Among true dried beans, navy beans carry the most protein at 22.33 grams per 100 grams, followed by black at 21.6 and pinto at 21.42. Widen it to all dry pulses and brown lentils take it at 24.63, with green split peas at 23.12. Chickpeas come last of the group at 20.47.
The spread between first and last is under four grams, which is worth knowing before you drive across town for a specific bag.
| Dry pulse | Protein per 100 g | Fiber per 100 g | Price per 100 g | Protein per dollar |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brown lentils | 24.63 g | 10.7 g | $0.32 | 77.7 g |
| Red lentils | 23.91 g | 10.8 g | $0.43 | 56.0 g |
| Green split peas | 23.12 g | 22.2 g | $0.31 | 73.9 g |
| Navy beans | 22.33 g | 15.3 g | $0.29 | 75.9 g |
| Black beans | 21.60 g | 15.5 g | $0.27 | 81.0 g |
| Pinto beans | 21.42 g | 15.5 g | $0.22 | 97.9 g |
| Chickpeas | 20.47 g | 12.2 g | $0.36 | 56.7 g |
Source: USDA FoodData Central + US store prices, July 2026. Full methodology at /methodology/.
Does picking the highest-protein bean actually matter?
Barely. Navy beans beat pinto by 0.91 grams per 100 grams. In a 90 gram portion that’s a difference of about eight tenths of a gram of protein, which is less than a bite of toast.
What does matter is which bag is cheapest per gram, and that’s a different winner. Pinto beans come in a four pound bag at $3.97, which works out to 22 cents per 100 grams and 97.9 grams of protein per dollar, the top of our entire protein per dollar ranking. Navy beans, denser but sold in a two pound bag at $2.67, return 75.9.
So if you’re optimising, optimise on package size. The big bag of the boring bean beats the small bag of the impressive one every time.
Which beans give you the most fiber?
Green split peas, and it isn’t remotely close. 22.2 grams of fiber per 100 grams against 15.5 for pinto and black, 15.3 for navy, 12.2 for chickpeas, and 10.7 for brown lentils.
That’s the bean shelf’s genuine trump card. Split peas deliver 23.12 grams of protein and 22.2 grams of fiber in the same 100 grams for 31 cents, which is nearly 80 percent of the FDA’s 28 gram fiber Daily Value from a third of a dollar. Split pea soup is a deeply unglamorous pot of food that happens to be one of the best-value things you can cook.
Where every bean lands on both metrics at once is in beans win twice, and the wider fiber ranking is fiber per dollar.
Are kidney beans high in protein?
We priced kidney beans canned only, where they run 5.22 grams per 100 grams. That looks feeble next to the dry numbers, and it is, but only because a can is mostly liquid. A full 15.5 ounce can holds about 22.9 grams of protein, which is a real amount of food.
Dry kidney beans aren’t in our dataset, so I’m not going to quote a figure for them. What I’d expect from the family resemblance is something in the same band as the other true beans, and I’d rather tell you that plainly than dress up a guess as data.
One practical note that has nothing to do with protein: dry kidney beans need a proper hard boil, not a gentle simmer from cold. That’s covered in how to cook dried beans from scratch.
Does bean protein count as much as meat protein?
Not one for one. Common beans score 0.57 to 0.59 on DIAAS, the scale that adjusts for digestibility and for whichever amino acid runs short. Beans run short on the sulfur amino acids. Chickpeas do best of the pulses at 0.83, lentils sit at 0.63, and chicken and eggs land above 1.00.
Even after the haircut the beans hold up. Pinto beans still return 57.8 quality-adjusted grams per dollar, the top of that ranking too, against 24.5 for chicken breast. The full re-ranking is cheap protein adjusted for quality.
The cheap fix has been sitting in kitchens for centuries. Legumes and grains complement each other’s amino acid profiles, so beans with rice or beans with cornbread covers more ground than beans alone. The arithmetic on that pairing is in the cheapest complete protein pairs.
Which bag should you actually buy?
Pinto if you want the cheapest protein in the store. Split peas if you want fiber. Brown lentils if you want density and no soaking step. Chickpeas if you want something you’ll roast and eat by the handful, because crispy roasted chickpeas are the only one of these that works as a snack.
Black beans are the compromise I keep buying, at 21.6 grams of protein and 15.5 grams of fiber for 27 cents per 100 grams, mostly because they end up in tacos and burgers without much argument. How much to put in the pot is worked out in how much dried beans per person.
