27 High Protein Snacks, With Grams, Calories and Protein per 100 Calories

You want a snack that holds you until dinner, so you look for the word protein. It's printed on cookies, chips and cereal now, and most of the calories still come from sugar and oil. So you eat the bar, you're hungry again by four, and it starts to feel like your appetite is the problem.

Usually the snack is. Most of what sits within arm's reach was built to sell, and little of it was built to keep you full or feed your muscles. Below are 27 snacks with the numbers worked out, followed by how much protein a snack needs and when snacks help your training.

27 High Protein Snacks, With Protein and Calories

Every value is worked out from USDA FoodData Central for the serving shown, and within each group the snack with the most protein comes first. A gram of protein has about 4 calories, so in the last column 25 is close to the ceiling, and a score of 10 means about 40% of the calories come from protein.

For combination snacks, the table adds up the main ingredients. Lean fish, egg whites, low-fat dairy and whey all score above 15. Nuts and seeds sit near 4 or 5, because most of their calories come from fat. Packaged versions differ, so check the label on yours.

No-Prep High Protein Snacks

These five need a fork at most. Cook an extra chicken breast at dinner and slice it cold the next day. Sardines are on the FDA's Best Choices list for lower-mercury fish, and one small can has more protein than three eggs. Buy Greek yogurt plain and add your own fruit. Half a cup of 1% cottage cheese has about 459 milligrams of sodium, a fifth of the FDA's 2,300-milligram Daily Value.

Portable High Protein Snacks to Eat on the Go

These suit a commute, a flight or a gym bag. Carry whey powder dry in a shaker and add water when you need it. Scoop sizes vary, so read your label. Jerky is the salty one: this portion has about 759 milligrams of sodium, a third of the Daily Value, and our page on whether beef jerky is healthy covers how often to eat it. One 1-ounce stick of string cheese has 6.7 grams, so it takes two to pass 10. Portion the seeds and peanuts before you leave the house.

Vegetarian High Protein Snacks

Every dairy and egg snack on this page is vegetarian, and these four are vegan too. Toss tofu cubes in soy sauce and eat them cold, or bake them until the edges crisp. Steam edamame from frozen, and you also get about 8 grams of fiber. Sear thin tempeh strips in a pan with smoked paprika. Roast chickpeas at 400°F until crisp, and eat them for the crunch, since they score lowest in this group.

Sweet High Protein Snacks

Dairy with fruit or a little honey covers a sweet craving. For the pudding, blend cottage cheese with unsweetened cocoa and honey until smooth, then chill it. Part-skim ricotta is creamier than cottage cheese and has about 123 milligrams of sodium per half cup, against 459. For the dip, stir a tablespoon of peanut butter into half a container of Greek yogurt. The yogurt carries 8.7 of the 12.7 grams.

Low Calorie High Protein Snacks Under 100 Calories

Snacks 20 to 23 are the best high protein low calorie snacks by the numbers, and half a cup of 1% cottage cheese also fits, at 81 calories. Smoked salmon has about 571 milligrams of sodium in this portion, a quarter of the Daily Value. Regular canned tuna usually has added salt, so read the label if you're watching sodium.

High Protein Low Fat Snacks and High Protein Low Sugar Snacks

Shrimp, tuna, egg whites, nonfat Greek yogurt and 1% cottage cheese each have under 1.5 grams of fat per serving. Tuna, chicken breast, sardines and smoked salmon list no sugar.

Easy High Protein Snacks to Make

These take about 10 minutes. For chicken salad, stir chopped chicken with yogurt and mustard and spoon it into lettuce cups. For cottage cheese toast, top it with tomato and black pepper. For deviled eggs, mash the yolks with yogurt in place of mayonnaise. For parmesan crisps, bake small mounds of grated hard parmesan on parchment at 400°F for about 5 minutes.

How Much Protein Should a Snack Have?

A snack should have at least 10 grams of protein to count as high protein, and 15 to 30 grams if it follows a workout or stands in for a meal. The FDA's Daily Value guide says 20% or more of a nutrient per serving is high, and the Daily Value for protein is 50 grams.

More protein also holds you longer. Douglas and colleagues (2013) gave 15 healthy women a 160-calorie afternoon yogurt snack with 5, 14 or 24 grams of protein, or no snack. They asked for dinner about 124 minutes later with no snack, and 152, 158 and 178 minutes after the three yogurts. They ate less at dinner after the yogurt, but not enough to cancel its calories.

In a second small trial, funded by a food company, a 14-gram yogurt delayed eating by about 30 minutes compared with chocolate at the same 160 calories (Ortinau 2014).

For muscle, the dose depends on your size and age. Moore and colleagues (2015) found muscle protein synthesis stopped rising at about 0.24 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight in men around 22, and 0.40 grams in men around 71. For a 170-pound man, that's about 19 and 31 grams. Your daily total matters more, and our guide to how much protein you need per day gives the target.

When Do High Protein Snacks Help Your Training?

High protein snacks help your training most when they close a long gap between meals or raise your daily protein. The exact minute matters much less. In a meta-analysis of 23 muscle-growth studies, Schoenfeld, Aragon and Krieger (2013) found the apparent benefit of protein timing disappeared once total protein was accounted for. In a later trial, Schoenfeld and colleagues (2017) had 21 trained men take 25 grams of protein right before or right after lifting for 10 weeks, and the results were similar on every measure.

Long gaps are worth closing. Areta and colleagues (2013) gave 24 trained men 80 grams of whey over the 12 hours after lifting. Four 20-gram servings raised muscle protein synthesis 31 to 48% more than eight 10-gram or two 40-gram servings. That's a 12-hour lab measure. It still makes a fair case for a 20-gram snack between meals. Aragon and Schoenfeld (2013) suggest keeping the meals before and after training within about 3 to 4 hours of each other.

• Before training. If your last meal was more than 3 or 4 hours ago, have a small snack an hour or two before you start.
• After training. If dinner is a while off, aim for 15 to 30 grams from tuna, chicken or a whey shake.
• Before bed. Cottage cheese or Greek yogurt works well, and our review of pre-sleep protein research covers the trials.

High Protein Snacks for Muscle Gain

If you struggle to eat enough, choose snacks high in calories and protein, such as peanuts, pumpkin seeds or the apple dip. Snacks only pay off if the training keeps happening, though. If you lift at home, a dumbbell workout app can do the planning for you. FitCraft's 3D AI coaches lead dumbbell and bodyweight workouts, show each exercise on an interactive 3D model and adjust your workouts as you progress, and streaks give you a reason to come back tomorrow.

Do High Protein Snacks Help With Weight Loss?

High protein snacks help with weight loss when they replace other food, and they can get in the way when they're added on top. Hudson and colleagues (2018) reviewed 34 randomized trials and sorted 59 groups doing resistance training by when they took protein supplements. Among the with-meal groups, 87% lost fat and 56% gained body mass. Among the between-meal groups, 59% lost fat and 72% gained body mass. Those were supplements and not foods, so it's a rough signal, but the practical step is simple: count every snack in your daily calories. Our guide to the best snacks for weight loss has more of the fullness research and a list built for a calorie deficit.

Snacks That Sound High in Protein but Aren't

These foods are fine to eat, but each one scores under 4 grams of protein per 100 calories.

• Hummus: 2 tablespoons have 2.3 grams of protein for 71 calories.
• Peanut butter: 2 tablespoons have 7.1 grams for 191 calories.
• Almonds: 1 ounce has 6 grams for 164 calories.
• Granola bars: USDA's typical 43-gram bar has 4.3 grams for 203 calories.

Protein bars vary the most, so test each one: divide the protein by the calories and multiply by 100. Our look at whether protein bars are healthy shows what else to check. If you're hungry by mid-morning, start with our high protein breakfast ideas.

The Bottom Line

The best high protein snacks are plain foods with numbers you can check: at least 10 grams of protein, and a score of 10 or more if you're watching calories. Pick three or four you like, keep them where you'll see them, and use them to close the long gaps in your day.

Training works the same way, because the plan you repeat is the one that pays off. As Katie put it about FitCraft, "I've tried everything. This is the first time I've stuck with something past two weeks."