Cheap high protein meals
with calories and macros.

Buy protein by the gram, not by the packet

Protein is usually the most expensive part of a meal, so the cheapest way to eat a high-protein diet is to get most of it from a short list of staples and treat everything else as a garnish. In most supermarkets, eggs, dried lentils and beans, canned tuna and sardines, chicken thighs, whole chickens, ground beef and turkey, tofu, cottage cheese and plain Greek yogurt give you far more protein per unit of spend than steak, fresh fillets of fish, deli meat or protein bars.

The prices themselves move around by country, season and store, so the useful habit is comparing the price of a package against the grams of protein on its label rather than against other packages. Once you know which staples win in your shop, the recipes almost write themselves.

Five habits that cut the cost per gram

None of these require a spreadsheet. They are the changes that show up on a receipt.

• Buy the cut, not the convenience: bone-in thighs, whole chickens and larger cuts cost less per gram of protein than pre-trimmed fillets.
• Use dried lentils and beans for at least one or two meals a week. They are the cheapest protein in the shop and they keep for a year.
• Keep canned fish and eggs on hand for the nights you would otherwise order in. That substitution saves more than any coupon.
• Cook the protein once for three meals. Batch a tray of chicken thighs or a pot of lentil chilli and portion it out.
• Check frozen. Frozen fish, chicken and edamame are often cheaper than fresh and waste far less.

How to hit a protein target without overspending

Work out how much protein you want in a day, divide it across your meals, and give each meal one anchor from the staple list. A palm-sized portion of cooked meat or fish is roughly 25 to 30 grams of protein; three eggs are about 18; a cup of cooked lentils is about 18; a cup of cottage cheese is about 24. Two or three anchors a day covers most targets before you add anything else.

The recipes below are the ones in the BiteTracker recipe book built on those staples, each with at least 20 grams of protein per serving. Nutrition is calculated from the recipe as written, so you can plan a day before you shop rather than after you eat.