Protein without the chicken and rice

• Greek yoghurt, eggs, and tinned fish are cheap, quick, and high in protein.

• You do not need a meal-prep Sunday to eat enough protein each day.

• Variety makes it easier to stay consistent — boring diets get abandoned first.

That combination became gym-culture shorthand, not a requirement. Protein is protein whether it comes from a tin of sardines, a Tesco Finest beef lasagne, or a bowl of Greek yoghurt at midnight. The goal is simply to get enough of it across the day, from foods you will actually eat. If chicken and rice makes you want to order a Domino's out of spite, it is working against you, not for you. So stop eating it. Here are the options that actually work for people living normal UK lives.

Eggs are the most underrated food in this country. Two eggs gives you around 12 grams of protein and takes four minutes to scramble. A full carton is under £2.50 in most supermarkets. Tinned fish — sardines, mackerel, tuna — is cheap, requires no cooking, and keeps in the cupboard. A tin of mackerel in brine has more protein than most protein bars and costs less than one. Greek yoghurt, particularly the full-fat kind, is another one. A large pot from Lidl or Aldi sits around 20 grams of protein and works as a breakfast, a snack, or a base for a sauce. Cottage cheese fell out of fashion somewhere in the 1980s and never fully came back, which is a shame, because it is high in protein, low in faff, and tastes fine with a bit of hot sauce on top. Quark is similar and easier to find than it used to be. None of these need preparation. You open them and eat them. That matters when you have just done the school run and have 11 minutes before your next meeting.

A Tesco meal deal with a chicken sandwich and a yoghurt hits a reasonable amount of protein for lunch without you thinking about it at all. A Nando's quarter chicken with a side of rice and beans is a solid meal. A supermarket ready meal beef chilli or a lentil dhal with some added cheese both work. The point is that you are probably already eating protein at several points in the day. The issue is usually the gaps — the morning when you grab toast and nothing else, or the afternoon when the only thing in reach is a packet of crisps. Closing those gaps does not require a new food philosophy. It often just means adding something to what you already do: a boiled egg alongside your toast, some hummus and a couple of oatcakes in your bag, a small tin of tuna in your desk drawer. None of this is revolutionary. It is just slightly more deliberate than before. Deliberate is the whole game.

They are not magic, but they are not bad either. A decent whey protein powder mixed with milk is a straightforward option if you genuinely cannot get food in. Most own-brand supermarket shakes are fine and cost significantly less than the branded ones. Protein bars are useful when you are on a long shift or stuck somewhere with no other options. Read the label before you buy them. Some are essentially chocolate bars with extra marketing. A Greggs sausage roll has more protein than several well-known protein bars, which tells you something. That said, getting most of your protein from real food is easier to sustain long term. Shakes work brilliantly as a backup. They work less well as the main strategy, because real food keeps you fuller and gives you everything else your body needs alongside the protein. Use them when life is awkward, not as the plan itself. Life will be awkward often enough that you will use them plenty.

Eggs, Greek yoghurt, cottage cheese, and quark are the easiest high-protein options for most vegetarians. Beyond that, lentils and chickpeas are solid — a tin of chickpeas added to a curry or soup adds a meaningful amount. Edamame beans are worth knowing about: you can buy them frozen in most big supermarkets and eat them as a snack. Tofu is fine if you like it; silken tofu in particular works blended into sauces or smoothies if the texture puts you off eating it straight. Hard cheeses are surprisingly high in protein, though they also come with a lot of fat, so they are more of a topper than a main source. The key for vegetarians is stacking several of these across the day rather than looking for one big source, because most plant proteins are lower per gram than meat or fish.

It can be, but only if you are actually struggling to get enough protein from food. If two scoops of whey is the easiest way for you to top up on a busy day, then yes, it is worth the money. If you are already eating eggs, meat, fish, or dairy fairly regularly, you may not need it at all. Protein powder is a supplement in the literal sense — it supplements what you are not getting elsewhere. It is not a reward for going to the gym, and it is not compulsory. Buy it if the alternative is skipping protein entirely. Do not buy it because you feel like you should.

Portable, no-prep protein is your friend. Boiled eggs, individual pots of Greek yoghurt, small tins of tuna with a fork, protein bars as a genuine backup, packs of cooked ham or prawns. None of these need a microwave or a specific time of day. When you are working nights or rotating shifts, the usual breakfast-lunch-dinner logic breaks down, and that is fine. Think in terms of what you have eaten across the last 16 hours rather than per meal. A bag of cooked prawns from the fridge aisle and a pot of hummus eaten at 3am is a perfectly good source of protein. Shift workers often do better with slightly higher protein intake because sleep disruption affects hunger hormones, but the principle is the same: get it in where you can, with foods you can actually access and stomach at that hour.