Red lentils instead of rice, so the protein is the base and not the garnish: 23 g a bowl, and just over half of it comes from the 50 g of dry lentils. Sodium is the catch.
Fresh chèvre from one pot and 4 ingredients: goat milk heated to 85°C (185°F), curdled with lemon juice, drained to taste — about 225 g of tangy cheese with 5.2 g of protein per ounce.
Two tablespoons of tamari put 503 of the 735 mg of sodium in this bowl — the swap that makes it gluten-free is the salty one. Rice noodles, raw vegetables, a five-minute sauce.
One cup of broth a bowl carries 2.7 grams of protein. The chicken cutlet poached in it carries 27, and the finished bowl lands at 45 grams for 463 calories, with no coconut milk.
One saucepan, a cup of cocoa, 16 squares at 195 calories each. Natural cocoa carries nearly nine times the flavanols of a heavily Dutched tin — and with no baking soda here, either bakes the same.
Golden garlic in good olive oil, glossed onto al dente spaghetti with starchy pasta water — the earliest printed recipe, in Cavalcanti's 1837 Naples treatise, used just two cloves. Ours uses six.