High Protein Meal Prep: A Week of Lunches and Dinners, Gram by Gram

There are three numbers worth knowing, and they answer different questions.

For a 154 lb (70 kg) adult, that's 56 grams a day at the RDA, 84 to 112 grams under the current Dietary Guidelines, and 98 to 140 grams at the ISSN range for active people.

Per meal, the ISSN suggests 20 to 40 grams, or roughly 0.25 g per kg, spread every three to four hours. In practice that means three meals of around 30 grams plus a snack covers most active adults. If you have kidney disease or another medical condition, check with your doctor or a registered dietitian before raising your protein intake.

These figures come from USDA FoodData Central. They are for the cooked or ready-to-eat food, which is what ends up in the container.

Beans and lentils give real protein but need a cup to reach 15 to 18 grams, so pair them with a second source. And eggs alone are a slow way to 30 grams: you'd need five.

Each meal pairs a main protein with a second source so it clears 30 grams. The totals count only the protein ingredients from the table above; rice, tortillas and vegetables add a few grams more.

How to put them together:

Chicken burrito bowl. Season and roast chicken breasts at once, slice, and portion over rice with beans, salsa and roasted peppers. Keep sour cream or avocado separate and add on the day.

Turkey and bean chili. Brown the turkey, add onion, canned tomatoes, beans and chili spices, and simmer 30 minutes. Chili freezes and reheats better than almost anything else, which makes it the natural meal for days four and five.

Tofu and edamame stir-fry. Press the tofu, cube it, and bake or pan-fry until the edges brown. Stir-fry with frozen edamame and vegetables, then add a soy-ginger sauce. Rice or noodles go in a separate section of the container so they don't turn soggy.

Salmon and lentil salad. Bake salmon fillets, flake them over cooked lentils with cucumber, herbs and a lemon dressing kept on the side. Fish holds up worst in the fridge, so eat this one early in the week.

Breakfast pot. Mix Greek yogurt and cottage cheese, top with fruit. Mix the base for the week if you like, but add fruit and granola the morning you eat it.

Because USDA puts the fridge limit for cooked leftovers at three to four days, split the week into two short sessions.

Shrimp is the fastest protein in this plan, three or four minutes in a pan, so it suits the shorter midweek session.

The USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service rules are short and worth following exactly:

• Refrigerate cooked food within two hours, or within one hour if it's above 90°F. Bacteria grow fastest between 40°F and 140°F.
• Split big batches into shallow containers so they cool quickly. A deep pot of chili stays warm in the middle for hours.
• Keep the fridge at 40°F or below. Eat refrigerated leftovers within three to four days.
• Frozen food stays safe indefinitely, but quality drops. Aim to eat frozen meals within three to four months.
• Reheat to 165°F, checked with a food thermometer. Bring soups and sauces to a rolling boil. Frozen meals can be reheated without thawing first.

Label each container with the day it was cooked. It takes five seconds and removes the guessing on day four.

For five lunches and five dinners for one person from the meals above, you're buying roughly: 1½ lb chicken breast, 1 lb ground turkey, two salmon fillets, a 14 oz block of firm tofu, a bag of frozen edamame, two cans of black beans, dry lentils, a large tub of Greek yogurt, a tub of cottage cheese, rice, onions, peppers, canned tomatoes, salsa, cucumbers and fruit. Check what you already have before you go; most kitchens have rice and spices.

For a full list sorted by store section, see the healthy grocery list guide.

Affili-Fit builds weekly meal plans around your goals, allergies, food preferences and schedule, including high-protein plans, and turns the plan into an organized grocery list so you don't have to add up the quantities yourself. Workouts and daily goals sit in the same app. Start with the Affili-Fit meal planner, or see how the meal planner with grocery list works.