Panera Bread is a popular chain restaurant offering soups, salads, sandwiches, pasta, and pastries.
However, if youre on the very low carb, high fat keto diet, you may wonder whether you can safely eat at Panera.
While most menu items are too carb-heavy as is, you can customize several dishes to fit the diet. The following options contain up to 12 grams of net carbs per item and can be worked into a carefully planned keto diet.
Panera Bread also has a robust nutrition calculator built into the menu on their website, but the calculator doesnt allow you to remove bread from sandwiches. Thus, you may need to do your own math to estimate the carb count of other menu items without bread (1).
Here are 10 of the best keto options at Panera Bread.
At Panera Bread, breakfast sandwiches are typically served on a bagel or in a wrap, but its simple enough to skip the bread.
This light breakfast is perfectly keto-friendly when you remove the bread and tomatoes. In fact, to make it even more filling, you can opt for a regular egg instead of egg whites.
Order: the Avocado, Egg White, & Spinach, with no tomatoes and no bagel
Heres the approximate nutrient breakdown:
This hearty breakfast option is full of fat and protein to keep you full. All you need to do to make it keto is remove the ciabatta bread.
Order: the Sausage, Scrambled Egg, & Cheese, with no bread
Heres the nutrient content of this item:
This wrap without the tortilla, of course makes a great keto-friendly breakfast with a bit of a kick from Peppadew peppers and chipotle aioli.
Order: the Chipotle Chicken, Scrambled Egg, & Avocado wrap, with no tortilla
Heres the approximate nutrient breakdown:
Many Panera sandwiches are keto-friendly if you remove the bread, but you also need to be wary of certain sauces, such as barbecue sauce, and high carb veggies like tomatoes and onions.
Furthermore, you can ask your local Panera Bread whether they can turn the sandwich into a lettuce wrap, which will make your breadless sandwich more portable and easier to eat.
When you remove the bread and tomatoes, this item is full of keto-friendly goodness turkey, bacon, avocado, greens, and mayo.
Order: the Roasted Turkey & Avocado BLT with no bread and no tomatoes
This BLT without the T contains:
This simple sandwich featuring ham, Swiss cheese, mayo, mustard, and greens makes a great keto-friendly meal when the bread is removed.
Order: the Heritage Ham & Swiss with no bread
Heres the approximate nutrient breakdown:
The Chipotle Chicken Avocado Melt features smoked, pulled chicken, Gouda cheese, avocado, cilantro, Peppadew peppers, and chipotle mayo for a spicy, Southwestern flavor.
Be sure to ask for this dish without the bread.
Order: the Chipotle Chicken Avocado Melt, no bread
This item contains approximately:
Many salads at Panera Bread are surprisingly high in carbs due to the addition of croutons, tortilla strips, beans, corn, fruit, or other high carb toppings. Additionally, many of their salad dressings are loaded with sugar.
To reduce the carb count, order your dressing on the side and only use what you need.
Below are the three most keto-friendly salads, when customized.
When you leave out the croutons, the Caesar Salad is keto-friendly. Its made even more so with the addition of chicken for some extra protein.
Notably, the Caesar dressing itself is low in carbs.
Order: the Caesar Salad with chicken, without croutons dressing on the side
Heres the approximate nutrient content:
With just a few changes, the Greek Salad with Greek dressing is great for keto. Just remove the red onions and tomatoes, which are high in carbs, and add chicken for a protein boost.
Order: the Greek Salad with chicken no tomatoes, no onions, and dressing on the side
When customized as such, this item offers:
This Cobb salad is piled high with fresh salad greens, chicken, avocado, a hard-boiled egg, and bacon. Make sure to skip the tomatoes and pickled red onions, and sub in Caesar dressing for the typical Green Goddess dressing, which is carb-heavy.
Order: the Green Goddess Cobb Salad, no pickled red onions and no tomatoes, with Caesar dressing on the side (no Green Goddess dressing)
It contains:
Skip the famous bread bowls and stick to this one low carb option if you want keto-friendly soup at Panera Bread.
Unfortunately, the other soups even those that dont seem carb-heavy harbor 20 or more grams of net carbs per serving.
While relatively high in net carbs for the keto diet, this veggie soup is the only soup offering at Panera Bread thats remotely keto-friendly. Add cheese or avocado to boost the fat content and make this a more substantial meal.
Order: Ten Vegetable Soup in a regular bowl
Heres the nutrient breakdown:
Its easy to eat keto at Panera if you stick to sandwiches without bread.
If you choose a menu item thats not on this list, here are a few tips to minimize the carb count:
Supposedly, Panera Bread also has a secret menu featuring high protein, low carb bowls that can easily be made keto-friendly. However, theres no information regarding these items or their nutrient content on the Panera Bread website.
Additionally, the restaurants grab-and-go section may occasionally offer hard-boiled eggs, which are great for the keto diet.
To eat keto at Panera Bread, youll want to customize your order.
Many of their sandwiches are keto-friendly if you remove the bread, tomatoes, and onions. For salads, opt for Greek or Caesar dressing and skip the high carb condiments. Try to be more careful with soups, as only one soup item on their main menu is keto-friendly.
If youre looking for more keto-friendly options at this popular chain, be sure to check out the nutrition calculator on the companys website.
Excerpt from:
Keto at Panera: 10 Custom Options - Healthline
