Hi, I'm Derek.
I help people eat more protein without breaking up with dessert. You can have your cake AND your gains!
As a personal trainer, I realized the workout was the easy part. It was the other 23 hours of the day that were the hard part, when people had to figure out food, cravings, budget, time, and normal life. That's why I started The Protein Chef back in 2009.
From there, I built recipes that made sense for real people: higher-protein meals and desserts, simple ingredients, full macros, US and metric measurements, and enough flexibility to keep the foods you actually like in the picture. No more plain chicken and broccoli!
Everything in moderation.
Eat more protein. Love every bite.
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The food side was the hard part.
Before this site became a recipe library, I was making recipes for myself. I had what I consider the largest self-diagnosed sweet tooth in the world, and dessert was almost always the thing that destroyed an otherwise solid day of eating. Swiss Rolls were public enemy number one!
When I started sending those recipes to my personal training clients, it clicked. People didn't just need another workout. They needed food that was quick, affordable, high in protein, and still tasted like something they wanted to eat.
That's how The Protein Chef started. First it was text recipes, then videos filmed on my iPhone 4S, which was also my camera. No mic, no fancy setup, just the goal of getting useful recipes out there.
Everything in moderation isn't just a saying for me. It means setting limits without making yourself miserable. I still eat regular desserts and ice cream. I just save those moments for vacations or special occasions, and get my day-to-day fix through healthier recipes the rest of the time.
Protein recipes without the guesswork.
People usually think getting more protein is hard, expensive, or guaranteed to taste bad OR chalky. This site exists to prove the opposite.
- Full macro breakdowns.Every recipe includes calories, protein, carbs, and fat so you can make smarter decisions without turning food into homework.
- US and metric measurements.The recipes are written for real kitchens, whether you cook with cups, grams, ounces, or whatever keeps you consistent.
- Tested multiple ways.The goal is foolproof, with practical steps, realistic ingredients, simple swaps, and as little room for error as possible.
- Built by repetition.After over 15 years of creating high-protein recipes, the process is still the same. Make it simple, make it taste good, and make it repeatable.
A few recipes to start with.
A quick taste of what lives in the recipe library, from savory to sweet and everything in between. Tap any one to jump straight to the recipe.
The workout that left me unable to lift my arms for a week.
It started with my stepdad, a bodybuilder at the time, dragging me through one of his workouts. I was completely wrecked, and somehow that just made me want more. I was hooked, and by the time I was going through fire school in Laconia, NH, training had become my daily therapy.
Most of my life has been in New Hampshire, where I grew up on sports, skateboarding, and as much time in the snow as I could get. That love of being outside never really left. When I'm not in the kitchen, you'll usually find me on a trail somewhere, which is exactly why I started HikeNE, a New England hiking site, with my good friend Rob.
Where recipes come from now
Most ideas come from my daily sweet tooth, something I tried while traveling, or a meal prep routine I want to make less boring.
A lot of them also come straight from you, whether it's a recipe someone requests, a swap they ask about, or feedback on what's actually working in real kitchens.
My favorite protein dessert is still my original protein cheesecake. And yes, I still train regularly. These days the goal is less “see how strong I am” and more “lose the ego, feel healthy.”
Hiking Montserrat in Spain. When I'm not cooking, I'm probably outside.
Lost the bowl cut, kept the sweet tooth.
A few familiar faces from around here.
Amigo, Lana, and Salem have all made appearances along the way.
A few chapters along the way.
The Protein Chef has grown through recipe testing, YouTube videos, product collaborations, self-publishing, reader feedback, and now a cookbook with a major publisher.
Where it all started.
Back in 2009, The Protein Chef was just me and a handful of high-protein recipes I'd throw together at home. No plan, no audience, no clue it would turn into anything. I just kept making food I actually wanted to eat and sharing the stuff that worked. Everything since has grown out of that.
100k subscribers
A milestone that showed simple high-protein recipes could help far more people than one training client at a time.
Delicious Dieting
My first self-published recipe book and an early full collection of the site's “eat better without hating your food” philosophy.
Baking Protein
A limited-release collaboration with Labrada Nutrition, built around a real recipe problem. Protein powder that works better for cooking and baking. It ended up just about everywhere, from Vitamin Shoppe and GNC to Bodybuilding.com and supplement shops around the world.
The Protein Blueprint
The newest chapter, with 150+ high-protein recipes, macros for every dish, meal-prep strategy, substitutions, and practical tools.
Find your next high-protein recipe.
Browse the recipe library, learn the basics of calories and macros, or follow along for new recipes and cookbook updates.
Stay Healthy!