High-Protein Fast Food: Best Orders at 5 Chains, Ranked (US)

Leaving out sharing boxes, Burger King’s Triple Whopper with Bacon & Cheese has the most protein of the orders we checked at McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway, Starbucks and Chipotle: 87 g, but with 1,390 calories. Under 800 calories, Chipotle’s Double High Protein Bowl leads with 81 g for 760 calories. McDonald’s 40-piece Chicken McNuggets box has 92 g, but it’s made to share. For high-protein fast food under 500 calories, a venti Iced Sugar-Free Vanilla Protein Matcha at Starbucks has 50 g of protein for 340 calories, and Subway’s Subway Club Protein Bowl has 45 g for 410.

Want to filter these menus by your own numbers? The free Protein Finder lists every item from all five chains that meets a protein minimum under a calorie limit, with sodium, and works without an app.

All numbers are for US menus, from each chain’s official nutrition information. We checked McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway and Starbucks on 22 October 2026 and Chipotle on 17 October 2026. Menus in the UK, Australia and other countries differ, and we’ll add more chains to this page as we check them.

Top high-protein fast-food orders, ranked

Chipotle’s Double High Protein Bowl has the most protein of any order on this list: 81 g for 760 calories. Subway’s Chicken & Bacon Ranch Protein Bowl comes next with 55 g, then Subway’s Steak & Bacon Protein Bowl with 54 g.

To keep the list practical, we took the four highest-protein orders at each chain and left out anything with 800 calories or more, such as Burger King’s Triple Whopper with Bacon & Cheese (87 g of protein, 1,390 calories), a Subway footlong 5 Meat Italian (78 g, 1,320 calories), the 20-piece Chicken McNuggets (46 g, 830 calories) and McDonald’s 40-piece McNuggets sharing box (92 g, 1,650 calories). For Chipotle, we used the bowls in the high-protein section of our Chipotle guide. Starbucks flavors with identical numbers share a row, and ties go to the order with fewer calories.

Protein per 100 cal is the grams of protein you get for every 100 calories: protein divided by calories, times 100. The higher it is, the leaner the order.

Chain	Order	Calories	Protein (g)	Protein per 100 cal	Sodium (mg)
Chipotle	Double High Protein Bowl	760	81	10.7	n/a
Subway	Chicken & Bacon Ranch Protein Bowl	760	55	7.2	1,740
Subway	Steak & Bacon Protein Bowl	720	54	7.5	1,680
Subway	Fresh Fit footlong Grilled Chicken	600	52	8.7	1,140
Starbucks	Venti Iced Sugar-Free Vanilla or Caramel Protein Matcha	340	50	14.7	220
Starbucks	Venti Iced Protein Matcha or Iced Caramel Protein Matcha	420	50	11.9	220
Subway	Fresh Fit footlong Roast Beef	600	50	8.3	1,560
McDonald’s	Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese	740	48	6.5	1,360
Chipotle	High Protein-High Fiber Bowl	545	46	8.4	n/a
Burger King	Bacon and Swiss Flame-Grilled Chicken Sandwich	560	43	7.7	1,590
Chipotle	Bowl of chicken, black beans, fajita veggies, fresh tomato salsa and romaine (our build)	360	41	11.4	n/a
McDonald’s	McCrispy Strips (4 piece)	530	41	7.7	1,760
Starbucks	Venti Iced Sugar-Free Vanilla or Caramel Protein Latte	280	40	14.3	180
Starbucks	Venti Iced Vanilla Protein Latte	390	40	10.3	180
Burger King	Bacon and Swiss Royal Crispy Chicken	740	39	5.3	1,920
Burger King	Whopper with Bacon	770	38	4.9	1,500
Burger King	Whopper with Cheese	790	37	4.7	1,660
McDonald’s	Quarter Pounder with Cheese Bacon	630	36	5.7	1,470
Chipotle	High Protein-Low Calorie Bowl	460	35	7.6	n/a
McDonald’s	Steak, Egg & Cheese Bagel	680	34	5.0	1,510

Checked against McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway and Starbucks official nutrition information on 22 October 2026, and Chipotle’s on 17 October 2026. Subway’s footlong values are its 6-inch values doubled, as Subway instructs. Chipotle sodium is n/a because we don’t have a checked total for these bowls.

Two things stand out. Subway’s Fresh Fit footlongs, on multigrain bread with all the fresh vegetables, give 50 to 52 g of protein for 600 calories, with less sodium than the Subway bowls above them. And the iced sugar-free Starbucks drinks have the most protein per calorie on the list, 14.3 to 14.7 g per 100 calories.

Best high-protein fast food under 500 calories

Counting drinks, the most protein under 500 calories on our lists is 50 g, in a venti iced protein matcha at Starbucks, and the Iced Sugar-Free Vanilla or Caramel Protein Matcha gets there with 340 calories. For food, Subway’s Subway Club Protein Bowl leads with 45 g of protein for 410 calories, followed by Subway’s Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki Protein Bowl (42 g, 470 calories) and a Chipotle bowl of chicken, black beans, fajita veggies, fresh tomato salsa and romaine (41 g, 360 calories).

This table shows the three highest-protein foods under 500 calories at Subway, McDonald’s and Burger King (leaving out Burger King’s Game Day promotion items), plus the three Chipotle bowls under 500 calories from the high-protein section of our Chipotle guide. Every grande Starbucks protein drink is under 500 calories as well, and the drinks are covered in the table above and on our Starbucks page.

Chain	Order	Calories	Protein (g)	Protein per 100 cal	Sodium (mg)
Subway	Subway Club Protein Bowl	410	45	11.0	2,270
Subway	Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki Protein Bowl	470	42	8.9	1,850
Chipotle	Bowl of chicken, black beans, fajita veggies, fresh tomato salsa and romaine (our build)	360	41	11.4	n/a
Subway	Buffalo Chicken Protein Bowl*	380	35	9.2	2,420
Burger King	Flame-Grilled Chicken Sandwich	410	35	8.5	940
Chipotle	High Protein-Low Calorie Bowl	460	35	7.6	n/a
Chipotle	Bowl of chicken, fajita veggies, fresh tomato salsa and romaine (our build)	230	33	14.3	n/a
McDonald’s	McCrispy Strips (3 piece)	400	31	7.8	1,320
Burger King	Double Cheeseburger	460	27	5.9	1,040
McDonald’s	McCrispy	470	26	5.5	1,140
McDonald’s	Double Cheeseburger	440	25	5.7	1,120
Burger King	Texas Whopper Jr.	420	21	5.0	1,080

Checked against Subway’s, McDonald’s and Burger King’s official nutrition information on 22 October 2026, and Chipotle’s on 17 October 2026. *At participating locations.

The leanest high-protein, low-calorie fast food in this table is the Chipotle bowl of chicken, fajita veggies, fresh tomato salsa and romaine, at 14.3 g of protein per 100 calories. A Chipotle build can go higher if you double the chicken, which is 360 calories and 64 g of protein on its own. The Subway bowls are lean too, but the Subway Club Protein Bowl has 2,270 mg of sodium and the Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki bowl has 33 g of sugars. Burger King’s Flame-Grilled Chicken Sandwich has 940 mg, less than half the sodium of the Subway Club Protein Bowl.

High-protein fast-food breakfast

The highest-protein fast-food breakfast on these menus is a Subway footlong Steak, Egg & Cheese on Artisan Italian bread, with 60 g of protein and 1,060 calories, at participating locations. At McDonald’s, the Steak, Egg & Cheese Bagel has 34 g for 680 calories, and the Egg McMuffin gives the most protein for its calories of any McDonald’s breakfast sandwich, 17 g for 310. Burger King’s Egg-Normous Burrito has 35 g for 800 calories.

Chain	Breakfast order	Calories	Protein (g)	Protein per 100 cal	Sodium (mg)
Subway	Footlong Steak, Egg & Cheese on Artisan Italian*	1,060	60	5.7	2,500
Subway	Steak, Egg & Cheese on 12-inch wrap*	860	48	5.6	1,890
McDonald’s	Big Breakfast with Hotcakes	1,340	36	2.7	2,070
Burger King	Egg-Normous Burrito	800	35	4.4	2,010
McDonald’s	Steak, Egg & Cheese Bagel	680	34	5.0	1,510
Starbucks	Grande Iced Sugar-Free Vanilla Protein Matcha	210	31	14.8	135
Subway	6-inch Steak, Egg & Cheese on Artisan Italian*	530	30	5.7	1,250
Starbucks	Grande Iced Sugar-Free Vanilla Protein Latte	200	29	14.5	125
McDonald’s	Sausage McMuffin with Egg	480	20	4.2	830
Burger King	Ham, Egg, & Cheese Croissan’wich	350	18	5.1	1,000
McDonald’s	Egg McMuffin	310	17	5.5	770

Checked against McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway and Starbucks official nutrition information on 22 October 2026. The footlong row is Subway’s 6-inch values doubled. *At participating locations.

Big breakfasts bring a lot more than protein. The Big Breakfast with Hotcakes has 36 g of protein but 1,340 calories and 2,070 mg of sodium, and the Subway footlong has 2,500 mg. An iced sugar-free protein latte or matcha at Starbucks gets you 29 to 31 g of protein for 200 to 210 calories in a grande, though it’s a drink rather than a meal.

High-protein fast food, chain by chain

Subway has the most ready-made high-protein orders of the five chains: 14 of its 25 Protein Bowls have 40 g of protein or more. Of the orders on this page, Starbucks’ iced sugar-free protein drinks give the most protein per calorie, and Chipotle gives the most control, since you add protein one scoop at a time.

McDonald’s

The Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese is McDonald’s highest-protein single item, 48 g for 740 calories. The 40-piece Chicken McNuggets box has more in total (92 g), but it’s made to share. The 3-piece McCrispy Strips are the leanest high-protein pick at 31 g for 400 calories, and the Egg McMuffin is the best breakfast for protein per calorie (17 g, 310 calories). Only three McDonald’s items have 30 g of protein or more and stay under 600 calories. Full rankings: high-protein McDonald’s.

Burger King

Burger King’s Triple Whopper with Bacon & Cheese has the most protein, 87 g, but also 1,390 calories. The Flame-Grilled Chicken Sandwich is the leanest high-protein pick at 35 g for 410 calories (8.5 g per 100 calories), and the Bacon and Swiss Flame-Grilled Chicken Sandwich has 43 g for 560 calories. Full rankings: high-protein Burger King.

Subway

Subway’s Protein Bowls use a footlong portion of meat, so 21 of the 25 have 35 g of protein or more. The Grilled Chicken Protein Bowl has 48 g for 620 calories and 950 mg of sodium, the least sodium of any bowl with 30 g of protein or more. A Fresh Fit footlong Grilled Chicken has 52 g for 600 calories. Full rankings: high-protein Subway.

Starbucks

Sixteen of Starbucks’ 19 protein drinks have 27 to 31 g of protein in a grande. The iced sugar-free lattes and matchas are the leanest, at 200 to 210 calories and 9 to 10 g of sugars in a grande, while the protein cream drinks give the least protein per calorie. Full rankings: Starbucks protein drinks.

Chipotle

At Chipotle, a scoop of chicken has 32 g of protein for 180 calories. The Double High Protein Bowl from Chipotle’s High Protein Menu (double chicken, light white rice, black beans, fajita veggies, fresh tomato salsa, cheese and extra lettuce) has 81 g for 760 calories. Builds and math: high-protein Chipotle bowls.

How to spot a high-protein order on any menu

To spot a high-protein order on any fast-food menu, divide the protein by the calories and multiply by 100. On the five menus above, the lean high-protein picks score about 7 or more, while McDonald’s burgers score 4.3 to 6.5 and its breakfast sandwiches 2.4 to 5.5.

Protein alone doesn’t make something the healthiest fast food choice, so run three more checks:

• Look for more meat, not more bread. Subway’s bowls and wraps use a footlong portion of meat, while a 6-inch Subway bread adds 200 to 250 calories and only 6 to 10 g of protein. At McDonald’s, the Quarter Pounder with Cheese Deluxe has 110 more calories than the regular Quarter Pounder with Cheese and no extra protein.
• Check the sodium. Compare it with the 2,300 mg daily limit in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Three McCrispy Strips have 1,320 mg, and the Subway Club Protein Bowl 2,270 mg.
• Check the sugar in drinks and sauces. A grande sugar-free Starbucks protein drink saves 60 to 90 calories and 14 to 22 g of sugars against its regular version, and Subway’s Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki bowl has 33 g of sugars.

These five chains post their numbers, but many restaurants don’t. For those, see how to count calories when eating out, or our comparison of the best calorie tracker apps for eating out. MacroScout’s menu scan (a Pro feature) lets you photograph a menu and see which dishes fit the calories and protein you have left today.

This article is for general information and is not medical advice. Talk to your doctor before changing your diet, especially if you have a health condition.