Chicken

Chicken is the poster for muscle-building food. A nice, lean 100-gram slab of this white meat will fill you with a hearty serving of 31 grams of protein with only 4 grams of fat.

Fish

Yielding around 25 grams of protein per 100-gram serving. Salmon is loaded with heart-healthy monounsaturated fats and omega-3 fatty acids. It’s also an excellent source of vitamin D, fish, such as tuna or salmon, are simply the best.

Soy

As one of the few plant sources that provide complete protein, soy packs its protein in style. Just one cup of cooked soybeans contains over 20 grams of amino acids. Soy is also stacked with other important vitamins and minerals, making this meat alternative one of the healthiest muscle-building foods around.

Cottage Cheese

Just 1/2 cup of low-fat cottage cheese packs a whopping 14 grams of protein in only 80 calories with less than 2 grams of fat.

Quinoa

It contains all nine of the essential amino acids. This gluten-free food is also easy to digest and is high in fibre magnesium and iron.

Almonds

1/4 cup of almonds contains nearly 8 grams of protein. Almonds are also an excellent source of heart-healthy monounsaturated fats and magnesium. Magnesium is an abundant mineral that’s used in more than 300 biochemical reactions in the body and is specifically known to be involved in energy metabolism and protein synthesis.

Oysters

100 grams of cooked Pacific oysters yield upward of 20 grams of protein with only 5 grams of fat. Oysters also provide more zinc than any other food. Like magnesium, zinc is another mineral that’s essential for protein synthesis, making oysters a top food for muscle growth.

Lean ground beef

100 grams of lean ground beef contain upward of 27 grams of protein. Although such a serving also contains 11 grams of fat and around 200-plus calories, what separates beef from its other meat competitors are all the additional vitamins and minerals it contains. Beef is teeming with vitamin B12, zinc and iron all of which are important for muscle growth and development.

Eggs

Each egg comes loaded with around 5 to 6 grams of protein at the very low caloric cost of only 60 calories. Egg protein is considered to be the most readily utilizable protein with the highest biological value of any whole food. This means that the protein in eggs is used most efficiently for muscular growth.