Meat and poultry
Rotisserie chicken on a GLP-1: protein, portions and how to actually eat it
About 27 g of protein per 100 g (3.5 oz), cooked, meat only, for around 190 calories. A cupped handful of picked meat, about 100 g (3.5 oz), gives roughly 27 g of protein for 190 calories.
To reach 30 g of protein from rotisserie chicken alone you would need about 111 g (3.9 oz). On a small appetite that is often more than one sitting allows, which is why we pair it rather than chase the whole target from one food.
How rotisserie chicken sits on a GLP-1
A hot cooked chicken from the supermarket is the most useful thing in the shop for anybody on a GLP-1, because it removes the cooking, which is the step that most often fails. The meat is moist, the smell is already done with by the time you get it home, and you can pick 100 g off it without making a meal of it.
When your appetite is small
Pick the meat off while it is warm, put it in a container, and eat it cold over two days. Cold picked chicken is one of very few meats people tolerate on the days after an injection, and 100 g of it is a full protein stop for roughly A$4 / US$3 / £2.
Three ways to prepare it
Pick it the day you buy it
Strip the whole bird while it is warm, which takes five minutes, and you have three or four protein stops sitting in the fridge ready to go.
Make a soup from the frame
Simmer the carcass for an hour and you have a stock that turns any of that meat into something you can drink rather than chew.
Mix it with yoghurt and herbs
Picked chicken, Greek yoghurt, lemon and salt is a cold, soft, 35 g bowl that needs no heat and no decision.
What to eat it with
Serve it with something wet: soup, a yoghurt sauce, avocado, or piled on a tomato salad. The dry supermarket breast meat is the part that goes uneaten, so use the thigh and wing meat first.
How it compares
| Food | Protein per 100 g | Energy per 100 g | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rotisserie chicken | about 27 g | 190 kcal | this page |
| Chicken breast | about 31 g | 165 kcal | See the page |
| Chicken thigh | about 26 g | 209 kcal | See the page |
| Turkey breast | about 29 g | 135 kcal | See the page |
All figures are typical values for the food as eaten, cooked, meat only, not laboratory figures for a particular brand.
Australian, US and UK names
Called a hot roast chicken or barbecue chicken in Australia, a rotisserie chicken in the US, and a cooked or hot roast chicken in the UK. The same bird in all three.
Questions people ask
How much protein is in a whole rotisserie chicken?
A standard bird gives roughly 500 to 600 g of meat, which is about 135 to 160 g of protein, so four or five full protein stops. That is usually the cheapest cooked protein in the shop.
Your number comes first
Knowing what is in a food only helps once you know how much you are aiming for. The target is 1.2 to 1.6 g of protein per kg of your goal weight, not your current weight, which for most people is 90 to 140 g a day.
Work out your protein targetMore on eating well when your appetite is small: high protein foods for a small appetite, how much protein on a GLP-1, and every food we have written up. The whole system in five documents is the Keep Muscle Kit, A$47 / US$29 / £23.
EverStrong provides nutrition and strength coaching and education. It is not medical advice and does not replace your prescribing doctor.