Meat and poultry
How much protein is in ground beef?
A 3 oz cooked patty of 90% lean ground beef has about 21 g of protein.
That's 25 g of protein per 100 g, or 12 g for every 100 calories.
Protein per serving
| Serving | Weight | Protein | Calories |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 oz | 85 g | 21 g | 173 |
| 4 oz | 113 g | 29 g | 231 |
| 100 g | 100 g | 25 g | 204 |
How ground beef compares
Other meat and poultry, ranked by how much protein you get per 100 calories.
| Food | Protein per 100 g | Protein per 100 calories |
|---|---|---|
| Turkey breastmeat only, roasted | 30 g | 21 g |
| Rotisserie chickenbreast meat | 28 g | 20 g |
| Deli turkeysliced turkey breast, low salt | 22 g | 20 g |
| Chicken breastskinless, roasted | 31 g | 19 g |
| Pork tenderloinlean, roasted | 26 g | 18 g |
| Sirloin steaktop sirloin, lean, broiled | 30 g | 16 g |
| Pork chopcenter loin, lean, broiled | 27 g | 15 g |
| Chicken thighskinless, roasted | 25 g | 14 g |
| Ground turkey93% lean, cooked | 27 g | 13 g |
| Ground chickencooked crumbles | 23 g | 12 g |
| Hamsliced deli ham | 17 g | 10 g |
| Ground beef (80/20)80% lean, cooked patty | 24 g | 9.8 g |
| Chicken wingsroasted, with skin | 24 g | 9.4 g |
| Ground lambbroiled | 25 g | 8.8 g |
| Beef jerkychopped and formed | 33 g | 8.1 g |
| Baconbaked | 36 g | 6.5 g |
How it fits into a meal
For building muscle, Schoenfeld and Aragon's 2018 review of the research suggests about 0.4 g of protein per kilogram of body weight at each meal, spread over at least four meals a day. At 170 lb (77 kg), that's about 31 g a meal. A 3 oz cooked patty of 90% lean ground beef covers about 69% of that.
Work out your own daily and per-meal target with the protein calculator.
Related reading
Nutrition data: USDA FoodData Central ("Beef, ground, 90% lean meat / 10% fat, patty, cooked, pan-broiled", FDC ID 171793). Actual values vary by brand, recipe and cooking method, so treat these numbers as close estimates.