High Protein Low Calorie Foods, Ranked

The highest protein low calorie foods are egg whites, shrimp and cod, all above 17 g of protein per 100 kcal. Nonfat Greek yogurt joins them above that mark. Ranking foods this way, by protein per 100 calories instead of per 100 g, changes the list. Nuts and hard cheese, both high in protein by weight, fall to under 7 g. The reason is fat: it adds calories without adding protein, so a food can look impressive on a label and still deliver little protein for the calories it costs.

In short

• Egg whites deliver about 21 g of protein per 100 kcal, per USDA FoodData Central, roughly 12 points higher than whole eggs at about 8.8 g.
• Shrimp, at about 24.2 g of protein per 100 kcal, ranks above cod, chicken breast and Greek yogurt in USDA's own figures.
• Because protein supplies 4 kcal per gram under FDA labeling rules, no real food can exceed 25 g of protein per 100 kcal.

How do you calculate protein per 100 calories?

Protein per 100 calories is the number of grams of protein a food supplies for every 100 kcal it contains, rather than for every 100 g it weighs. A food that is 90% water, like egg whites or white fish, can rank near the top of this measure. It does so even though its protein-per-100g figure looks modest.

A food that is dense in fat, like nuts or cheese, can rank near the bottom for the opposite reason. The two rankings answer different questions: one is about protein per bite, the other about protein per calorie spent.

You calculate it by dividing grams of protein per 100 g by calories per 100 g, then multiplying by 100. Start from a per-100 g nutrition source, ideally a record-level database entry rather than a label's rounded numbers. Divide the protein figure by the energy figure. Multiply the result by 100 to express it as grams per 100 kcal.

This works because the ratio scales cleanly. Protein per kcal is a fixed property of a food's composition. Multiplying both the protein figure and the reference amount by 100 just moves the decimal into a more readable range. The worked example below checks this arithmetic against a named USDA entry.

Which high protein low calorie foods rank highest?

Egg whites, cod and shrimp top the list at roughly 21 to 24 g of protein per 100 kcal, according to USDA FoodData Central records for each food. Nonfat Greek yogurt and roasted chicken breast follow close behind, both in the high teens. Whole eggs, tofu and black beans sit in the middle of the range. Almonds and cheddar cheese fall to the bottom of this list, even though both are often marketed as high-protein foods.

Why does chicken breast rank below egg whites and shrimp?

Chicken breast ranks lower because it carries more fat per 100 g than egg whites or shrimp. Fat calories dilute the protein ratio without adding protein. USDA FoodData Central lists roasted skinless chicken breast at 165 kcal and 31.0 g of protein per 100 g, about 18.8 g per 100 kcal.

Egg whites, by contrast, are essentially fat-free: 52 kcal and 10.90 g of protein per 100 g, or about 21 g per 100 kcal. Shrimp does even better, at 99 kcal and 23.98 g of protein per 100 g, close to 24.2 g per 100 kcal.

Chicken breast is not a poor protein source. By weight, it delivers more grams of protein per 100 g than egg whites do. The two rankings simply measure different things.

What happens to nuts and cheese on this ranking?

Nuts and hard cheese drop toward the bottom of a protein-per-calorie ranking because both are energy-dense, mostly from fat. This holds even though both are genuinely high in protein by weight. USDA FoodData Central lists almonds at approximately 579 kcal and 21.2 g of protein per 100 g, near 3.7 g per 100 kcal. One independent USDA-data mirror reported 575 kcal for the same entry, so the figure here is stated as approximate.

Cheddar cheese fares only slightly better. USDA FoodData Central's record for this entry (FDC 173414) is cited by one mirror at approximately 403 kcal and 24.9 g of protein per 100 g. Other independent mirrors of the same record report closer to 23 g of protein per 100 g.

That spread puts the ratio somewhere around 5.7 to 6.2 g of protein per 100 kcal, not a single precise figure. Neither food is being penalized for being unhealthy. Fat supplies 9 kcal per gram against protein's 4, under FDA labeling factors. A food that is one-third fat by weight carries a heavy calorie load that this ratio exposes and the protein-per-100g figure hides.

Is there a ceiling on protein per 100 calories, and does cooking change it?

Yes: 25 g of protein per 100 kcal is the mathematical ceiling. Protein supplies 4 kcal per gram under FDA labeling rules (21 CFR 101.9). A food made of pure protein would sit at exactly 100 kcal for 25 g of protein, since 25 g times 4 kcal per gram equals 100 kcal.

No real whole food reaches that ceiling, since every food contains some water, fat or carbohydrate alongside its protein. Egg whites, at about 21 g per 100 kcal, come closer than any other food named in this article.

Cooking does not add or remove protein from meat, fish or eggs, so it does not change the total grams of protein in a portion. What changes is the weight and sometimes the calorie count, because cooking drives off water.

A raw and cooked comparison of the same starting piece of meat appears in more depth on the site's guide to whether cooking changes protein content in meat. The chicken-specific version is covered in the guide on cooking method and protein content in chicken. For the ranking in this article, every figure comes from a single cooked or raw state as recorded by USDA.

Worked example: protein per 100 calories for four foods

The table below uses only sourced USDA FoodData Central figures, with the division shown for the first row so the arithmetic can be checked by hand. Cheddar's protein figure is shown as a range because independent mirrors of the same USDA record disagree.

For egg whites: divide 10.90 g of protein by 52 kcal. That gives 0.2096 g of protein per kcal. Multiply by 100 to get 20.96 g of protein per 100 kcal, rounded to about 21.0 g above.

The same two steps work for any food with a per-100 g protein and energy figure, whether from a database record or a label in front of you. A reader can pull a packaged food's own protein and energy figures from the site's free nutrition label calculator, which scales a label to the portion eaten. From there, dividing protein by calories and multiplying by 100 gives the same ratio, using the two steps described above.

What quietly breaks this ranking?

• Do not mix raw and cooked figures. Pairing a raw weight with a cooked food's protein and calorie values, or the reverse, produces a ratio for a portion that does not exist.
• Do not treat a mirror site's numbers as final. Independent databases sometimes round or diverge, as with almonds showing 575 versus 579 kcal, and cheddar's protein figure ranging from about 23 to 25 g per 100 g. State a range or approximation rather than false precision.
• Do not confuse a high ratio with a health verdict. A food ranking low on protein per calorie, such as almonds or cheddar, is not thereby a poor food. The ratio only measures one property.
• Do not apply a single food's ratio to a mixed meal. A plate combining rice, chicken and oil has its own combined ratio, not the same as any one ingredient's figure.
• Do not confuse protein per 100 g with protein per 100 kcal. The two numbers answer different questions, as the guide on how straining raises Greek yogurt's protein per 100 g shows for one food's own comparison.

Where Avocalo fits

Avocalo is a mobile app that estimates calories and protein, carbohydrates and fat from a photo of a meal. An AI vision model reads the image, or the user can search a manual food database instead. The app shows protein and calories together for whatever is logged.

A reader can see their own protein and calorie totals for a meal or a full day, and work out the same ratio from those two numbers.

A photo estimate comes from the vision model's reading of the image, not a database lookup, and the app does not weigh food. Photo estimates are approximate. Readers who want to log meals and track their own protein and calories over time can download Avocalo.

Frequently asked questions

What is a good protein to calorie ratio?

There is no single target ratio, since this article ranks foods by measurement rather than by a goal to hit. Foods above roughly 17 g of protein per 100 kcal, like egg whites, shrimp, cod and Greek yogurt, deliver protein with comparatively little energy cost. Foods below 10 g, like whole eggs, tofu and beans, still supply meaningful protein alongside more calories from fat or carbohydrate.

Do whole eggs and egg whites really differ this much?

Yes. USDA FoodData Central lists whole eggs at 143 kcal and 12.6 g of protein per 100 g, about 8.8 g per 100 kcal, versus egg whites at about 21 g per 100 kcal. The yolk carries nearly all of the egg's fat, which adds calories without adding much protein, a gap of roughly 12 points.

Why do legumes sit in the middle of the ranking?

Legumes like black beans combine protein with a meaningful share of carbohydrate, which adds calories without adding protein. USDA FoodData Central lists cooked black beans at 132 kcal and 8.86 g of protein per 100 g. That is near 6.7 g of protein per 100 kcal, closer to nuts and cheese than to lean meat or fish.

Can a food be high in protein by weight and low by calories at the same time?

Yes, and cheddar cheese is a clear example. USDA FoodData Central's record for cheddar cheese (FDC 173414) puts protein at roughly 23 to 25 g per 100 g, depending on the mirror consulted, a respectable figure by weight. Its energy of about 403 kcal per 100 g pushes its protein-per-calorie ratio down to roughly 5.7 to 6.2 g per 100 kcal, well below leaner foods.

What is the maximum protein per 100 calories possible?

The mathematical ceiling is 25 g of protein per 100 kcal, since protein supplies 4 kcal per gram under FDA labeling rules (21 CFR 101.9). No whole food reaches this exactly, because every food contains some fat, carbohydrate or water diluting the ratio away from pure protein.

Sources

• USDA FoodData Central, Egg, white, raw, fresh, for egg white energy and protein.
• USDA FoodData Central, Chicken breast, roasted, for chicken breast energy and protein.
• USDA FoodData Central, Shrimp, cooked, for shrimp energy and protein.
• USDA FoodData Central, Yogurt, Greek, plain, nonfat, for Greek yogurt energy and protein.
• USDA FoodData Central, Tofu, raw, firm, for tofu energy and protein.
• USDA FoodData Central, Nuts, almonds, for almond energy and protein.
• USDA FoodData Central, Cheese, cheddar, for cheddar energy and protein.
• USDA FoodData Central, Egg, whole, raw, fresh, for whole egg energy and protein.
• USDA FoodData Central, Beans, black, cooked, for black bean energy and protein.
• USDA FoodData Central, Fish, cod, Atlantic, cooked, for cod energy and protein.
• 21 CFR 101.9, FDA calorie conversion factors, for the 4 kcal per gram protein factor.

Written by the Avocalo Editorial Team for Petros IT Solutions SRL. See the editorial policy for how guides like this are researched. Report a correction to [email protected].