How to use vegan protein powder: liquid, heat and baking ratios

Shake it into cold liquid, stir it into a hot drink as a paste first, and bake it in at no more than a quarter of the flour. Vega’s baking guide says 1/8 to 1/4; Bob’s Red Mill says up to 25% for its hemp protein. For cooking, buy unflavored and unsweetened. Our pick is Naked Pea.

This page used to tell you to swap up to a third of the flour for protein powder. Further down, the same page said a quarter cup, and it gave a source for neither. Of the seven makers we read for this rewrite, two put a number on it, and both stop at a quarter. A cup of flour is 16 tablespoons, so a third would be about 5 tablespoons of powder (our arithmetic); Vega’s range is 2 to 4. Four of the other five say their powder can go into baked goods without giving any ratio at all, and the fifth’s directions stop at a drink. Whether you need a powder in the first place is a separate question, and our piece on whether vegans get enough protein takes it on. This one assumes the tub is already in the cupboard.

How much liquid goes with a scoop

Makers measure a serving in scoops, tablespoons or quarter cups, so the table gives each one as the maker states it, with grams where the maker lists them. Prices further down are the makers’ own on 1 November 2026 and change often.

Powder	Serving, as the maker gives it	Protein	Liquid the maker suggests	Sweetened
Naked Pea	2 scoops (30 g)	27 g	6 to 10 oz	No, one ingredient
Anthony’s Pea Protein Powder	1 tbsp (10 g)	8 g	None given	No, one ingredient
NOW Sports Pea Protein, unflavored	1 level scoop (33 g)	24 g	12 oz of cold water, juice or another drink	No, one ingredient
Orgain Organic Protein Plant Based, Natural Unsweetened	2 scoops	21 g	8 to 12 fl oz, or 12 to 16 oz	No
Vega Essential Protein	2 scoops	25 g	12 fl oz, ice-cold	Yes, stevia
Bob’s Red Mill Hemp Protein Powder	1/4 cup (31 g)	12 g	None given	No, one ingredient
Manitoba Harvest Max Fiber, Unsweetened	1/4 cup (37 g)	13 g	None given	No, one ingredient

The range runs from 6 oz of liquid for two scoops of Naked Pea to 16 oz for two scoops of Orgain, and Orgain manages two answers on one page: 8 to 12 fl oz in its how-to steps, 12 to 16 oz in its FAQ. Take that as permission to start low and add more until the shake is as thin as you like it. Orgain is firmer on order than on volume. Liquid goes into the shaker first and the powder on top, to stop it clumping. Another answer in Orgain’s FAQ suggests sweetening the unsweetened powder with honey, which most vegans will want to read as maple syrup.

Stirring it into hot food

For a hot drink, Orgain has you stir the powder into a little room-temperature liquid first, then slowly add the hot water or milk, and if it still clumps, let the liquid cool a little before trying again. Its help center puts soups and stews on the list of places its powders can go, and Bob’s Red Mill suggests hot cereal and soups for its hemp protein. NOW’s directions name cold water, juice or another drink and nothing hot, so with that tub you are improvising.

For anything savory, read the sodium line before you salt the pot. A level scoop of NOW’s pea protein carries 320 mg of sodium, a tablespoon of Anthony’s 110 mg, and a 30 g serving of Naked Pea 110 mg. Both hemp powders list 0 mg. Three tablespoons of Anthony’s in a pot of lentil soup is 330 mg before you have reached for the salt, and gram for gram Anthony’s is the saltier of the two pea powders at the top of that list, about 11 mg a gram against NOW’s 9.7 (our arithmetic). Season at the end. Vega Essential Protein lists stevia leaf extract in both flavors, which is the reason it stays out of the soup.

Baking: how much flour to swap, and what else to change

Vega’s guide, from August 2020, is the most detailed baking method any of the seven makers gave us. Replace 1/8 to 1/4 of the flour. Keep the fat in the recipe rather than swapping it for something like applesauce, because, Vega says, bakes made with its powders tend to dry out without it. Fold until the batter is just combined, since the powder turns goopy when overmixed. And if the result comes out dense, add 1/8 teaspoon each of baking powder and baking soda for every combined cup of flour and powder.

For a recipe that calls for a cup of flour, its conversion table offers 4 tablespoons of powder plus 11 of flour, or 2 plus 13. Both add up to 15 tablespoons, one short of the 16 that the same table says a cup holds (our arithmetic). Our reading is 4 and 12, or 2 and 14, which is the 1/4 and 1/8 the guide states. If the fat is the very thing you are trying to take out of a recipe, that is a different job, and our guide to baking without butter has the ratios for it.

The same guide warns that Vega Essentials and Vega One contain veggies and greens and can turn a cake green. Those are older Vega products, not the tub in this article. Vega Essential Protein lists pea protein, acacia gum, coconut oil powder, stevia leaf extract, natural flavors, sea salt, xanthan gum and rosemary extract in the vanilla, with no greens in it. What it does bring is stevia, so taste the batter before you add all the sugar the recipe asks for.

Bob’s Red Mill gives its hemp powder a ceiling of 25% of the flour. Manitoba Harvest calls its Max Fiber powder a substitute for baking flour and stops there, so we’d borrow Bob’s 25% for it. Anthony’s measures its serving in tablespoons, which makes Vega’s arithmetic easy: 2 to 4 tablespoons in a cup of flour adds 16 to 32 g of protein to the batch (our arithmetic).

Seven powders, and the job each one suits

Naked Pea

Our pick for the stove and the oven. The ingredient list is one item, yellow pea protein, and two scoops (30 g) give 27 g of protein. Naked’s FAQ says the powder is easy to cook and bake with and tells you to feel free to experiment, which is less than Vega offers and more than NOW does. The 5 lb bag lists at $57.99 for 76 servings, which Naked works out at $0.76 a serving, and the 1 lb bag at $19.99 for 15, which Naked puts at $1.33 a serving.

Naked sells it unflavored and tells you to add fruit and vegetables for taste. If you want a powder that comes flavored straight from the shaker, this is not it.

Anthony’s Pea Protein Powder

Anthony’s measures like a baker. Its serving is a tablespoon, 10 g with 8 g of protein, and the 2 lb bag holds 90 of them for $23.99, about 27 cents a tablespoon (our arithmetic). The only ingredient is pea protein isolate, and the back of the bag in the page’s gallery says product of China, packed in California, while the page’s search description says the pea protein is sourced from Deutschland. If origin matters to you, ask Anthony’s which is current. The product page also carries a California Proposition 65 warning naming lead, cadmium and arsenic. If that warning is enough to put you off, leave this bag on the shelf.

NOW Sports Pea Protein, unflavored

A level scoop is 33 g with 24 g of protein, and the only ingredient is yellow pea protein isolate. NOW lists Informed Sport among the badges on the page. Its directions stop at the one-scoop drink in the table above. The 12 oz tub is $19.99 for about 10 servings and the 7 lb tub $109.99 for 96; the 2 lb size was out of stock when we looked. At 320 mg of sodium a scoop, it is the saltiest per serving of the five whose sodium we give here, so if it goes into anything savory, cut the salt.

Orgain Organic Protein Plant Based, Natural Unsweetened

Orgain sells this as its unsweetened, unflavored plant powder, made without stevia or erythritol, and pitches it at baked goods and recipes. Two scoops give 21 g of protein, and the 1.59 lb canister is $37.99, or $32.29 on subscription. The page could use a proofreader. One description lists both 3 g and 4 g of prebiotics and fiber, and both less than 1 g and 0 g of added sugar. Of the mixing advice the seven gave us, its paste method for hot drinks and its liquid-first rule are what we found most useful. The page gives no serving weight in any text we could read, so we could not work out a price per serving or compare it with the others.

Vega Essential Protein

Vega is the only maker here with a written baking method, and this is the only sweetened powder of the seven. The tub’s directions are two scoops shaken with 12 fl oz of ice-cold water or a non-dairy drink, and they also say to mix it into your go-to food recipes. A serving has 25 g of protein, and the large tub is $26.99 for 20 servings, about $1.35 a serving (our arithmetic). The large vanilla was out of stock when we checked. The chocolate’s listing says it is made in a facility that also processes milk, soy, peanuts, eggs, tree nuts and sesame, and may contain traces of soy; if a shared facility rules a product out for you, don’t buy this one.

Bob’s Red Mill Hemp Protein Powder

One ingredient, hemp protein powder, and a quarter cup (31 g) brings 12 g of protein, 11 g of fiber and 0 mg of sodium. Bob’s suggests it for smoothies, yogurt, hot cereal, soups, pancakes, muffins and breads, and it is the source of the 25% figure above. It carries far less protein per gram than the pea powders: 12 g in 31 g here against 27 g in 30 g for Naked Pea, about 39% against 90% (our arithmetic). The page shows no price. It does show a notice, in capitals, that the product is no longer produced gluten free. If you bake gluten free, that notice is your answer.

Manitoba Harvest Max Fiber, Unsweetened

The name is honest. A quarter cup (37 g) lists 14 g of fiber and 13 g of protein in its nutrition panel, so the fiber wins, though the overview on the same page says 13 g of fiber. The ingredient is organic hemp seed powder, tagged vegan and organic, at $18.69 for 16 oz or $33.49 for 32 oz. Like Bob’s, it lists 0 mg of sodium. If you want protein from a scoop more than fiber, this is the wrong tub.

For the oven, our suggestion is Naked Pea in place of 2 tablespoons of each cup of flour, working up to 4, the range Vega gives for its own powders. If heavy metals are what decide the tub for you, our roundup of vegan protein powders sorted on Consumer Reports’ lead tests is the next page to read.