How do I calculate protein in a meal?
For each ingredient: grams eaten ÷ 100 × protein per 100g. Add the results. Or describe the meal in the Protein Hunter calculator and it does it for you.
Protein Calculator: How to Calculate Protein in Any Meal
Calculating protein is one formula: grams of food divided by 100, multiplied by the protein per 100g. The errors come from weights and labels, not the arithmetic.
Worked example: 150g of cooked chicken breast at 31g per 100g is 150 ÷ 100 × 31 = 46.5g of protein. Add 150g of cooked rice at 2.7g per 100g (4.1g) and 100g of edamame at 11g (11g) and the bowl is 61.6g.
The Protein Hunter calculator does this from a plain sentence — 'two eggs, 200g Greek yogurt and a slice of rye bread' — and returns protein and calories for the whole plate.
Reference values people look up most
Protein and calories per 100g, from the Protein Hunter database.
| Food | Protein | Calories |
|---|---|---|
| 🌾 Brown rice protein | 80g | 390 |
| 🐔 Chicken breast (cooked) | 31g | 179 |
| 🐟 Tuna (canned in water) | 29g | 131 |
| 🥜 Peanut butter | 25g | 588 |
| 🥚 Whole egg | 13g | 155 |
| 🌾 Rolled oats (dry) | 13g | 389 |
| 🍢 Firm tofu | 12g | 76 |
| 🥣 Greek yogurt (plain, 0%) | 10g | 59 |
| 🫘 Lentils (cooked) | 9g | 116 |
| 🥛 Whole milk | 3.4g | 61 |
Per 100g.
The four mistakes that ruin the number
- Mixing raw and cooked weights — cooked meat is roughly 30% higher per 100g because water has gone.
- Using pack weight instead of drained weight for canned foods.
- Assuming a portion is 100g; most restaurant portions are 150–250g.
- Ignoring sauces made with yogurt, cheese or tahini, which do carry protein.
Add up your whole meal
Type what you ate in plain words and Protein Hunter returns protein and calories for the full plate.
Try the Protein CalculatorCommon questions
Should I weigh food raw or cooked?
Either — just use the matching value. Raw chicken is about 23g per 100g, cooked about 31g.
How accurate does protein tracking need to be?
Within about 10%. Weekly consistency matters far more than single-meal precision.
Keep reading
Protein CalculatorAdd up any meal in plain words.Protein database230+ foods with protein and calories.How much protein per daySet the target these foods feed into.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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