Veg thali (home-cooked)

One serving of Veg thali (home-cooked) — 2 roti + rice + dal + sabzi + salad + curd — comes to 689 kcal, 23.1 g protein, 105.4 g carbs and 19.4 g fat. Scaled to 100 g it works out to 106 kcal and 3.6 g protein, which makes it not a meaningful protein source on its own for a restaurant plate item. That single serving is about 45.9% of a 1,500 kcal day and 34.5% of a 2,000 kcal day, so it can carry real weight in a protein-focused plan without much extra planning.

Walking off Veg thali (home-cooked) takes roughly 17,225 steps, using the rough approximation of 0.04 kcal burned per step (a population-average estimate for a moderate walking pace, not a personalised number). At ₹40 a serving it costs about ₹34.6 for every 20 g of protein it delivers, which is a mid-to-high price for protein compared with dal, eggs or soya chunks. It fits a vegetarian or eggetarian or non-vegetarian diet. It works at lunch and dinner. It's a daily staple in most Indian kitchens and a common tiffin-box item.

If you want variety without changing the macros much, the closest swaps in the restaurant plate category are Butter naan, Chole chawal (plate), Dal chawal (plate), Office tiffin: 3 roti + dal + sabzi — each keeps a similar role on the plate while shifting the exact protein-to-carb balance a little.