High-protein fast food: the best orders at four chains, ranked

If you want the most protein for your calories in fast food, get Chick-fil-A’s Grilled Nuggets. Eight of them have 25 g of protein in 130 calories, nearly twice the ratio of the next best order at the four chains here. If you want the most protein in one meal, get Chipotle’s Double High Protein Bowl, with 81 g.

This ranks the high-protein fast food options at McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A, Chipotle, and Subway, the four chains on our nutrition pages so far. Every number comes from the chain itself, and every item links to a page with its full nutrition facts and the day we checked them.

How I ranked these orders

I ranked everything by protein per 100 calories, which tells you how much protein you get for the calories you spend. A Big Mac comes to 4.3 g for every 100 calories. A McDouble comes to 5.6 g, because it has nearly as much protein for fewer calories. If you’re trying to hit a protein goal without going over your calories, that’s the number to watch. If you don’t know your goal yet, the protein calculator works it out.

Total protein matters too, so the lists below give both. A bigger order always has more protein, though, so a total only tells you something next to its calories.

What fast food has the most protein per calorie?

Chick-fil-A’s Grilled Nuggets, and it isn’t close. Eight nuggets have 25 g of protein in 130 calories, or 19.2 g for every 100 calories. The next best order, eight of Chick-fil-A’s breaded Nuggets, comes to 10.8 g.

A 12-count keeps nearly the same ratio and gets you 38 g. The sauce is where the numbers move. A cup of Chick-fil-A Sauce adds 140 calories and no protein, which more than doubles the calories of an 8-count.

What fast food has the most protein?

Of the bowls, burritos, and sandwiches on these four menus, Chipotle’s Double High Protein Bowl has the most, with 81 g. It’s near the top per calorie too, at 10.7 g for every 100 calories.

Here are the bowls, burritos, and sandwiches with the most protein.

1. Chipotle’s Double High Protein Bowl, 81 g
2. Chipotle’s Double High Protein Burrito, 79 g
3. A footlong 5 Meat Italian at Subway, 77 g
4. A footlong Grilled Chicken & Avocado at Subway, 70 g
5. A footlong Seasoned Steak & Avocado at Subway, 70 g

After Chipotle, Subway’s footlongs fill the list, and they’re big meals. The 5 Meat Italian has 1,340 calories, so its protein comes with a lot of everything else. McDonald’s tops out with the Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese, at 48 g. At Chick-fil-A, the Cool Wrap has 43 g.

Nuggets and strips are a different case, because their protein grows with the count. A 30-count of Chick-fil-A Nuggets has 100 g of protein—and 950 calories to go with it.

The best order at each chain

If you already know where you’re eating, here’s the best high-protein order at each one, by protein per calorie.

Order	Protein	Calories	Per 100 cal
Chick-fil-A Grilled Nuggets, 8-count	25 g	130	19.2 g
Chipotle Double High Protein Bowl	81 g	760	10.7 g
Subway Club protein bowl	44 g	410	10.7 g
McDonald’s McCrispy Strips, 3 pieces	31 g	400	7.8 g

Chick-fil-A wins because grilled chicken with no breading and no bun is mostly protein. At Subway, the trick is the protein bowl. It’s the sandwich with no bread and twice a 6-inch’s meat, so a Subway Club protein bowl has 44 g of protein in 410 calories. A 6-inch Subway Club has 31 g in 500.

High protein, low calorie: the best fast food orders

If you want a real amount of protein without spending many calories, these orders do it best.

• Twelve Grilled Nuggets at Chick-fil-A, with 38 g of protein in 200 calories
• Chipotle’s High Protein-Low Calorie Bowl, with 35 g in 460
• Three McCrispy Strips at McDonald’s, with 31 g in 400
• Eight Chick-fil-A Nuggets, with 27 g in 250, if you’d rather have them breaded

The sandwiches come close. Chick-fil-A’s Grilled Chicken Sandwich has 28 g in 390 calories, and a McDonald’s McDouble has 22 g in 390.

High-protein fast food for breakfast

Chick-fil-A’s Egg White Grill is the best breakfast here by a wide margin, with 27 g of protein in 300 calories. McDonald’s Egg McMuffin is next, with 17 g in 310. If you want the most protein in the morning and don’t mind the calories, McDonald’s Steak, Egg & Cheese Bagel has 34 g in 680.

Biscuits are where breakfast protein drops off. A Chicken Biscuit at Chick-fil-A has 19 g in 460 calories, and a McDonald’s Sausage Biscuit has 11 g in 460.

The full ranking

Here’s every item on our pages for the four chains, ranked by protein per 100 calories. Click any column to rank by it instead, or use the filters to narrow it down. On a phone, use Sort.

The table has three of Subway’s sandwiches. All of them, in every form, are in the Subway calculator, and the Chipotle calculator builds any bowl or burrito you’d order.

How to get more protein from a fast food order

A few choices change the numbers more than you’d think.

• Pick grilled over breaded. Eight Grilled Nuggets have nearly the protein of eight breaded ones, 25 g to 27 g, for about half the calories.
• Pick a bowl over bread. A Chipotle chicken burrito bowl has 655 calories and 50 g of protein. The burrito wraps the same fillings in a tortilla, for 975 calories and 58 g.
• Pick chicken at Chipotle. A chicken burrito bowl has 50 g of protein. The same bowl has 39 g with steak, 42 g with barbacoa, and 41 g with carnitas, for about the same calories.
• Count the sauce. Chick-fil-A’s dipping sauces add calories and no protein, from 25 calories for Zesty Buffalo to 140 for Chick-fil-A Sauce.

For McDonald’s, High-protein McDonald’s ranks the whole menu and has swaps of its own.

None of these orders is the right one for everyone. It’s just easier to fit a meal into your day when you know its numbers before you order. In Fit Shapes, you can log any of them by taking a photo of your order or describing it in a sentence.

Sources

4 sources

1. Chick-fil-A. Nutrition & Allergens, US menu. Read October 19, 2026. chick-fil-a.com/nutrition-allergens
2. Chipotle. Nutrition Calculator, US menu. Read October 19, 2026. chipotle.com/nutrition-calculator
3. McDonald's. Nutrition Calculator, US menu. Read October 19, 2026. mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/about-our-food/nutrition-calculator.html
4. Subway. Online menu nutrition, US menu. Read October 20, 2026. subway.com/en-us/menunutrition/menu