BEYOND DAL: HIGH PROTEIN FOOD FOR VEGETARIANS

The short answer: dal is not a protein food. A bowl of restaurant dal gives you 4 to 6 grams. Paneer, soya chunks, tofu, Greek yoghurt and hard cheese are where vegetarian protein actually comes from. Soya chunks are the cheapest by a distance, at 52 grams per 100 grams dry.

If you are vegetarian in the UAE and you feel like you are eating well but getting nowhere in the gym, this is usually why.

First, the measurement trap

Almost every list online is wrong about this, so start here.

Dry weight and cooked weight are different foods. 100g of dry soya chunks has 52g of protein. Soak them and they weigh 250 to 300g. Now the same protein is spread across three times the weight, so per 100g cooked it is about 17g. Both numbers are correct. Only one is what you actually eat.

And protein per 100g is only half the story. Almonds have 21g of protein per 100g. They also have 579 calories. Greek yoghurt has 10g of protein and 60 calories. Per calorie, the yoghurt is nearly five times better.

So this page ranks two ways. Per 100g, which is what everyone quotes, and per 100 calories, which is what actually matters when you are trying to lose fat and hold muscle.

The ranking: protein per 100g

Typical values for raw and cooked ingredients, from published nutrition data. These are not CurryFit meals.

Now the same list, ranked the way it matters

Protein per 100 calories. This is the one to screenshot.

Typical values for raw and cooked ingredients, from published nutrition data. These are not CurryFit meals.

The thing nobody says out loud: nuts and seeds are not protein food. They are fat food that contains some protein. A 30g handful of almonds gives you 6g of protein and 174 calories. The same 174 calories of low fat paneer gives you 28g. Eat nuts because they are good for you, not because you are counting on them for protein.

The foods, one by one

Paneer

The one most Indian vegetarians rely on, and rightly. Full fat paneer is 18g of protein per 100g but it comes with 22g of fat and 296 calories, which is where people get caught out. Low fat paneer is 24g of protein for 150 calories, which moves it from decent to excellent.

Best way to eat it: grilled or tikka. Paneer in a butter gravy turns a lean protein into a 490 calorie serving.

Soya chunks

The highest protein vegetarian food in an Indian kitchen and the cheapest per gram of protein anywhere. 52g per 100g dry. Soy is also a complete protein, meaning it has all nine essential amino acids in useful amounts, which most plant foods do not.

The catch: they are bland and spongy if you cook them lazily. Squeeze them properly after soaking, then treat them like chicken.

Honest note on the hormone worry. The idea that soy raises oestrogen in men has been looked at repeatedly in trials and does not hold up at normal intakes. Eat it if you like it.

Soya chaap

Worth a paragraph of honesty because the internet is full of nonsense about it.

Soya chaap is not pure soy. It is soy flour mixed with maida or wheat flour and wrapped around a stick. The ratio varies enormously between brands, which is why you see everything from 15g to 25g of protein per 100g quoted.

Two things follow. First, check the label rather than trusting a number you read somewhere. Second, soya chaap contains wheat, so it is not gluten free. If you are avoiding wheat, chaap is not your protein. There is more on wheat and gluten in our roti and naan guide.

It is still a good food. Just know it is closer to a soy and wheat product than to soya chunks.

Tofu

15g of protein per 100g for 145 calories, which puts it fourth on the per calorie list. Complete protein, like all soy. Much easier on the stomach than paneer for people who do not handle dairy well.

Best way to eat it: firm or extra firm, pressed, then tandoori or tossed into a bhurji. Silken tofu is a different product with about a third of the protein.

Greek yoghurt

The most efficient protein in this entire list. 10g per 100g for 60 calories. Regular dahi is only 3.5g, so this is not the same food with a fancier name. Greek yoghurt is strained, which removes water and concentrates the protein.

Hung curd made properly at home lands in the same range and costs less.

Best way to eat it: as raita, as a marinade, as a dressing. It replaces cream in almost everything.

Hard cheeses

Parmesan is 35g of protein per 100g, the highest of any cheese. Cheddar is 25g. Halloumi is 22g and holds its shape on a grill, which makes it useful in this part of the world.

The catch: they are 320 to 400 calories per 100g and heavy in salt and saturated fat. Use them as a topping that adds protein, not as the protein.

Nuts and seeds

Typical values for raw and cooked ingredients, from published nutrition data. These are not CurryFit meals.

Pumpkin seeds are the best of the lot and almost nobody eats them. Sprinkle them on a salad or a bowl.

And dal, since we started there

Dal is good food. Fibre, minerals, cheap, and it makes everything else taste better. It is just not a protein source in the amounts people eat it.

Cooked and drained lentils are about 9g per 100g. But a restaurant or home style dal is thinner than that, mostly water, and lands closer to 4 to 6g per 100g. A katori of dal is maybe 5 to 8g of protein. You would need five bowls to hit what one serving of paneer gives you.

Eat dal. Just do not count on it.

How to actually hit 100g of protein as a vegetarian

Most adults need at least 0.8g of protein per kilo of bodyweight. If you train seriously, 1.2 to 1.6g per kilo is the range that gets quoted in the research. For a 70kg person that is between 84g and 112g a day.

Here is one way it looks in real food.

Typical values for raw and cooked ingredients, from published nutrition data. These are not CurryFit meals.

The trick is not eating more food. It is putting one proper protein in every meal instead of hoping dal and roti will add up. If you want the same thing laid out as a full week, there is a six day Indian diet plan with the portions weighed.

Common mistakes

Counting dal as your protein. Covered above. It is a side, not the source.

Relying on nuts. 200 calories of almonds is 7g of protein. 200 calories of low fat paneer is 32g.

Eating paneer in gravy every day. The paneer is lean. The butter masala it is sitting in is not.

Forgetting milk and curd add up. They are only 3.4g per 100g, but two glasses of milk and a bowl of curd across a day is still 15g you did not have to think about.

Assuming vegetarian means protein deficient. It does not. It means protein takes planning. Someone eating chicken twice a day gets there by accident. You get there on purpose.

The vegetarian dishes we make at CurryFit

This is the only section on this page with CurryFit food in it.

Everything above is ingredients. This is what it looks like as an actual meal, with the same protein per 100 calorie test applied. Every number here is the one published on our menu page.

The Paneer Tikka Salad is the most efficient of them, at 22g of protein in 305 calories. The Tandoori Paneer Tikka Plate carries the most protein outright at 35g, and the Mexican Veggie Wrap is the best of the non-dairy options at 26g for 365 calories.

Now the honest part, because this page has spent two thousand words insisting on honest numbers. Our best vegetarian dish runs about 7g of protein per 100 calories. Our chicken dishes reach 12g. That gap is not a CurryFit problem, it is the whole reason this article exists: outside of Greek yoghurt, low fat paneer and dry soya chunks, vegetarian protein comes attached to fat or to carbohydrate. Paneer brings fat. Beans and pulses bring starch.

What that means in practice is that a vegetarian eating two of our meals a day should treat the plan as the base and add one cheap high protein thing at home — a bowl of Greek yoghurt, or soya chunks in the evening. Two paneer dishes will land you around 50 to 60g. The yoghurt takes you past 90g for about 120 calories and a few dirhams.

Every vegetarian dish on our menu shows its own numbers, so you never have to work this out yourself.

Frequently asked questions