Best High-Calorie Foods for Bulking and How to Eat Them

Written by James Frost, founder of Flaming Phoenix. Updated October 2026: the foods are now ranked, with calories and protein for a normal UK portion taken from the UK government's McCance and Widdowson food tables.

The best foods for bulking are calorie-dense foods that also bring protein: whole milk, peanut butter, oats, salmon, chicken thighs, eggs, cheddar and nuts. A pint of whole milk gives about 375 calories and 20g of protein; 30g of peanut butter adds 182 calories. Aim for a surplus of about 300 to 500 calories a day, with strength training.

This page ranks the foods and shows how to eat enough of them. If you want them turned into plates, bulking meals has full recipes with the calories and protein counted. If your goal is general weight gain, not muscle, start with how to gain weight instead.

What does bulking actually require?

Bulking needs a steady calorie surplus, enough protein to turn it into muscle, and resistance training that gives your body a reason to build. Miss the surplus and the other two can't do much, because you can't build tissue from calories that aren't there.

The choice most people face is between a lean bulk, a slow gain that keeps fat down, and a dirty bulk, where anything goes as long as the scales move. For most people the lean version is the better long-term bet, because there is less fat to lose afterwards. The dirty bulking guide sets out where the fast approach does and doesn't make sense.

How big a calorie surplus do you need for bulking?

Aim for about 10 to 20% above maintenance, roughly 300 to 500 extra calories a day for most people who lift, and expect to gain 0.25 to 0.5% of your bodyweight a week. Those ranges come from Iraki and colleagues' 2019 review of off-season bodybuilding nutrition, and the calorie figure lines up with the NHS advice of 300 to 500 extra calories a day for healthy weight gain.

Here is the working for a 70kg lifter who maintains on 2,800 calories (the bulking calculator will estimate your own maintenance):

• Surplus: 10 to 20% of 2,800 is 280 to 560 calories, so 3,080 to 3,360 a day.
• Rate of gain: 0.25 to 0.5% of 70kg is 175 to 350g a week, roughly 0.75 to 1.5kg a month.
• Protein: 1.6 to 2.2g per kg is 112 to 154g a day.

Judge it on the scales over three or four weeks, not day to day. If nothing has moved, add 200 to 300 calories; if your waist is growing faster than your lifts, pull back. Bigger surpluses don't build muscle faster past a point, they mostly add fat you will want to lose later. Keeping the surplus going is the hard part, and how to eat in a calorie surplus covers the habits that make it stick.

How much protein do you need for bulking?

Aim for 1.6 to 2.2g of protein per kilogram of bodyweight a day, spread over three to six meals, which is what the Iraki review recommends for a bodybuilding off-season.

The lower end has strong support on its own: a 2018 meta-analysis by Morton and colleagues in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that protein beyond about 1.62g per kg a day brought no further gains in lean mass from resistance training. Past that point, extra calories are better spent on carbohydrate to fuel training and fat to make the surplus easy to eat. The protein calculator for weight gain turns this into a daily figure for you, and the guide to foods high in both calories and protein lists the ones that deliver both numbers at once.

Which foods are best for bulking, in order?

The foods at the top of this list add plenty of calories, bring protein with them and go down easily when you are already full, and I ranked them on those three things. Figures are per 100g as eaten, from McCance and Widdowson's Composition of Foods (CoFID 2021), the UK government's food tables, except milk, which uses Tesco's whole milk label because it is given per 100ml. Portions are normal UK servings.

1. Whole milk: 66 calories and 3.5g of protein per 100ml; a pint (568ml) is about 375 calories and 20g of protein. It comes first because you can drink it when you are too full to chew, and it turns oats, shakes and coffee into calories.
2. Peanut butter: 607 calories and 22.8g of protein per 100g; 30g is 182 calories and 7g of protein. Stir it into porridge or spread it thick on toast and you barely register it.
3. Porridge oats: 381 calories per 100g; an 80g bowl is 305 calories and 9g of protein before the milk, and 503 calories once you add 300ml of whole milk.
4. Salmon: 232 calories and 25.2g of protein per 100g, baked (farmed); a 150g fillet is 348 calories and 38g of protein, with omega-3 fats thrown in.
5. Chicken thighs with skin: 233 calories per 100g, casseroled; 150g is 350 calories and 32g of protein, against 222 calories for the same weight of grilled skinless breast.
6. Beef mince, standard rather than extra lean: 209 calories per 100g, stewed; 150g is 314 calories and 33g of protein, about 108 calories more than extra-lean.
7. Whole eggs: 152 calories and 14.6g of protein per 100g, scrambled; three eggs (about 150g) give 228 calories and 22g of protein before any butter or cheese.
8. Cheddar: 416 calories and 25.4g of protein per 100g; 40g grated over pasta or eggs adds 166 calories and 10g of protein.
9. Nuts: almonds 554 and walnuts 688 calories per 100g; a 40g handful of salted peanuts is 241 calories and 10g of protein.
10. Olive oil and butter: 899 and 744 calories per 100g; a tablespoon of oil (about 14g) adds 126 calories and takes up no room on the plate. There is no protein in either, which is why they sit here and not higher.
11. Greek-style yoghurt: 133 calories and 5.7g of protein per 100g; a 200g bowl is 266 calories and 11g of protein, more with honey and granola.
12. Granola: crunchy cereal with nuts averages 450 calories per 100g; 70g is 315 calories, and 447 with 200ml of whole milk.
13. Pasta and rice: 169 and 131 calories per 100g, cooked; 300g of cooked pasta is 507 calories and 17g of protein, and the same weight of rice is 393 calories. They are the base of most bulking meals, but they fill you fast, so they rank low on their own and climb once oil and cheese go in.
14. Dried fruit: dates 235 and raisins 256 calories per 100g; 50g of dates adds 118 calories of soft carbohydrate that is easy to graze on before training.
15. Avocado: 171 calories per 100g of flesh; half a fruit (about 75g) adds 128 calories to toast or a bowl of rice.

Missing on purpose: chicken breast, white fish and egg whites. They are excellent protein but carry few calories, so on a bulk they crowd out food that does more work. Keep them, just don't let them be the whole plate.

What are the best calorie surplus foods?

The best calorie surplus foods add calories without adding much to the plate: oils at 899 calories per 100g, butter at 744, nuts and nut butters at 550 to 690, and cheese at 416.

Your stomach only holds so much, and the classic bulking plate of grilled chicken breast and rice fills it long before the calories add up. Here is the same plate made calorie-dense, using the figures above:

• 150g grilled skinless chicken breast and 300g of cooked rice: 222 + 393 = 615 calories.
• 150g chicken thighs with skin (350), the same rice (393), a tablespoon of olive oil (126) and 30g of cheddar (125): 994 calories.

That is 379 more calories from a plate the same size, while protein only drops from about 56g to 48g, still plenty for one meal. Our calorie-dense foods guide ranks more than forty foods by how many calories they deliver per bite, and high calorie, low volume foods focuses on the ones that take up the least room.

What are the best bulking snacks?

The best bulking snacks give you 200 calories or more with no cooking: a pint of whole milk (375 calories, 20g protein), a 40g handful of salted peanuts (241), 70g of granola (315) or 50g of trail mix (216).

Snacks are where a surplus is usually won or lost, because the gaps between meals and the hour before bed are when most people simply don't eat. Keep something within reach at your desk, in your gym bag and by the kettle. More ideas, ranked by calories per gram, are in our high-calorie snacks guide.

A bar is the easiest thing to carry. Phoenix Bars, which I make, have up to 557 calories and up to 19g of protein in a compact, lightweight 120g bar, and they are vegan and gluten-free, so they also suit a plant-based bulk. You can eat one in pieces through the afternoon or stir it into warm milk as porridge, and how to use Phoenix Bars has the other ways. They cost more per calorie than oats and milk, so treat them as the snack for days when cooking isn't happening. The high calorie protein bars page shows all six flavours, and the energy bars for weight gain comparison sets them against other brands.

How do you eat a surplus without feeling stuffed?

Raise the calorie density of what you already eat before you raise the portion size: oil, butter, cream, cheese and nut butter can go into meals you are eating anyway.

• Drink some of your calories. A pint of whole milk blended with 30g of peanut butter and a small banana is about 640 calories, and the high-calorie drinks and smoothies guide has more formulas.
• Eat little and often. Five or six smaller meals are easier to finish than three enormous ones.
• Use the hour before bed. A 200g bowl of Greek-style yoghurt with 70g of granola is about 580 calories and goes down easily when you are tired.
• Don't fill up on drinks before meals, which the NHS also warns against when you are trying to gain weight. Have the shake afterwards.

Breakfast is the easiest meal to load, and the high-calorie breakfast guide covers how to start the day at four to six hundred calories before you have really tried.

What does a high-calorie bulking day look like?

A day built from the ranked foods above lands at about 3,200 calories and 160g of protein, using the same figures:

• Breakfast: 80g oats, 300ml whole milk and 30g peanut butter: 685 calories, 26g protein.
• Mid-morning: 40g salted peanuts and 50g dates: 359 calories, 11g protein.
• Lunch: 300g cooked pasta, 150g beef mince and 30g cheddar: 946 calories, 57g protein.
• Before training: a pint of whole milk: 375 calories, 20g protein.
• Dinner: a 150g salmon fillet, 300g cooked rice and a tablespoon of olive oil: 867 calories, 46g protein.
• Total: 3,232 calories and 160g of protein.

160g of protein sits inside the 1.6 to 2.2g per kg range for anyone between about 73 and 100kg. For bigger or smaller targets, the 3,000 calorie meal plan and 5,000 calorie meal plan lay out full days, and bulking meals gives the recipes.

Can you bulk on a budget?

Yes: oats, whole milk, peanut butter, eggs, rice and pasta are among the cheapest calories in a UK supermarket. When I checked Tesco in October 2026, a 1kg bag of own-brand porridge oats was 85p for 3,760 calories, four pints of whole milk were £1.65 and a 1kg tub of smooth peanut butter was £4.75.

What it costs you is time and variety. Cooking volume every day takes effort, and eating the same few foods gets old, which is usually when people stop hitting their surplus. The full ranking by pence per 100 calories is in cheap high calorie foods, and the weight gain shopping list prices a whole basket.

Frequently asked questions

What should I eat to bulk up fast? The same foods, eaten more consistently: whole milk, oats, peanut butter, oily fish, and rice or pasta with oil and cheese added. Faster isn't better for muscle. The Iraki review suggests gaining 0.25 to 0.5% of bodyweight a week, which is 200 to 400g for an 80kg lifter.

How do I get 3,000 calories a day? Three meals of about 750 calories plus two snacks of about 375 gets you there. A bowl of 80g oats with 300ml whole milk and 30g peanut butter is 685 calories before you leave the house. The 3,000 calorie meal plan maps out a whole day.

What are the best high calorie meals I can buy at a convenience store? Go for drinks and snacks with fat and protein, then a sandwich with cheese, egg or meat. A pint of whole milk and a 50g bag of salted peanuts come to about 675 calories and 32g of protein on their own; check the sandwich label, which usually gives calories per pack.

Do I need supplements to bulk? No. Every calorie and gram of protein you need can come from food: the day above reaches about 3,200 calories and 160g of protein with no powders. Protein powder or a weight gainer is a convenience for when you can't face another meal, nothing more.

Is dirty bulking a good idea? For most people, no. Eating anything to hit a number tends to add more fat for the same gain on the scales, and less nutrition along the way. A surplus of 10 to 20% built on the foods above gets most of the muscle with less to diet off afterwards. The dirty bulking guide goes through the trade-offs.

Sources

Iraki J, Fitschen P, Espinar S, Helms E. Nutrition recommendations for bodybuilders in the off-season: a narrative review. Sports, 2019. Morton RW and colleagues. A systematic review, meta-analysis and meta-regression of the effect of protein supplementation on resistance training-induced gains in muscle mass and strength in healthy adults. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2018. Public Health England: McCance and Widdowson's Composition of Foods Integrated Dataset, 2021. NHS: Healthy ways to gain weight. Tesco.com product pages for the prices quoted, checked 19 October 2026.