US Supermarket High-Protein Shopping List (Walmart, Target, Trader Joe's, Costco, Aldi)

TL;DR

• This list is for the United States. Pack sizes are in ounces and pounds, prices in dollars, and every chain named actually exists near you.
• Aldi and Walmart win on raw cost per gram of protein; Costco wins on bulk staples; Trader Joe’s wins on convenience items you’ll actually eat.
• Cost per gram of protein is the number to shop on. Under 2 cents is excellent, 2 to 4 cents is normal, over 6 cents means you’re buying convenience.
• Rotisserie chicken, store-brand Greek yoghurt, cottage cheese, eggs, canned tuna and frozen chicken breast do most of the work for most people.
• A week of high-protein groceries runs roughly $45 to $65 per person if you shop the list rather than the aisles.

Most macro tracking advice online was written for someone shopping at Tesco or Lidl, our own UK supermarket list included. The brands don’t exist here, the pack sizes are wrong, and the prices are in the wrong currency. This is the American version: what to put in the cart, at which chain, and why.

Prices below are typical 2026 US ranges and vary by region. The ratios hold even when the absolute numbers drift.

The number to shop on

Price per package tells you nothing useful. Price per ounce tells you a little. Cost per gram of protein tells you everything.

Take the price, find total grams of protein in the package, divide. A 32 oz tub of store-brand plain Greek yoghurt at $4.50 holds around 160 g of protein, so about 2.8 cents per gram. A 5.3 oz single-serve flavoured cup at $1.50 holds 15 g, so 10 cents per gram. Same dairy case, more than triple the cost for the identical macro. This is the same logic behind own-brand vs big-brand protein: the name on the tub rarely tracks the price per gram.

Rough bands: under 2 cents per gram is excellent, 2 to 4 cents is normal for good whole food, 4 to 6 cents is acceptable for things you’d otherwise skip, and above 6 cents you’re paying for convenience. That’s a legitimate purchase as long as you’re making it on purpose.

Where each chain actually wins

Aldi

The cheapest per gram on staples, full stop. Store-brand plain Greek yoghurt in 32 oz tubs, eggs, frozen boneless skinless chicken breast in 3 lb bags, canned tuna multipacks, and cottage cheese all land at or under the cheapest equivalent elsewhere. The catch is range: Aldi stocks one version of a thing, and if it’s out, it’s out. Treat it as your staples run, not your whole shop.

Walmart

Best combination of price and availability. Great Value store brand covers nearly everything on this list within a cent or two of Aldi, and the frozen aisle is deeper. Frozen shrimp, frozen tilapia, canned chicken and large-format peanut butter are all strong here. Walmart is also where the protein powder price per serving is usually lowest outside Costco.

Costco

Wins on bulk, loses on anything you won’t finish. Rotisserie chicken at around $5 for roughly 3 lb of cooked bird is one of the best protein deals in American retail, near 1 cent per gram. Kirkland canned chicken, large bags of frozen chicken breast, 5 lb bags of frozen shrimp, egg whites in cartons and whey protein by the tub are all excellent. Only worth it if you have freezer space and a household that eats through it.

Target

Middling on price, strong on Good and Gather store-brand convenience items and on stocking things the others don’t. Useful for high-protein snacks (see our best high-protein snacks list for the ones worth buying instead of building), deli meats and the occasional decent sale on yoghurt. Not where you build a weekly shop from scratch.

Trader Joe’s

Not the cheapest, but the highest hit rate on food you’ll actually eat when you’re tired. Frozen grilled chicken strips, canned tuna, cottage cheese, chicken sausages, hard-boiled eggs and the various high-protein frozen meals are all reasonable value for the convenience they buy. Their pricing is flat nationally, which makes it predictable.

Kroger

Regionally strong, and the Simple Truth and Kroger store brands are competitive with Walmart on dairy and canned goods. Digital coupons and the weekly circular matter more here than at any other chain on this list, and meat markdowns late in the day are worth planning around.

The actual list

Dairy case

• Plain Greek yoghurt, 32 oz tub, store brand. Around 15 to 17 g protein per 5.3 oz serving, $4 to $5.50 per tub. Nonfat and low fat are both fine; pick by taste. Flavoured single cups cost two to three times more per gram.
• Cottage cheese, 16 or 24 oz, store brand. Roughly 11 to 14 g protein per half cup, $2.50 to $4. Consistently among the cheapest protein in the store. Buy plain and add your own fruit or pepper.
• Eggs, 18 count. Around 6 g each. Price swings hard with supply, but even at elevated prices they stay competitive.
• Liquid egg whites, 32 oz carton. Around 5 g per 3 tbsp. Useful for pushing protein up without fat or calories.
• Skim or 1% milk, gallon. 8 g per cup at a very low cost per gram. Underrated.
• Part-skim string cheese, multipack. 6 to 7 g per stick. Portable and hard to overeat.

Meat, poultry and fish

• Rotisserie chicken. Costco and Sam’s Club are the value leaders. Strip it the day you buy it and refrigerate the meat.
• Frozen boneless skinless chicken breast, 3 to 5 lb bag. 23 to 26 g protein per 4 oz cooked. The workhorse.
• 93/7 ground turkey or lean ground beef, 1 lb. 22 to 24 g per 4 oz cooked.
• Canned tuna in water, multipack. 20 to 22 g per can for under a dollar each. Among the best cost per gram anywhere.
• Canned chicken, 12.5 oz. 30 to 40 g per can. Better than it sounds in a wrap or mixed with Greek yoghurt.
• Frozen shrimp, 1 to 2 lb bag. 20 g per 4 oz. Cooks in four minutes from frozen.
• Pork tenderloin. Often overlooked and frequently cheaper per pound than chicken breast, at similar leanness.

Pantry and freezer

• Canned black beans and chickpeas. 7 to 8 g per half cup, plus fibre. Cheapest protein in the store by a distance.
• Lentils, dry, 1 lb bag. 18 g per cooked cup.
• Whey or casein protein powder, 5 lb tub. Costco and Walmart lead on price per serving, typically 60 cents to $1.20 for 24 g.
• Edamame, frozen, shelled. 18 g per cup.
• Frozen vegetables, any. Not protein, but they’re what makes a high-protein week survivable.

Building the week

Buy protein first and fill the rest of the cart around it. A workable pattern for one person: two dairy anchors from the first list, three protein sources from the second, beans and a grain from the third, and vegetables to volume. If you’re assembling a kitchen from scratch around this list, our macro tracker starter kit covers the scale, containers and staples worth owning.

Cook once, eat three times. A 3 lb bag of chicken breast, a pound of ground turkey and a rotisserie chicken cover most dinners for a week between them, and the leftovers are what stops the 9pm delivery order. If meal prep itself is the part you’re stuck on, the beginner’s guide to meal prep walks through batching this list into actual meals.

If you want to know what any of this actually does to your daily numbers, log it. A photo of the plate takes two seconds in Chowdown and tells you whether the shop worked or whether you bought a cart full of good intentions and hit 90 g of protein anyway. It also keeps you honest on the real cost of “free” tracking apps: buying smart at the register only pays off if you’re actually logging what you cook.