How to Get Enough Protein on a Vegan Diet

How to Actually Get Enough Protein on a Plant Based Diet

I've heard the same story so many times over the years. Someone goes plant based, cuts out meat, eggs, fish and dairy, feels rubbish within a few weeks, and decides the whole thing "just didn't work" for them. I'm fairly sure my own dad did exactly this back in the 80s, gave it a go, felt terrible, and wrote the whole thing off. And I still see it happen now, all the time. Nine times out of ten what actually happened is they never replaced the protein those foods were providing. It's not really their fault, plant proteins usually weren't something we grew up learning about or building meals around, especially in the West, so there's a real gap in knowledge that has nothing to do with willpower or whether the diet itself is sound.

Protein is probably the nutrient that requires the biggest mindset shift when you go plant based. But once you understand how it actually works, it's a lot less complicated than the internet makes it look.

Protein is built from smaller units called amino acids. There are 20 in total, and 9 of those are essential, meaning our bodies can't make them, so we have to get them from food. Those amino acids are what your body uses to build and repair muscle, produce hormones and enzymes, support immune function, and recover and adapt after training. When you eat protein, your body breaks it down into those amino acids and rebuilds them into whatever it needs at the time.

Animal proteins are often called complete proteins because they naturally contain all 9 essential amino acids in decent amounts. A few plant foods do too, tofu, tempeh, edamame, soy milk, soy yoghurt, and quinoa among them. Other plant proteins are a bit lower in one or two aminos. Seitan, for example, is very high in protein but relatively low in lysine, while most legumes are the other way round, higher in lysine but lower in methionine. This is where the idea of protein combining comes from, and it's also where a lot of people get needlessly stressed. You do not need to perfectly combine proteins at every single meal. Your body stores and recycles amino acids across the day, so your total intake over 24 hours matters far more than what's on your plate at any one sitting.

That said, I don't want to undersell protein quality either, especially if muscle growth or recovery matters to you. If one essential amino acid is running low, muscle protein synthesis can be limited, a bit like trying to finish building something when you've run out of one material halfway through. So while you don't need to obsess over combining at every meal, building your week around a variety of protein-rich plant foods still matters.

Gram for gram, some plant proteins do stimulate muscle protein synthesis slightly less effectively than something like whey, usually because they're a bit lower in leucine, the amino acid most responsible for triggering that process, and slightly less digestible overall. But that doesn't mean you can't build muscle well on a plant based diet. When total protein intake is sufficient, calories are adequate and resistance training is happening consistently, plant protein holds up extremely well. A 2023 systematic review found no meaningful difference in strength or muscle gain between plant and animal protein once total intake was matched. In practice, what this tends to mean for plant-based eaters is slightly larger portions, a bit more intention with sources, and aiming towards the higher end of protein recommendations rather than the bare minimum.

Speaking of which, the commonly cited 0.8g per kilo of bodyweight is really a minimum to avoid deficiency, not a target for anyone training, recovering or trying to maintain muscle as they age. For active people that figure sits more around 1.6 to 2.2g per kilo. Interestingly, more isn't always better either, studies comparing 0.8, 1.6 and 2.4g per kilo show a big jump in benefit between 0.8 and 1.6, and then very little extra gain beyond that. Your body doesn't store excess protein particularly well. Once it's had what it needs for repair and recovery, the extra tends to just get used for energy, much like carbs or fat would be, so endlessly stacking more protein on top isn't usually doing what people think it's doing.

If you're new to plant based cooking, learning how to make tofu taste good, in a way you actually enjoy, is the first thing I'd suggest working on. There really are hundreds of ways to prepare it, different textures, different cooking techniques, marinades, presses, so it's worth spending a bit of time trialling what you like until it becomes a proper weeknight staple rather than something you're forcing down.

The genuinely good news is that once you know where to look, hitting your protein target on a plant based diet is a lot more straightforward than it sounds. Tofu, tempeh, edamame, soy milk, pea protein, lentils, beans, chickpeas, seitan and quinoa will get you most of the way there. Soy in particular is worth paying attention to, it's a complete protein, highly digestible, rich in leucine, cheap, and endlessly versatile, which is probably why it's consumed so widely across large parts of Asia. Tommy and I usually get through a couple of portions of soy a day, tofu most often, since it's my default protein, we always have it in the fridge, it's one of the first things we look for in a new supermarket abroad, and so many of our meals rely on it.

I don't think you need to overthink combinations, but naturally balanced meals do help you hit your targets without much effort. Beans and rice, hummus and pita, tofu and noodles, a lentil curry with rice, peanut butter on wholegrain toast. None of these are special vegan hacks, they're combinations people across different cultures have been eating for centuries, we've just started treating them like a modern discovery.

That's actually one of the things that struck me most travelling around Asia. Plant protein isn't a wellness trend out there, it's just how people eat. In Japan, soy foods like tofu, miso, natto and edamame are everyday staples rather than health foods, nobody's treating them as a protein hack. In parts of China and Vietnam tofu is one of the cheapest and most accessible proteins going. And in India, where huge parts of the population eat predominantly vegetarian, lentils, beans and pulses are the backbone of most meals, not an afterthought. Japan, a country consistently linked to exceptional longevity and low obesity, eats soy daily as a matter of course, and there's research tying that pattern to reduced breast cancer risk and better long-term health outcomes. None of this is new. We've just been slow to catch on in the West.

Protein on a plant based diet does take a bit more intention at first, I won't pretend otherwise. But once you understand where it comes from, roughly how much you need, and how to build meals around a decent variety of sources, it stops being complicated. For a lot of people it ends up going the other way entirely, building meals around legumes, soy, grains, nuts and seeds brings in more variety and more fibre than they were getting before, not less.

If you'd like help working out your own protein needs, whether that's for performance, building muscle, recovery, or just feeling more confident that your plant based meals are actually doing what you need them to, get in touch.