Meat and poultry

How much protein is in 80/20 ground beef?

A 3 oz cooked patty of 80% lean ground beef has about 20 g of protein.

That's 24 g of protein per 100 g, or 9.8 g for every 100 calories.

Protein per serving

Protein and calories in common servings of 80/20 ground beef, from USDA data.
ServingWeightProteinCalories
3 oz85 g20 g209
4 oz113 g27 g278
100 g100 g24 g246

How 80/20 ground beef compares

Other meat and poultry, ranked by how much protein you get per 100 calories.

FoodProtein per 100 gProtein 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 beef90% lean, cooked patty 25 g 12 g
Ground chickencooked crumbles 23 g 12 g
Hamsliced deli ham 17 g 10 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 80% lean ground beef covers about 66% of that.

Work out your own daily and per-meal target with the protein calculator.

Related reading

Nutrition data: USDA FoodData Central ("Beef, ground, 80% lean meat / 20% fat, patty, cooked, pan-broiled", FDC ID 171798). Actual values vary by brand, recipe and cooking method, so treat these numbers as close estimates.