Highest Protein Foods per 100g
Numbers first: the protein shake tops this ranking at 80g of protein per 100g, followed by hard cheeses (Cheese, parmesan, low sodium at 41.6g) and slow-braised lean cuts (up to 36.7g). A skinless fried chicken breast sits at 33.4g — still excellent, just below the dehydrated and cured forms that concentrate protein. That is the honest story of any per-100g table: removing water and fat pushes a food up the chart. The table below ranks all twenty leaders, and the sections after it translate the raw numbers into what you actually put on a plate.
How this ranking works
Every value is the protein-gram column of the Alkemos food database (the same rows each food's own page shows), sorted high-to-low per 100g. Three scope rules keep the table honest: only foods with a real Arabic-market name enter; spices are left out because nobody eats 100g of them; and dried/powder/flour forms are excluded since their 100g serving is never actually eaten. One food can appear in more than one form (raw, cooked) because each database row is its own measurement.
The table: top 20
Source: the Alkemos food database — the same rows each food’s page shows (per-100g values; every name links to that food’s full page).
Reading the table
The practical daily winners
Strip away the concentrates and the chart belongs to hard cheese and lean braised meat: Cheese, parmesan, low sodium carries 41.6g per 100g while a slow-cooked veal leg delivers 36.7g at roughly half the calories of the cured options. A 150g portion of that veal is about 55g of protein — most of what a training day needs.
Why the shake leads
A 80g-per-100g figure for a shake is real, but the scoop you actually use is 30g — about 24g of protein per serving. The table measures density, not convenience; read both columns before crowning a champion.
Plant options on the board
Lupins land in the top ten at 36.2g per 100g raw — the strongest plant row in this table — with soy and seed items close behind in the fuller database. Vegetarians can absolutely compete at this table; they simply arrive through the legume aisle.
Common questions
Why do powders and shakes top the list?
Because the ranking is per 100g, and removing water concentrates everything. A shake powder measures 80g per 100g precisely because there is no water left in it — the same reason dried foods dominate any per-100g chart. We kept the shake (it is a real daily food) but excluded raw powders and flours from the scope, and that rule is written on the page itself.
Where does plain chicken breast rank?
A skinless chicken breast (fried, meat only) shows 33.4g per 100g in this table — inside the top twenty but below the cured and braised rows. The curated chicken-breast page in our library carries its own full macro table; this ranking is simply the honest order of the whole database, not a judgement of the bird.
How is this page different from the high-protein collection?
The collection page is a curated introduction — eighty hand-picked staple foods with their macros. This page is the raw ranking: every eligible row in the database sorted by the protein column, including cured, smoked and braised forms the curated list does not carry. The two link to each other because they answer two different questions: "what should I buy" versus "what is literally highest".
Turn these tables into a plan: the Macro Calculator splits your daily budget into grams — free, no account needed.
New to this topic? Start from the curated High Protein Foods collection — the hand-picked staples — then come back for the full ranking.