As soon as you tell someone you’re a vegetarian, they seem to become very concerned about your protein intake. Sure, protein is hugely important for our bodies, but there’s a bit of a misconception that protein only comes from meat and fish – which, of course, isn’t true at all! We vegetarians eat plenty of protein, from all sorts of different sources.
More mindful of their protein intake than meat-eaters. But really, only a tiny bit. As long as you eat a balanced diet, it’s usually not an issue at all.
In case you need more convincing, I thought I’d write a bit about vegetarian protein. Hopefully all the high protein vegetarian recipes I’ve listed below will help convince you (and anyone else who’s questioning your diet!) that it’s truly not that difficult to eat plenty of protein as a vegetarian.
Minute High Protein Vegan Meals
Firstly – how much protein should an average adult actually be eating? There’s no point in telling you that a meal contains 30 grams of protein, unless you know how much protein we’re actually meant to aim for. Is 30 grams a lot or a little?!
Obviously, all bodies are different, so there’s not one simple answer to the question of how much protein we should eat. There are various ways to determine how much protein you should be eating – you can see a few different methods detailed here.
Or, if you want something a bit more personalised, I think the simplest method is to calculate a number to aim for each day, based on your own body.
High Protein Vegetarian Meals That Will Fill You Up
Most adults need to eat at least 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight, every day. One kilogram is the same as 2.2 pounds, so if you only know your weight in pounds, divide by 2.2 to get your weight in kilograms.
So, as an example: A fairly average female weight is around 150 pounds, or 68 kilograms. Multiply 68 by 0.8, and you’ll find that this person would need to aim for at least 54.4 grams of protein each day.
Of course, this number is only an estimate. If you’re very active, or are aiming to build muscle, you’ll probably want to eat a bit more protein. Or if you weigh more or less than the example, your body will require more or less protein. Calculate your own number based on your weight, and adjust for your activity level if needed.
High Protein Recipes
Use this number as a general guide – it’s not the end of the world if you don’t hit it every single day, as long as it averages out over a week or so.
Meat and fish are usually the first things that spring to mind when most people think about protein – but there are plenty of vegetarian proteins too! We vegetarians are well versed in how to cook lentils, beans, chickpeas, tofu, cheese, and all sorts of other vegetarian proteins – not to mention ‘fake meat’ products, which are also super high in protein.
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And, in fact, even foods that we wouldn’t necessarily describe as ‘a protein’ (let’s say, broccoli) can still contain protein in smaller amounts. So even if you don’t have a specific protein element in every single meal you eat, as long as you eat a balanced diet, all of these smaller amounts of protein will add up.
High Protein Vegetarian Meal Plan
Here are some vegetarian sources of protein. I’ve included a few non-vegetarian items in the table too (in italics and brackets), purely for comparison.
While a lot of meat-eaters would have a chicken breast with their dinner, and consider their protein sorted for the day, vegetarian meals generally contain more than one of these ingredients in the same meal.
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As you’ll see in the high protein vegetarian meals I’ve featured below, it’s really not difficult for a vegetarian to eat the necessary amount of protein to stay strong and healthy.
High Protein Vegan Dinners
Finally – the recipes! For this recipe round-up, I’ve decided to highlight only recipes that contain more than 25 grams of protein per portion.
Most of the time, even 15 or 20 grams of protein would be enough for one meal. After all, once you’ve eaten 3 meals a day, and maybe even a snack or two, that will quickly add up. But I thought I’d be a bit stricter here, and set a slightly higher cut off, otherwise I’d end up just listing almost every recipe on the blog.
Well, there you are. 17 high protein vegetarian meals, which all contain at least 25 grams of protein each, per portion. Which would you make first? Have you ever worried about your protein intake as a vegetarian?
High Protein Vegan Meals
Becca Heyes has been a vegetarian food blogger, recipe developer and cheese eater extraordinaire since 2011. She's been a vegetarian for significantly longer, after having stopped eating meat out of pure stubbornness at the tender age of 9. She spends her life testing recipes, sharing them with fellow veggie-lovers, and trying to think of new ways to say 'cheesy'.
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