Protein Per Dollar: The Cheapest Ways to Hit Your Protein Target
Updated: 1 day ago
Most protein advice stops at "eat more of it." That is not very useful when you are standing in a grocery store deciding between a carton of eggs and a pack of chicken. The question that matters is which foods deliver the most protein for the money, and what each of them costs you in calories along the way.
We ran the numbers from two public datasets. Here is what they say.
How we calculated it
We took the August 2026 national average retail prices published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics for eight grocery staples, then matched each item to its protein and calorie content per 100 grams in USDA FoodData Central. Protein per dollar is the grams of protein in one retail unit (a pound, a dozen, a gallon) divided by its price. For eggs we used the USDA minimum net weight for a dozen Large eggs, 24 ounces. For milk we assumed a gallon weighs about 3,900 grams. Prices are U.S. city averages and will differ at your store.
Protein per dollar, ranked
Grams of protein you get for one dollar, highest first:
Dried beans (black, raw): 60 g per dollar. At $1.63 a pound, a pound carries about 98 g of protein.
Eggs (Grade A Large): 37 g per dollar. A $2.27 dozen holds about 84 g.
Whole milk: 30 g per dollar. A $4.23 gallon holds about 128 g.
White rice (uncooked): 29 g per dollar. Cheap, but see the calorie cost below.
Chicken breast (boneless): 24.5 g per dollar. At $4.17 a pound, a pound holds about 102 g.
White bread: 22 g per dollar.
American cheese: 17 g per dollar.
Ground beef (80% lean): 11.5 g per dollar. At $6.92 a pound, the most expensive protein on the list by a wide margin.
The spread is large. The same dollar buys more than five times as much protein as beans than as ground beef.
What 20 grams of protein costs
Twenty grams is a useful unit because it is roughly what one solid serving of protein looks like. Here is the cost of 20 g from each food:
Dried beans: $0.33
Eggs: $0.54
Whole milk: $0.66
White rice: $0.69
Chicken breast: $0.82
White bread: $0.91
American cheese: $1.16
Ground beef: $1.74
Someone eating 100 g of protein a day entirely from chicken breast would spend about $4.10 on protein. From ground beef, about $8.70. From eggs, about $2.70.
The calorie cost of protein
Price is only half the picture. If you are tracking calories, the number that matters just as much is how many calories you take on to get that 20 g of protein. From the same USDA data:
Chicken breast: 94 kcal per 20 g protein
Eggs: 239 kcal
Ground beef (80% lean): 278 kcal
Dried beans: 316 kcal
Whole milk: 367 kcal
American cheese: 404 kcal
White bread: 601 kcal
White rice: 1,024 kcal
Rice and bread look fine on protein per dollar and terrible on protein per calorie. Getting 20 g of protein from white rice means eating over 1,000 calories of rice. Chicken breast is the reverse case: it is the fifth cheapest per gram, but it delivers protein at a tenth of the calorie cost of rice and a quarter of the cost of eggs.
So the practical answer depends on your goal. If you want protein cheaply and calories are not a constraint, beans, eggs and milk are hard to beat. If you are keeping calories down, chicken breast is the clear winner, and it is still cheaper per gram than cheese or beef.
How much protein do you actually need?
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans set the RDA at 56 g a day for adult men and 46 g for adult women, with an acceptable range of 10 to 35 percent of calories. The latest national intake survey (NHANES 2017 to March 2020) found men aged 20 and over averaging 94.2 g of protein a day and women 68.8 g. That is 1.7 times the RDA for men and 1.5 times for women.
In other words, the average American already clears the minimum. People who set higher targets, which is common for anyone lifting weights or losing weight, are the ones who have to think about where the extra grams come from and what they cost.
Tracking it without the spreadsheet
Knowing that eggs are cheap protein is one thing. Knowing whether you hit 120 g today is another, and that is where most people stop bothering. With Nutrition Textapp you text what you ate, "three eggs and two slices of toast", and get back calories and protein with your running total for the day. Ask "how much protein have I had this week?" and it answers from your log.
Sources
Bureau of Labor Statistics average price series via FRED, August 2026: eggs, chicken breast, ground beef, whole milk, dried beans, white bread, American cheese, white rice
USDA FoodData Central for protein and energy per 100 g (chicken breast FDC 2646170, eggs 748967, ground beef 2514744, whole milk 746782, black beans 173734, white bread 174924, American cheese 170853, white rice 169756)
Try it by text
Text Hi to (609) 806-5168, or message that number on WhatsApp, to start Nutrition Textapp. There is no app to install and it works on any phone that can text. Your first 20 messages are free. Learn more at textapp.co/apps/nutrition.
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