My 5 Favorite High-Protein Vegan Foods

It doesn't have to be difficult to get plenty of protein from plants, even without protein powders and processed foods. Here are my five favorite high-protein plant-based foods and how I like to eat them. Starting with nutritional yeast. Nutritional yeast has how many grams of protein? This stuff has five grams of protein in just two tablespoons, which is really impressive, especially for something that most of us consider a seasoning or a cheese replacement for sprinkling on top of popcorn and maybe making your vegan cheeses. I love nutritional yeast because it has so much flavor, it's so versatile, and again, it adds that cheesy, earthy quality to plant-based foods. Even umami, which is that nice savoriness and makes you feel like what you're eating is really, really delicious. I love to use nutritional yeast in vegan parmesan, which I make with walnuts and miso. It has so much flavor and an amazing texture, and it's my favorite thing to sprinkle on top of pastas and salads. I also love using nooch in pumpkin seed crackers. They're crunchy, they're healthy, and they're great for packing to take on the go. And of course, most of us are familiar with nutritional yeast in cheese sauces. I've got to recommend my vegan mac and cheese for this one. You use a lot of the nutritional yeast, so you're getting plenty of the protein, and nutritional yeast is also rich in other vitamins like B12. So it's really a nice, fortified seasoning that has a lot of flavor and is super versatile. But that vegan mac and cheese is great. The kids love it, I make it at Thanksgiving, and really, we can enjoy it all year round. Next up, tempeh. I love tempeh. If you haven't had it before, tempeh is fermented soybean cake. It comes from Indonesia, but you can buy it at any well-stocked grocery store in the United States. Tempeh is a fantastic source of protein. Just one cup contains more than 30 grams of protein. And it is also so versatile. It's easy to cook. And I recently featured it in my gut healthy foods video because tempeh is a fermented food, making it full of probiotics and great for your gut. So check that video out too. And just know that this food has more than just protein in it. Tempeh is different than tofu because it is made from the whole bean. They literally take the beans and make a cake and add some sort of fermenting agent to it and it's not processed like at all. Tofu is made out of soy milk. Tempeh is made out of the whole soy bean. Some meals I love to make with tempeh. Number one, tempeh tikka masala. It's like the Indian chicken masala dish, but made with tempeh. It is so good. I've been making this same recipe for over 10 years. And the way I do it is I add roasted sweet potatoes and cauliflower for even more nutritional value, more color. And of course, most importantly, more flavor. When I'm in the mood for like a really easy way to cook tempeh, I make this barbecue tempeh sandwich. Now the barbecue tempeh is so easy, you just need to let it marinate overnight or you can cook the tempeh in the barbecue sauce so it will soak up all that flavor. And it can be used in anything from salads and bowls to a sandwich, which is one of my favorite ways to enjoy it. If you're a fan of barbecue, you've got to try that barbecue tempeh and give it a try in the soul bowl, which was recently featured in my Trader Joe's recipes video. That is so good. It's got roasted sweet potatoes, of course, the barbecue tempeh, corn. It is so, so what else does it have in it? A little salad, a little something, a little something here and there. It's delicious. You got to give it a try. And I'm a taco girl. Taco Tuesday, taco Thursday, taco any day of the week. Tempeh tacos, chef's kiss. So, so good. Topped with a simple, easy guacamole. I've included all the information in this video, plus the recipes I mentioned in a free PDF guide. You can find it linked in the description box down below or scan the QR code on screen. Speaking of soy, let's move on to tofu. I love tofu. And I think you should too. Because even if you feel like you don't really like tofu, have you really had it in all the myriad ways you can enjoy it? Maybe not. Tofu is an amazing source of plant based protein. It's so versatile. There's so many different types from silken tofu to super firm. And it takes on the flavor of whatever marinade you cook it in, making it perfect for replicating cuisines from anywhere in the world. You'll get at least 22 grams of protein per cup of tofu. Now let's talk about the recipes that I like to use tofu in. First up, I think you should try my vegan quiche. Made with tofu and filled with vegetables. You basically use tofu to replace eggs. And you can use tofu to replace eggs in all sorts of recipes, not just this vegan quiche, but also frittatas or even tofu scramble. This quiche is great for parties for brunches or just regular meal prep. Y'all know I had to throw in some tacos because I love my tacos because I like my guacamole and I just like the shape of it. Delicious. But I have this recipe for crispy tofu tacos. And I think you should give it a try. It's what it sounds like. Crispy tofu tacos with loads of flavor because the tofu is marinated, but all the flavor is concentrated when it air fries or cooks in the oven into like meaty, crispy little bites. It's so good. So you've got to give that one a try. And lastly, if you're looking for like the meatiest, meaty, meaty tofu, you should definitely try tofu sofritas. You might know sofritas from Chipotle, that restaurant. Well, I think if you make your sofritas at home, it'll be even more delicious, plus a lot less expensive and of course, a little bit healthier too. Super firm tofu is shredded on a cheese grater and then crisped up in the air fryer or oven and then blended with a roasted tomato and pepper sauce. It's actually pretty easy to make. There are a couple parts, but this recipe is worth all the effort, which isn't a lot, I swear. It's worth all the effort for that much flavor. It's great for meal prep and it gets even better as the days go by. Time for lentils. Y'all know me, I love my lentils. Again, a food that is so versatile, so delicious and filling and it has so much nutrition beyond the protein content. One cup of cooked lentils has about 18 grams of protein and you can enjoy any type of lentils and still get these benefits. Red lentils, black lentils, green lentils, French lentils, any type of lentils is gonna be good for you and that just makes this food even more versatile because you can use it in Indian cooking, in American cooking, any way your heart desires, really. So my favorite ways to eat lentils, I'm gonna start with my burrito bowl because I just had that for dinner last night. It's made with a lentil walnut taco meat, which is meaty and so very satisfying and filling. That paired with a corn and bean salad and served over crunchy lettuce with a nice lime vinaigrette. It is, it's like a better than chipotle bowl, that's what I usually call it, but it's something that's great for meal prep that you can enjoy, you know, for dinner or lunch, any day of the week, any time of year and it is so very satisfying. And you know, I think a lot of people, when they wanna eat plant-based or vegan, feel like you're not eating enough food, but maybe you're eating like too many low calorie foods, not eating enough lentils, beans, whole grains and things, but this burrito bowl has all of the above. So I promise you, you will feel so nourished and satisfied after eating this. Okay, lentil salad. I love lentil salads. I eat them a lot. I'm actually gonna make one tonight for dinner cause I have more leftover cooked lentils, but a lentil salad is made with cooked and cooled lentils and you toss them with some sort of vinaigrette. In the case of this recipe, I make a really delicious pomegranate lime vinaigrette. It's pretty easy to make. And I mix the lentils with roasted sweet potatoes and loads of herbs and toss it all with that vinaigrette for an amazing lentil salad. Now this is something that you can make any time of year and just, it gets better as the days go by. It's one of those things too, which you can tell, I really appreciate foods that are delicious as leftovers because I don't wanna cook every day. I wanna make something today, enjoy it tomorrow and the day after and the day after. That's kind of my vibe. And lastly, meatloaf, lentil meatloaf. This is a recipe that has been on my blog for so very long and I still love it. I make it probably every Thanksgiving and especially when it's like that time of year, you know, the cozy time of year when it's not so hot outside, but you can enjoy this lentil meatloaf anytime the craving strikes. It's loaded with vegetables and also walnuts to give it even more texture. Speaking of walnuts, my next favorite category of high protein plant-based foods are nuts. And as you see throughout all the other recipes I mentioned, I do use a lot of nuts in my recipes. Now, if you're allergic to nuts, you can replace them with seeds, but nuts and seeds both add lots of protein, healthy fats and other nutrients to your food. This is why we don't have to rely on eating highly processed store-bought packaged foods because these whole foods have so much nutrition and protein and fiber, which is what really makes you feel full for longer. They have so much of that good stuff on their own. So let's move on to nuts. I say nuts, which is a broad term, but I really mean anything from almonds, pistachios, cashews, to which I'm allergic, pecans, anything, anything, nuts are great. And if you don't eat nuts, eat seeds. In one quarter of a cup, nuts have about seven and a half to eight grams of protein. I'm one of those girls who loves just walking in the pantry, grabbing a handful of almonds for my snack and keep it moving. But there are so many ways to use nuts in your actual cooking and your recipes as well. So my first recipe that I have to tell you about that you have to try, like you really have to try, is my pecan Muhammara. Muhammara is a Syrian red pepper sauce, red pepper dip that is made with roasted red peppers, Aleppo pepper, which is the dry pepper seasoning, traditionally with walnuts, pomegranate molasses, lemon, garlic. It is so full of flavor. So if you like a lot of flavor, this is a recipe for you. But because I'm from Georgia, I'm from the South, I had to like put my little Southern spin on it. And instead of walnuts, I use buttery toasted pecans. This is one of my favorite things to eat of all time. You can eat it with a spoon. You can put it on sandwiches. I like to make a grilled cheese sandwich out of this. Really, you can use this as a dip. If you have people over, you do a little hummus, a little pecan Muhammara. Amazing, so good. Amazing source of plant-based protein from those pecans. Now let's move on to the West African peanut stew. But guess what? I'm allergic to peanuts. So I actually make this using almond butter. It's like a curry, but it's West African style where peanuts are used in a lot of their cooking. So use like a peanut butter or almond butter. Or if you're allergic to all nuts, you can use tahini or even sunflower butter. And it makes the broth of the stew rich and thick and creamy. Sort of the way that coconut milk does in a curry, but you're doing it with a nut or a seed butter. It is so fragrant as well and rich. And I use jackfruit and beans to replace the meat. You notice in this video, I didn't have a little section for beans because I think we all know that beans are a great source of plant-based protein. But in a dish like this where I'm replacing meat, I ended up using jackfruit, but jackfruit is more a meat replacement for texture, but not for protein. So that's why I added the kidney beans in that recipe to give it the texture from the jackfruit of meat, but the protein that's going to keep us fuller for longer from the beans. And lastly, a nice sweet snack slash breakfast, tahini granola. Tahini is a seed butter. It's made out of sesame seeds, so it's naturally rich in protein as well. But this granola also has pistachios in it. I'm allergic to pistachios though, so I usually replace it with pecans. And here's another one that maybe you didn't see coming, but oats are also a pretty decent source of protein. So look at it. Granola is a good source of protein. The tahini granola, even better. We don't even use oil in this recipe. The tahini is the oil. I'm telling you, you gotta try this. It's crunchy, it's sweet, it's delicious. So give it a try. That's it. All the recipes that I've mentioned in this video are linked in the description box down below. So give them a try and let me know what you think. And if you'd like all this information together in one handy guide, download my free PDF. It's also linked down below and here on the screen. Y'all let me know, what did I miss? What other high protein plant-based foods do you think people should eat more of? What did I miss? Let me know. And also let us know what recipes you'd like to make with that ingredient that I forgot about, okay? Thank you guys for watching. I'll see you next time. Bye.