Download the complete Hawker Protein Efficiency Table Guide in PDF
Ask most people in Singapore which hawker dish is the high-protein option and you'll hear chicken rice. It's a reasonable guess. It's also wrong by a wide margin.
We ranked 41 hawker dishes on a single number: grams of protein per 100 calories. Not total protein — protein relative to what the dish costs you. Chicken rice lands mid-table at 4.1. The top of the board is a $4 soup most people order as a side, and it scores 16.6.
Every figure here comes from the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics at KK Women's and Children's Hospital, published through SingHealth HealthXchange. These are dishes dietitians weighed and measured — not estimates, not app entries, not our own guesses.
Why protein per calorie, and not just protein
Total protein tells you almost nothing on its own.
Char kway teow has 23g of protein. That sounds excellent, until you see it arrives with 744 calories. Fried rice has 28g — the third-highest protein figure on the entire board — inside 907 calories, the most calorific plate we measured.
Both dishes are technically high in protein. Neither is an efficient way to get it.
Protein per 100 calories answers the question that actually matters when you're standing at the stall: for every 100 calories I spend here, how much protein do I get back?
The formula is simple enough to check yourself:
g per 100 kcal = protein (g) ÷ energy (kcal) × 100
How the tiers work
| Tier | Score | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| S | 8.0+ | Exceptional. One dish qualifies. |
| A | 5.0–7.9 | Strong. Order these without thinking about it. |
| B | 4.0–4.9 | Solid. Most decent hawker meals live here. |
| C | 3.0–3.9 | The calorie cost is starting to outweigh the protein. |
| D | Under 3.0 | You're eating for the taste. Nothing wrong with that — just know it. |
Tiers are assigned on the score as displayed to one decimal place. Portions vary from stall to stall, so treat every figure as roughly ±10%.
Of the 41 dishes: 1 in S, 8 in A, 12 in B, 11 in C, 9 in D.
The one dish in S-tier
Chicken soup with Chinese herbs — 16.6 g per 100 kcal.
534g, measured. 145 calories. 24 grams of protein.
That is the same protein as a plate of chicken rice, for less than a quarter of the calories. It is more than double the next best dish on the board. Nothing else comes close, and it's the thing most people order as an afterthought next to something else.
The honest caveat, because it matters: KKH measured 909mg of sodium in that bowl — roughly 45% of an adult's daily allowance — and just 1g of carbohydrate. It is not a meal on its own, and KKH's own guidance is to have it alongside vegetables and steamed rice. A high efficiency score means the protein is cheap in calories. It doesn't mean the dish is complete, and it doesn't mean eat it every day.
Four patterns worth knowing
1. Soup beats dry. Every single time.
Three dishes appear on the KKH tables in both forms. The soup version wins all three, and it isn't close:
- Wonton mee — soup 6.6, dry 4.6
- Bak chor mee — soup 4.7, dry 3.9
- Fishball noodle — soup 5.4, dry 5.1
Wonton mee soup is 290 calories. Wonton mee dry is 411 — for the exact same 19g of protein. Same stall, same order, one word different at the counter.
The reason is straightforward: in a dry noodle dish the calories are in the oil and the sauce, and neither of those brings any protein with it.
2. The coconut tax
Two dishes are both called laksa. One is built on coconut milk, one on tamarind.
- Penang laksa — 377 kcal, 18g protein, 4.8
- Laksa lemak — 591 kcal, 17g protein, 2.9
Nearly identical protein. A 214-calorie gap. And the saturated fat difference is the part that should stop you: 0.6g in the Penang version against 17.8g in laksa lemak — most of an adult's daily allowance in one bowl.
The coconut is doing all of the damage and none of the work.
3. The skin tax
Duck rice, ordered two ways, same 24g of protein either way:
- Skin removed — 530 kcal, 4.5
- Roasted with skin — 673 kcal, 3.6
Asking for the skin off moves duck rice up a full tier and saves 143 calories. It costs nothing and takes three words at the stall.
4. What the bottom of the board actually looks like
Fried carrot cake: 2g of protein in 493 calories. A score of 0.4.
That is the lowest number on the board by some distance, and it surprises people every time. Fried carrot cake is radish, egg and sweet sauce cooked in a lot of oil — it was never a protein dish, it just looks like one because it's savoury and comes with egg.
It isn't a dish to avoid. It's a dish to stop counting as protein.
How to actually use this
Find your usual order. If it's C or D, you don't have to stop eating it — you need to know what it's costing you and close the gap somewhere else in the day.
Three rules that cover most situations:
- If a dish comes soup or dry, take the soup. It's the cheapest upgrade available to you.
- If two dishes at the same stall are one tier apart, take the higher one. You're already there. It's free.
- Ask for the skin off, less gravy, more vegetables. KKH's own notes repeat this on nearly every dish, and it's the difference between a C and a B.
If your order is C or D and you're not changing it
A scoop of whey and casein protein is roughly 24g of protein in 110–120 calories — about 20 g per 100 kcal on its own, higher than every hawker dish on this board except the herbal soup.
Added to a meal, it drags the whole plate up:
| Dish | On its own | With a scoop |
|---|---|---|
| Char kway teow | 3.1 | 5.4 |
| Chicken rice | 4.1 | 6.7 |
| Laksa lemak | 2.9 | 5.8 |
| Fried carrot cake | 0.4 | 4.2 |
To be clear about what that does and doesn't mean: it does not make fried carrot cake healthy. It makes the day work. You still ate 493 calories of radish and oil, and the sodium and saturated fat are unchanged. What changes is whether you hit your protein target without having to give up the food you actually want to eat.
Sources
All nutritional values are from the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, KK Women's and Children's Hospital (KKH), a member of the SingHealth group, published via HealthXchange. Retrieved 28 July 2026.
- Chinese hawker food — dim sum, char kway teow
- Chinese hawker food — duck rice, fishball noodle
- Chinese hawker food — hokkien mee, lor mee
- Chinese hawker food — wonton mee
- Malay breakfast foods — nasi lemak, mee siam, soto
- Indian breads — prata, mutton murtabak
We did not measure these dishes. KKH's dietitians did, and we've cited exactly where each figure came from so you can check any of them. If you find an error, tell us and we'll correct it publicly.
General information only. Not medical or dietary advice.
CLOSING BLOCK
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What is the highest protein hawker food in Singapore? By protein per calorie, chicken soup with Chinese herbs ranks highest at 16.6g of protein per 100 calories — 24g of protein in only 145 calories. By total protein in one serving, lontong with sayur lodeh is highest at 46g, though it carries 798 calories.
Which Singapore hawker dish has the most protein per calorie? Chicken soup with Chinese herbs, at 16.6g per 100 calories. It scores more than double the next best dish, wonton mee soup at 6.6.
Is char kway teow high in protein? Char kway teow contains 23g of protein per 384g serving, which is genuinely high. However it also carries 744 calories, giving it a protein efficiency of 3.1g per 100 calories — a C on our scale. The protein is real; the calorie cost is what places it low.
Is chicken rice good for building muscle? A 382g serving of roasted chicken rice provides 25g of protein in 607 calories, scoring 4.1g per 100 calories. That is respectable but mid-table. Asking for steamed chicken with the skin removed improves it, and pairing it with a bowl of herbal soup is one of the most efficient combinations available at a hawker centre.
Should I order my noodles soup or dry? Soup, in every case we could compare. Wonton mee soup scores 6.6 against 4.6 for the dry version, with identical protein — the dry version simply carries 121 more calories from oil and sauce. Bak chor mee and fishball noodles follow the same pattern.
Which hawker dish has the lowest protein? Fried carrot cake, at 2g of protein per 295g serving of 493 calories — a score of 0.4g per 100 calories, the lowest on our table of 41 dishes.
How was this data calculated? Protein and calorie figures are taken directly from measurements published by the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics at KK Women's and Children's Hospital via SingHealth HealthXchange. The efficiency score is protein in grams divided by calories, multiplied by 100. Portions vary between stalls, so figures should be treated as approximate within about 10%.
