Traversing the keto diet can be pretty tricky, especially when you’re faced with eating out.

For a lot of restaurants, it can be difficult to know what exactly is in your food, which can be risky when you’re dealing with something as volatile as a state of ketosis.

In this article, I’ll be examining McDonald’s menu, and will break down just how keto-friendly it actually is.

Tips for Ordering Keto at McDonald’s

• Customize your order

One thing that I really enjoy about McDonald’s is their menu’s ability to be completely customizable. This makes it great for anyone with any dietary restrictions, including for those of us on the keto diet.

What’s even better, is that McDonald’s provides all of their nutritional information right on their website, so you can look things up ahead of time when you’re devising exactly how you’ll be hacking your order into one that’s keto-friendly.

When looking into most items on the McDonald’s menu, you’ll want to keep an eye on both total carbs and net carbs. Additionally, if you plan on removing the bun from any of their menu sandwiches, you’ll have to take that into consideration, because their calculator doesn’t always remove the carbs that would’ve come from the bun.

If you’d like to try and mix and match ahead of your McDonald’s trip, head over to their nutrition calculator right here.

• Take advantage of all day breakfast options

Now that McDonald’s does all day breakfast, you have a ton of easily hackable keto options at the ready.

Admittedly, a lot of foods on their menu can be pretty tough to make low carb, but breakfast ones are easy as their dollar menu apple pie.

One of my favorite McDonald’s breakfast options for keto is the Egg McMuffin without the bun. It still comes with egg, cheese, and ham on it.

Some other great breakfast options at McDonald’s include:

• • Bacon, egg and cheese McGriddles
  • Bacon, egg and cheese biscuit
  • Bacon, egg and cheese bagel
  • Steak, egg and cheese biscuit
  • Sausage McMuffin with egg

Obviously you’ll have to get these options without the McMuffin, McGriddle, biscuit, or bagel, and I personally prefer to ask for them to serve it without the bread altogether, because the cheese can be pretty sticky and difficult to pry apart yourself.

Breakfast items that are obviously not options on the keto diet include all of the sandwich breads, hash browns, pancakes, and orange juice.

You’ll also want to be careful about their iced coffee, as it comes with a ton of sugar unless you ask for it without sugar when you order it.

• Avoid their sauces

Most of their dressings use both refined sugar and flour as a base, so not only are they high in empty calories, but they’re also pretty high in hidden carbs, which could take you right out of ketosis before you even realize it.

Even their more tame options like mayonnaise and vinegar salad dressing still have some amounts of vegetable oils, which cause inflammation, and refined sugar. That’s why I try to just stay away from their sauces and dressings altogether.

If you have time to spare, you could always provide your own sugar-free ketchup or bbq sauce to hack your meal into something a little more keto-freindly too.

• Don’t be enticed by the dollar menu

The side offerings at McDonald’s aren’t that great when it comes to keto-friendly options. You may be tempted to try and look into them, because after all, they’re almost always just a dollar, but you won’t find much. From the french fries to the pies to even the yogurt parfaits, all of these options are full of sugar, and should generally just be avoided.

If you’re looking for something small, honestly a side salad is a little bit better, and their bunless sandwiches can get pretty small if you’re just ordering a simple patty with cheese.

Low Carb Options at McDonald’s

Breakfast

As I mentioned up above, McDonald’s offers a ton of different types of breakfast sandwiches that you can easily order without the bun.

I prefer the McDonald’s breakfast items over their lunch and dinner sandwich options for keto because they usually don’t come with any sauces, so it’s much easier to place your order and you won’t have as much to worry about if they get any parts of it wrong.

More of those keto-friendly breakfast options (that don’t include any form of bun or bread) are:

• • Egg McMuffin
  • Steak, cheese and egg biscuit
  • Bacon, egg and cheese bagel
  • Sausage McMuffin
  • Bacon, egg and cheese biscuit
  • Sausage biscuit
  • Sausage biscuit with egg
  • Sausage McMuffin with egg
  • Bacon, egg and cheese McGriddle
  • Sausage McGriddle
  • Sausage, egg and cheese McGriddle

Again, these are a lot easier to eat if you just order them without the bun altogether, because the cheese will usually get stuck to the bun, and when you’re trimming down meals to just egg meat and cheese, every bit of cheese counts!

Another type of breakfast option that I enjoy from McDonald’s is the big breakfast.

The big breakfast comes usually comes with bacon or sausage and eggs, and you’ll just need to be clear that you don’t want any hash browns or biscuits or pancakes. Careful though, I’ve found that the sausage tends to have more sugar than the bacon, and you’ll definitely want to avoid maple syrup at all costs.

I like to double up on cheese and meat when I can with these breakfast options too. McDonald’s uses slices of American cheese, which can definitely help pack on some fat and protein to your meal.

Lunch & Dinner

Lunch and dinner are fairly similar, and you should feel free to mix and match these options to your liking and your potential intermittent fasting schedule.

Like breakfast, I think it’s a lot easier to just go for a sandwich like any of McDonald’s various types of burgers, and just go bunless. What’s different about lunch and dinner options, is that you’ll also need to ask to hold most types of sauces, as well as most types of salad dressings.

A lot of these sandwiches come as meals that have side dishes like french fries or onion rings, which are obviously not doable on a keto diet, so you’ll have to remember to ask for your order without either of them too.

Some of my personal favorite keto-friendly McDonald’s options for lunch and dinner include:

• • Hamburger or cheeseburger (minus the bread and sauce)
  • Double bacon smokehouse burger (also minus the bread, onion rings, and sauce)
  • Artisan grilled chicken sandwich (minus the bun and sauce)
  • Double quarter pounder with cheese (no sauce)
  • Bacon smokehouse burger (minus the bun, onion rings, and sauce)
  • Big Mac (minus the bread and sauce)
  • Quarter pounder with cheese (no sauce)
  • Bacon smokehouse artisan grilled chicken (minus the onion rings, bun, and all sauces)
  • Triple cheeseburger (minus the bread and sauce)
  • McDouble (minus the bread and sauce)
  • Double cheeseburger (minus the bread and sauce)
  • Bacon McDouble (minus the bread and sauce)

There are of course other options on the menu, and McDonald’s is always changing their offerings depending on the time of year, but following the no sauce and no bun rule is the best rule to apply across the board here.

Salads

As I mentioned above, when it comes to sides, there really aren’t a whole lot of options available at McDonald’s. Almost every item on the dollar menu is high in carbs, sugar, and could easily take you out of ketosis if you aren’t paying close attention to their nutrition facts.

The side salad is a pretty solid option to start with.

A McDonald’s Side Salad only has 15 total calories, with just 2 grams of net carbs in one serving. With that, it’s also high in vitamins A and C, along with folate, magnesium, iron, and calcium.

The side salad is made up of a blend of romaine lettuce, baby spinach, kale, and other types of lettuce. It often comes with grape tomatoes as well. Without dressing, it has the following nutrition facts:

• • 15 calories
  • 0 grams of fat
  • 3 grams of carbs
    • 1 gram of fiber
  • 1 gram of protein

Another salad from McDonald’s that’s a pretty viable option on the keto diet is the Bacon Ranch Grilled Chicken Salad. It’s a bit heartier, and can help you get closer to your macro goals than the standard side salad.

The nutrition breakout of the bacon ranch grilled chicken salad is as follows:

• • 320 calories
  • 14 grams of fat
  • 9 grams of carbs
    • 3 grams of fiber
  • 42 grams of protein

It’s advised to go with Newman’s Own Ranch Dressing as the main dressing for this salad, since it’ll help raise the fat count without going overboard on carbs.

Now as you can see, this comes in at a hefty six grams of net carbs per serving, which is still keto-friendly, but your McDonald’s trip would probably have to only be this one item if that’s the case.

Sauces & Drinks

With McDonald’s, the sauces can be pretty tricky. As I mentioned before, a lot of them are just abhorrently high in carbohydrates, and aren’t worth the trouble of adding to any of your meals if you’re trying to stay keto.

They can have a pretty wide range of carb counts though, so you’ll want to look up the nutrition facts ahead of time if you do decide to go for a sauce.

For example, the Spicy Buffalo sauce only has 1 net carb per serving, which is perfectly fine on the keto diet. However on the other hand, the Tangy Barbeque sauce comes in at a whopping 11 grams of net carbs, and is clearly not a viable option for keto.

When it comes to keto, I try to stick to Spicy Buffalo, Creamy Ranch, or the Signature Sauce exclusively.

Switching over to drinks, this department can also be pretty limiting. Depending on how much you’re trying to limit substitute sugars like aspartame or sucralose, you might be okay with drinks like Diet Coke and Diet Sprite, but I’d advise to consume them as sparingly as possible, because they can promote inflammation and still even spike blood glucose levels.

You’re best off with water, iced coffee, and unsweetened iced tea at McDonald’s.

Foods to Avoid at McDonald’s

Generally, you’ll want to avoid any sorts of breads, and sides that could be high in sugar. When it comes to breakfasts, the following are definitely not keto-friendly options:

• • Hash browns
  • Hotcakes with sausage
  • Sausage burrito
  • Fruit n’ yogurt parfait
  • Fruit and maple oatmeal
  • Big breakfast with hotcakes

For lunch and dinner, obviously you won’t be able to have the bun on any burgers and sandwiches, but a lot of options also feature breaded meat that can be problematic as well. Some important lunch and dinner foods to avoid include:

• • Southwest buttermilk crispy chicken salad
  • Filet-O-Fish
  • Chicken McNuggets
  • Chicken tenders
  • Classic chicken sandwich
  • McChicken sandwich
  • Bacon smokehouse buttermilk crispy chicken sandwich
  • Bacon ranch salad with buttermilk crispy chicken
  • Southwest grilled chicken salad
  • Buttermilk crispy chicken sandwich
  • Happy Meals

Lastly, you’ll want to avoid these desserts at all costs:

• • All typesof McFlurries
  • All types of milkshakes
  • Vanilla cone
  • Hot fudge sundaes
  • All pies
  • All cookies
  • Quick Keto Restaurant Tips

• Plan out your meal ahead of time

This is one of the most important pieces of advice that I hope you’ll take away from this article. It applied to McDonald’s, but really eating out anywhere on keto will become a lot easier with it too.

One of the easiest ways to ensure success with the keto diet is by planning out your meal ahead of time, and sticking to that plan. If you know exactly what you need to eat, and exactly how many carbs you’ll be eating in a meal, you’ll be much more likely to stick to that plan, and you won’t have to worry about accidentally eating too much, which can be discouraging and lead to more slip ups.

One way that I like to keep myself on track is through macro counting apps. I’m a big fan of NOOM, because it allows you to have personalized meal plans in place, gives you macro-nutrient level details about a ton of different types of foods and restaurant, and comes with a lot of other great resources to set you up for dietary success.

• Aim for higher fat than protein content

One thing that people really need to remember when following the keto diet is that fat reigns king.

When you’re planning out your keto macros, you should be aiming for the majority of your calories coming from fat (roughly 70%), with a moderate amount of calories coming from protein, and a very limited amount of calories coming from carbs.

People often forget about these macros when they try to find keto-friendly foods, and end up focusing on meats because they’re satiating, highly caloric, and very low carb.

But a lot of meats, especially the lower quality types of meats you’ll find at fast food restaurants don’t have a whole lot of healthy, saturated fat. And if they do have any fat, it’s likely trans fats, which can’t be used as efficiently by your body when in a state of ketosis.

Shooting for high fat over protein will help you avoid the pitfalls of not eating enough fat, and not giving your body the fuel it needs to continue burning body fat.

• Avoid fried foods whenever possible

When you go out to eat at fast food restaurants, you’re likely to encounter some heavily deep fried foods, and McDonald’s is no exception.

Deep fried foods can be challenging on the keto diet, and a big factor at play involves what type of oil that they’re being fried in.

Certain types of oils are notoriously bad for the keto diet, because they promote inflammation. If you eat a lot of inflammatory foods, you run the risk of the inflammation causing you to actually get knocked out of ketosis altogether.

Some inflammatory deep fried oils to watch out for include soybean oil and vegetable oil. Unfortunately, most fast food locations use either of these types of oils. That’s why it’s best to just try and stay away from deep fried foods whenever possible.

• Balance out the rest of your meals

Eating out on keto, even to fast food restaurants like McDonald’s, is perfectly fine and doable in moderation.

However what’s most important is to remember to balance out the rest of your day, so that your cheat meals don’t turn into full blown cheat days, because you’ll eventually run the risk of getting kicked out of ketosis.

If you work at balancing out the rest of your meals, you’ll notice that your body will bounce back a lot faster from cheat meals, and you’ll be able to enjoy eating out every once in a while without the added guilt that comes with potentially going over on your diet.

• Don’t get discouraged if you slip up

Everybody makes mistakes, and sometimes when you’re traveling or in a pinch, you won’t always be able to follow your keto macro goals perfectly. You may even get knocked out of ketosis. What’s important to remember is that it isn’t the end of your keto journey.

The keto diet is a marathon, not a sprint. If you don’t allow yourself to get discouraged, you’ll make a lot more progress than you would if you gave up entirely after accidentally eating some unhealthy carbs.

Besides, there are a ton of proven ways to get back into ketosis quickly, so don’t sweat the small stuff.

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