whole story here. Everything below it clusters between 20 and 25 grams, which is a narrower band than most people assume. The gap between chicken breast and dry black beans is about one gram.
Why do eggs rank so low on protein per 100 grams?
Because eggs are mostly water. At 12.56 grams per 100 grams they sit 36th out of 49, below rolled oats at 13.15 and whole wheat flour at 13.21.
That number surprises people who’ve been told eggs are the gold standard. Both things are true at once. Eggs aren’t dense, but the protein they do carry is complete, and a large egg at roughly 50 grams delivers about 6.3 grams for very little effort. We did the whole egg ladder in how much protein is in two eggs, and where they land on cost is in are eggs the cheapest protein.
Greek yogurt at 10.19 and cottage cheese at 11.12 are in the same boat. Wet foods look weak on a per-100-gram chart. That doesn’t make them bad buys, it makes the chart a partial picture.
Are the dried beans getting an unfair advantage?
Partly, and you deserve to know how. Every food in our dataset is measured and priced as you buy it. Beans and lentils are dry, meat and fish are raw or drained, cheese is cheese.
So when brown lentils beat chicken breast, that’s 100 grams of dry lentils against 100 grams of raw chicken. Cook the lentils and they take on water, and the protein per 100 grams of the finished pot drops a long way. Cook the chicken and it loses water and climbs. Our dataset doesn’t include cooked yields, so we’re not going to invent them.
What survives the caveat is the shopping math. A 16 ounce bag of brown lentils is 454 grams, which is about 111.8 grams of protein for $1.44. That’s the number that shows up on your receipt, and it doesn’t care what happens in the pot. Lentil curry is where a bag like that usually ends up in my kitchen.
Which high-protein foods are also cheap?
The legumes, and it isn’t close. Dry pinto beans hit 21.42 grams per 100 grams at 22 cents, which works out to 97.9 grams of protein per dollar, the top of our entire protein per dollar ranking. Black beans return 81.0, brown lentils 77.7, navy beans 75.9.
Meanwhile cheddar sits high on density at 22.87 grams and returns just 18.2 grams per dollar, because it costs $1.25 per 100 grams. Sardines are dense and pricey. Almonds at 21.15 grams per 100 grams return 14.8 per dollar, which is one of the worst deals in the set.
If you want the density-and-value overlap in one place, it’s dry legumes, peanuts, and peanut butter at 22.21 grams per 100 grams. The full plant-side list is in the cheapest plant protein ranking, and the shopping version of all of it lives in our high protein on a budget guide.
What has the most protein per serving?
Depends who’s defining the serving, which is exactly why per-serving charts are so easy to game. A 100 gram portion of dry brown lentils is about 24.6 grams of protein, roughly 49 percent of the FDA’s 50 gram Daily Value, for 32 cents. Two large eggs at the same 100 grams give 12.6.
Nobody eats 100 grams of dry lentils at a sitting without cooking them into something, and nobody eats 100 grams of cheddar unless the night has gone sideways. Use the density column to know what you’re buying and the portion sizes you actually cook to know what you’re eating. How many grams a day that should add up to is a separate question, covered in how much protein do you need per day.
