Most fruits and vegetables aren’t protein powerhouses, but some deliver a surprising amount. Edamame leads the pack at over 18 grams per cup, and several other vegetables and a handful of fruits can meaningfully contribute to your daily protein intake. The latest Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend 1.2 to 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day for adults, which works out to roughly 80 to 110 grams for a 150-pound person. While you’d struggle to hit that number on produce alone, choosing the right fruits and vegetables can close the gap.
Vegetables With the Most Protein
Edamame is the clear winner among vegetables. One cup of shelled, cooked edamame delivers 18.4 grams of protein, putting it in the same ballpark as a serving of meat. It also packs 8 grams of fiber, roughly a third of what most adults need in a day. Edamame is a soybean harvested young, and soy protein scores nearly perfect on digestibility tests, meaning your body absorbs and uses almost all of it. You can eat edamame steamed with a little salt, tossed into grain bowls, or blended into dips.
Green peas come in second with about 8 grams of protein per cup. That’s more than a whole egg. Peas also score well on protein quality assessments, with digestibility ratings between 0.78 and 0.91 out of a possible 1.0, depending on how they’re processed. Fresh, frozen, or canned all deliver similar protein content, so use whatever is convenient.
Broccoli gets a lot of attention as a “high-protein vegetable,” and while the raw numbers are modest (about 2.3 grams per cup), the protein-to-calorie ratio is genuinely impressive. A cup of raw broccoli has just 35 calories, so calorie for calorie, it’s denser in protein than many foods people think of as protein sources. You’d need to eat a lot of broccoli to get meaningful protein from it alone, but it adds up when combined with other high-protein choices throughout the day.
Other vegetables worth noting for their protein content include Brussels sprouts (about 3 grams per cup), asparagus (about 3 grams per cup), and sweet corn (about 5 grams per cup). Mushrooms, while technically fungi, also contribute around 3 grams per cup and work well as a meat substitute in cooking.
Fruits With the Most Protein
Fruit is not where most people look for protein, and for good reason. Most fruits contain less than 2 grams per serving. But guava is a standout exception, delivering 4.2 grams of protein per cup of raw fruit. That’s more than double what you’ll find in most other fruits and roughly the same as a whole avocado. Guava is also loaded with vitamin C and fiber, making it one of the most nutritionally dense fruits available.
Avocados provide about 4 grams of protein per whole fruit, though they’re better known for their 29 grams of healthy fat. If you already eat avocado regularly, it’s worth knowing that it contributes a small but real amount of protein to your diet.
Blackberries offer about 2 grams of protein per cup alongside 8 grams of fiber. Other berries like raspberries deliver similar numbers. Jackfruit, which has gained popularity as a pulled-pork substitute in plant-based cooking, actually contains only 1.2 to 1.9 grams of protein per 100 grams of ripe fruit. Its meaty texture is what makes it useful in savory dishes, not its protein content. Jackfruit seeds, on the other hand, contain significantly more protein (5 to 7 percent by weight) and are eaten boiled or roasted in many parts of South and Southeast Asia.
How Plant Protein Compares to Meat
A cup of cooked lentils (not a vegetable, strictly speaking, but often grouped with them in meal planning) contains about 18 grams of protein. A 100-gram serving of cooked ground beef has about 26 grams. So pound for pound, animal protein is more concentrated. But the difference narrows when you consider that plant foods bring fiber, vitamins, and minerals that meat doesn’t.
There’s a longstanding idea that plant proteins are “incomplete,” meaning they lack one or more essential amino acids and need to be carefully combined at every meal. Research published in Circulation found this isn’t really accurate. Any diet built on a variety of starches, vegetables, and fruits provides all essential amino acids in amounts that exceed minimum requirements. You don’t need to pair specific foods at each meal. Eating a reasonable variety over the course of a day handles amino acid balance on its own.
That said, not all plant proteins are absorbed equally well. Soy protein (found in edamame, tofu, and tempeh) scores nearly 1.0 on the PDCAAS scale, which measures how completely your body can use a protein source. Pea protein scores between 0.78 and 0.91. Both are high enough to make them reliable protein sources, though slightly below animal proteins like whey and eggs, which score a perfect 1.0.
Quick Reference: Protein per Cup
- Edamame (cooked, shelled): 18.4 g
- Green peas (raw): 7.9 g
- Sweet corn: ~5 g
- Guava (raw): 4.2 g
- Avocado (one whole fruit): 4 g
- Brussels sprouts: ~3 g
- Asparagus: ~3 g
- Broccoli (raw): 2.3 g
- Blackberries: 2 g
Making Produce Work for Protein
The practical takeaway is that vegetables can be a real protein source if you choose the right ones, while fruits are better thought of as a bonus. Edamame and green peas are the two vegetables that can anchor a meal’s protein content on their own. Everything else on this list works best as a supporting player, adding 2 to 5 grams here and there throughout the day.
Those small additions matter more than most people realize. If you eat broccoli as a side, guava as a snack, and green peas in a stir-fry, you’ve picked up 14 or 15 grams of protein from produce alone, before counting your main protein source. For someone aiming for 100 grams of protein daily, that’s a meaningful head start. The key is variety and consistency rather than relying on any single fruit or vegetable to do the heavy lifting.