Sheet-pan chicken and vegetables
180g chicken breast, broccoli, potato, olive oil.
High Protein Dinner Ideas
Dinner is the easiest meal to make high protein because the anchor is already there. The mistake is portion size: a 100g piece of fish is a snack, not a dinner protein.
Start with the anchor, then build
Pick 150–200g cooked weight of a main protein. At 25–31g per 100g, that alone is 40–60g of protein. Everything else on the plate is texture, fibre and flavour.
If you eat plant-based, use two anchors instead of one — for example tofu plus lentils, or tempeh plus edamame — because plant sources are less protein-dense per 100g.
Weeknight dinners above 40g
~58g
Baked salmon with quinoa
170g salmon, 150g quinoa, asparagus.
Beef and black bean chilli
150g lean ground beef, 150g black beans, tomatoes.
Seitan stir-fry
120g seitan, peppers, edamame, sesame, rice.
Shrimp and white bean stew
180g shrimp, 150g navy beans, garlic, tomato.
Best dinner anchors by protein density
| Food | Protein | Calories |
|---|---|---|
| 🐔 Chicken breast (cooked) | 31g | 179 |
| 🥩 Flank steak (cooked) | 30g | 200 |
| 🐟 Halibut (cooked) | 27g | 123 |
| 🐟 Salmon (cooked) | 25g | 250 |
| 🍞 Seitan | 25g | 370 |
| 🐟 Cod (cooked) | 23g | 107 |
| 🍢 Tempeh | 19g | 193 |
| 🍢 Firm tofu | 12g | 76 |
Per 100g.
Side dishes that quietly add protein
- Green peas instead of corn (5.4g vs 3.4g per 100g).
- Lentils in place of half the rice.
- A yogurt-tahini sauce instead of a cream sauce.
- Roasted chickpeas as a crunchy topping.
- Parmesan finished over vegetables.
Turn this into dinner
Hunter Chef builds a recipe around the protein target you choose, with the macros calculated from the real ingredients.
Open Hunter ChefCommon questions
Is it bad to eat most of my protein at dinner?
It is not harmful, but spreading protein across three or four meals is better for muscle protein synthesis and for appetite control the next day.
How much chicken is 40g of protein?
About 130g of cooked chicken breast, which is roughly one medium breast.
What is a good high protein dinner without meat?
Seitan stir-fry, tempeh curry, or a tofu-and-lentil bowl. Pairing two plant proteins gets you to 40g comfortably.
Keep reading
High protein lunchFix the weakest meal of the day.High protein recipesBuild a recipe to your target.Meal ScanPhotograph a plate and get its protein.What is Protein Hunter?
Protein Hunter is a protein and nutrition app with a database of 232 foods — from a leaf of kale to a wagyu steak — plus AI tools that answer protein questions, count a whole meal, build recipes to a macro target, and track what you actually eat.
- Search any food
- Count a full meal
- Recipes to your macros
- Scan a plate or label
Why it's different: the numbers are calculated from a fixed ingredient database rather than guessed, and when a target is not physically achievable the app says so instead of inventing a figure.
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