# Winter Recipes with Protein: Five Dishes with 25 Grams > Five winter recipes with around 25 grams of protein each: curry, barley soup, skyr porridge, lentil salad and roasted vegetables. With amounts and a plan. A soup warms. A stew fills. But most winter dishes have a problem: they deliver plenty of warmth and little protein. A classic vegetable soup comes to 5 to 8 grams per plate. Anyone who trains, wants to keep muscle or simply stay full longer needs 25 to 30 grams per meal. These five recipes deliver that, each in 30 to 45 minutes and each with a portion that is still good on day two. ## Why 25 grams per meal The body cannot store protein the way it stores fat or carbohydrates. It uses what arrives with each meal and for building muscle it needs a certain threshold. Nutrition research links portions of 25 to 40 grams with optimal muscle protein synthesis, with older people closer to the upper end. Spread over three meals that gives you 75 to 120 grams a day, which for most active people falls in the target range of 1.2 to 1.6 grams per kilo of body weight. Then there is satiety. Protein keeps you full longer than carbohydrates. A lunch with 25 grams gets you to the evening without a snack. ## Three rules for more protein in winter The five recipes below all follow the same pattern. Once you know it, you can rebuild any winter dish of your own. First: plan the protein source first, then the vegetables. If you start with "soup", you end up with stock and carrots. If you start with "200 g chicken", you build the soup around it. Second: pulses as the base, not the side. A tin of chickpeas or 150 g of lentils are cheap in any stew, keep for ages and deliver 17 to 20 grams. Third: dairy at the end. A spoonful of low-fat quark or skyr on the soup, in the porridge or as a dip adds 8 to 10 grams without changing a recipe. With these three rules almost every winter dish gets above 25 grams. The five recipes show what that looks like in practice. ## 1. Winter curry with chickpeas Ingredients for 2 portions: 1 onion, 1 thumb-sized piece of ginger, 2 tbsp red curry paste, 400 ml coconut milk, 2 tins of chickpeas (400 g each, drained), 200 g carrots, 150 g rice, 1 lime, coriander. Fry the onion and ginger in coconut oil, briefly toast the curry paste, deglaze with coconut milk. Simmer the chickpeas and carrots for 15 minutes. Season with lime juice, serve on rice. Around 25 grams of protein per portion, vegan, ready in 30 minutes. ## 2. Barley soup with chicken Ingredients for 2 portions: 200 g chicken breast, 120 g pearl barley, 1 leek, 2 carrots, 1 celery stalk, 1 litre vegetable stock, 2 bay leaves, parsley. Dice the vegetables and sweat them in olive oil, add the barley, pour in the stock and add the bay leaves. Simmer for 30 minutes. Dice the chicken and cook it with the soup for the last 10 minutes. Serve with parsley. A good 25 grams per portion. The soup thickens on day two, so just add a little water. ## 3. Skyr porridge with walnuts Ingredients for 1 portion: 50 g rolled oats, 200 ml milk, 150 g skyr, 20 g walnuts, 1 apple, cinnamon. Simmer the oats in the milk for 5 minutes, take off the heat and stir in the skyr so it does not curdle. Coarsely grate the apple, scatter it over the top with the walnuts and cinnamon. Around 30 grams of protein and ready in 10 minutes. This is the breakfast for training days. ## 4. Warm lentil salad with beetroot and feta Ingredients for 2 portions: 150 g beluga lentils, 2 beetroots, 150 g feta, 1 red onion, 30 g pumpkin seeds, 2 tbsp olive oil, 1 tbsp cider vinegar, parsley. Peel the beetroot, cut into wedges and roast for 30 minutes at 200 degrees. Cook the lentils in salted water for 20 minutes, drain. Finely slice the onion and add it to the warm lentils with the oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. Top with the beetroot, crumbled feta and toasted pumpkin seeds. Around 30 grams per portion, warm or cold. ## 5. Roasted vegetables with tofu and tahini Ingredients for 2 portions: 300 g firm tofu, 1 sweet potato, 1 head of broccoli, 1 red pepper, 2 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tbsp sesame oil, 2 tbsp tahini, 1 lemon, sesame seeds. Pat the tofu dry, dice it and marinate in soy sauce and sesame oil. Cut the vegetables into chunks, put everything on a tray and roast for 25 minutes at 210 degrees. Stir the tahini with lemon juice and a little water until smooth, drizzle over the tray, scatter with sesame seeds. Around 30 grams per portion, vegan. ## How to plan the week The easiest route to 25 grams per meal is batch cooking. On Sunday cook two recipes in double quantity, for example the curry and the soup. That takes care of four weekday lunches. Curry and soup keep for three days in the fridge, the lentil salad for two, the roasted vegetables for three. The porridge is made fresh. A kitchen scale is worth it for the first two weeks. After that you know the amounts by eye: a palm of chicken or fish, a whole tin of chickpeas, a large pot of skyr. Label the boxes with the weekday so you do not have to think in the morning. And freeze one portion of curry for the day when the plan falls through. ## Frequently asked questions **Can I make the recipes vegan?** The curry and the roasted vegetables already are. For the porridge replace skyr with a high-protein soy yoghurt, for the lentil salad replace feta with roasted chickpeas and in the soup replace chicken with smoked tofu. **How do I estimate 25 grams of protein without a scale?** Rule of thumb: 100 g chicken, fish or firm tofu deliver 20 to 25 grams. 150 g skyr or low-fat quark 15 to 18 grams. A tin of chickpeas around 17 grams, 50 g dry lentils around 12 grams. Two of these building blocks per meal is almost always enough. **Is plant protein enough?** Yes, if you combine. Pulses plus grains as in the curry with rice, or tofu plus sesame, complement each other in amino acids. Plant-based portions may be a little larger because they are less dense. That is why the vegan recipes here are built around 300 g tofu and two tins of chickpeas.