I'm vegan and I lift weights (although I'm very much a beginner when it comes to deadlifts, bench presses, etc). I need at least 80g of protein a day (25% of my body weight) but preferably 124g (what the TDEE calculator reccommended). I want to lose weight while maintaining/building muscle, so I do need to be on the higher end of the estimate. Right now I'm lucky if I get 40g a day. I've tried adding more protein in the way of beans and tofu, but since I'm a college student at a not-so-vegan-friendly school, it's hard for me to get protein from whole foods. Should I add a protein powder into the mix? If so, what kind do you guys recommend?

How many calories are you on? As for protein powders, try reading reviews, getting a smaller quantity, and give them a try. You will certainly know quickly whether you like them and find they fit into your diet, and hopefully it'll become apparent whether or not you do better at weight-lifting with them. The blend ones can be nice, though watch out for unnecessary ingredients. I quite like the Jarrow blended one.

My calorie intake is around 1600 a day. I've heard good things about Vega and I'll check out the Jarrow one, too.

As a vegetarian, I think you will highly benefit from protein powder.

I currently use a 6 pound bag I bought at Costco, best bang for the buck. It's called Muscle Milk 100% Whey.

I get 27 grams of protein in one scoop. Then if you have 2 shakes a day, you get your 54 grams of protein with only 260 calories. 1 scoop = 27 grams of protein and 130 calories. That will help you a lot.

Edit: Oops, I just noticed you are a vegan, so no milk products? If so, I also use EAS Soy Protein, I like to make smoothies with it. I get that at Walmart.

Pea, soy, and rice proteins are the most common vegan powders, though hemp also occasionally makes an appearance. All good supplementary options, but unfortunately none tend to dissolve really well, so they'll taste better blended with some berries to accommodate the texture.

To get more than 80g of protein a day with whole foods, you'd need to eat about 4 cups of beans or lentils every day, plus tasty veg like broccoli & spinach (4-6 cups) and 1/4c of almonds or peanuts. Totally possible, though challenging for some. The salad bar is your best friend for easy access to beans at both lunch and supper, and you could probably ask for some with breakfast as well - you may be surprised at how accommodating the catering staff can be if you have easily met requests. If it's already in the kitchen and doesn't require much prep on your part, may as well ask!

What are your motivations for veganism? Ethical, agricultural efficiency, digestive, or allergy motivated? Depending on your reasons, you may find that introducing dairy (cottage cheese = 15g protein for 1/2 cup), eggs could definitely help (approx. 6g protein/egg, ~3=great breakfast option), or possibly even fish (tinned tuna - again, salad bar, or sole if/when the kitchen makes it).

My motivations for being vegan are mostly environmental and health related. I'm on medication where a common side effect is high cholesterol, and going vegan was an easy way for me to get that level down. Plus, it gets rid of the temptation to eat a lot of ice cream, cookies, cake etc. since they mostly aren't vegan. I could consider adding whey protein or another non vegan protein source since I don't do it strictly ethically, but I'd like to stay vegan as much as possible. I've been thinking about making silken tofu smoothies- maybe it could replace a protein powder?

Totally, and soft tofu also makes a kickass frozen yogurt substitute. Just be careful not to go overboard with unfermented soy (aim for no more than 1 portion/day), because the phytoestrogens can potentially muck about with your hormone levels.

I like using New Zealand grass fed whey - for one, it's a waste product from cheese making so you're not increasing consumption beyond what already exists, and secondly NZ typically doesn't use feedlots (ie. less potential environmental impact). The best vegan powders I've had luck with are Vega, Sun Warrior, and a few no-name unflavoured/unsweetened options I've found locally. Wishing you luck!

I'm getting about 45g of protein on 1250 cal, and I eat what I think of as a fairly typical wholefoods vegan diet, so let's see what you're eating and if that's tweakable to get more protein in there. Here are a couple of days where I had a higher protein intake. One includes a bit of protein powder as I was curious, but that's the only time so far I've done that and I'm not sure it's worth it.

Jan 27

Breakfast 249 cal

1/4c (50g) oat groats
1 date
200ml almond milk
Pinch salt (I salt everything, this is optional but you get salted caramel porridge and it's amazing)

Cooked overnight with water to bring up the liquid to 375ml in a slow cooker.

Lunch 400 cal

2 cups spinach
1/2 tin chick peas
1 medium carrot
1/4c quinoa (dry volume), cooked and cooled (we ran the sieve under the cold tap)
10 raisins
Splash of olive oil and balsamic vinegar to season

Fairly typical salad for me. Note the mixed proteins of chick peas and quinoa.

Dinner 523 cal

1 packet udon noodles
1/2 onion
6 button mushrooms
a head of pak choi
half a small tin of sweetcorn
100g tofu, diced
Splash of sesame oil to cook in
Dark soy sauce and 1T hoisin sauce

Stir-fry shared with my partner.

Snacks 96 cal

2 squares Rawr orange chocolate
1 oatcake

Total: 1268 cal
59g protein
198g carbs
39g sugars
29g fat
35g fibre

Yesterday

Breakfast 110 cal

1/4 rolled oats (not the same as the overnight job with the oat groats)
150ml almond milk plus about the same water
Dash of salt

Cooked quickly in a pan.

Lunch 507 cal

1 packet udon noodles (would have been 1/4 cup red rice but we left it alone too long and it boiled dry and burned. We used red rice today, though, and it cuts 130 cal and probably adds fibre and such)
2T fresh miso paste
1T wakame seaweed
1 red pepper
1 head pak choi
dash of sesame oil
1t sesame seeds
100g tofu

Nice fresh miso soup.

Dinner 506 cal

1/3 cup (dry) white basmati rice (my partner's not a rice fan and certainly not a brown rice fan!)
1/2 avocado
bit of lime juice
dash of olive oil
1/2 onion
1/2 tin red kidney beans
1/2 green pepper
2T nutritional yeast because I was curious

Rice and beans with a basic guacamole on top. My partner added cheese to his.

Snacks 139 cal

2 squares Rawr orange chocolate
1 scoop Jarrow Optimal Plant Proteins powder made up with
100ml almond milk

Total: 1262 cal
57g protein
181g carbs
22g sugars
35g fat
32g fibre

If you scaled this up to 1600 cal you shouldn't be far short of the 80g, so I think it's possible in theory, before we get to your issues with cooking facilities.

A dietician once advised me to mix my protein sources in two meals out of three, and she's right, I feel a lot better when I do that. So for miso soup there is rice or noodles plus tofu, and for my other soups I'll put in a grain and a bean (barley and black-eyed beans for the last one). Most of my dinners use pasta or rice as a base, and I'll put in a half tin of butter beans in a pasta sauce, or tofu and/or cashews in a stir-fry, or sometimes just sauté a courgette or a red pepper with half a dozen almonds for a quick meal.

Are you eating college dinners, or do you mean that you are stuck with a small amount of fridge space in a small kitchen? Is there any possibility of having your own little fridge and/or hob ring, if you don't have a kitchen? You can get plug-in hob rings fairly cheaply for a two-ring set, even for induction hobs. Erm, stoves or stovetops in American, I think.

Ooh, what about seitan, if it's practical to add that to your diet? I was reading up on vegan sources of protein and had totally forgotten about it. It's very high in protein, though it's cheaper if you can make it yourself. 18g of protein per 3 oz serving, apparently. I'm going to drag my partner to the Chinese supermarket round the corner and see if they have any wheat gluten flour and make it up later, or failing that the tasty ready-made stuff in tins. Possibly the tasty ready-made stuff, realistically. It tends to be sold as vegetarian mock duck, mock abalone (I thought abalone was a pretty type of shell?) or similar, and it has soy sauce and oil added, though you can rinse some of that off, and apparently the lysine in the soy sauce turns it into a complete protein. You could probably use the stuff from the tins for snacking without too much trouble. This is only if you're OK with gluten, of course, but the majority of people are.