There are a lot of keto McDonalds options that you can choose from, however, to keep it low carb you need to know what exactly you need to order.
Are you ready for my tips on low carb options at McDonald’s?
Let’s begin
How Healthy Are These Keto At Mcdonalds?
So, let’s say you are on a trip with your family and you run out of snacks to eat, you can eat Mcdonald’s.
Hey, don’t get too excited yet. If you are on a strict keto diet, you should never even think of walking into a Mcdonald’s store.
Why?
That place is tempting!
I am against eating at Mcdonalds or any other fast food because most of their items on the menu are cooked with vegetable oil. Mcdonalds, in particular, makes use of Soybean oil, and Soybean oil contains a lot of fatty acids that can cause inflammation.
Eating at a fast-food restaurant regularly isn’t good for your health, but eating once in a long while won’t harm your health (if you eat strictly keto).
Keto Mcdonalds Breakfast Options
After taking a good look at the McDonalds keto menu, I found out that there are several low carb foods at Mcdonalds that you can have for breakfast, but there are a lot of low carb McDonald’s meals you should avoid due to the high amount of carbs.
Take a look at the table below.
| Food | Number of carbs |
| Fruit and Oat Meal | 62 g |
| Fruit ‘N Yogurt Parfait | 20 g |
| Hotcakes and Sausage | 25 g |
There are up to 12 sandwiches for breakfast on the Mcdonald’s menu, I will not go through all the options but I’ll briefly talk about one of which I think is the best selling option. The Egg MC muffin which contains about 27 grams of carbs, however, if you take out the muffin, the sandwich will have a total of 3 grams of carbs.
Generally, when you want to eat breakfast and consider keto-friendly McDonald’s menu, you should stick to the meat or eggs. Take away the muffin or biscuit.
Big Mac No Bun Keto
Just the name is enough to make you salivate, I loved burgers back in the day, but when I decided to start keto, a lot had to change.
I know the title up there is scary (Big Mac No Bun?) How weird! But to maintain a healthy diet and cut down on a lot of carbs you should take the buns off.
Here’s another menu item you’d find on Mc Donald’s list, the quarter pounder with cheese. This menu item contains about 40 grams of net carbs. If you’d agree with me, that’s quite a lot.
If you must have the big mac, you can remove the buns completely, or bring your low carb buns. You can even order for a McDonalds lettuce wrap.
Don’t even go near the mcdouble, it has about 390 calories. “Mcdouble calories no bun” would be way less but I won’t eat it even without the buns.
So, back to the first “quarter pounder with cheese”. Without the bun, you are free of 30 grams of carbs and will have about 9 grams left. If you want it to come down to about 5 grams tell them not to add ketchup for you.
Keeping Salads At McDonalds Low Carb
Don’t make the mistake I made years ago, I felt I didn’t have to worry about carbs in a salad. Today at Mcdonalds, a side salad would probably contain the following.
- Carrots.
- Different kinds of lettuce.
- Baby spinach.
- Grape tomatoes.
- Baby kale.
Side salads do not contain many carbs, you will get roughly about 3 grams of carbs per salad dish. Ordering a few more salads could result in about 12 carbs.
A healthy and recommend item on the menu is the Bacon Ranch Grilled Chicken Salad which contains only 9 grams of carbs. It comes with tomatoes and if you remove the tomatoes you should have as low as 7 grams of carbs.
Say a big NO! To the ranch dressing which has ingredients like sugar and corn syrup, you should stay away from ingredients like this. Ranch dressing has a total of 11 grams of carbs.
In the menu there’s also the southwest grilled chicken salad, this one contains 27 grams of net carbs and about 37 grams of protein which of course comes from the chicken.
If you are not comfortable with 27 grams of carbs you can tell them to remove the lime glaze dressing which should now bring you to down to 20 grams of carbs, you can also get rid of the tortilla strip, this would bring it down even more to 15 grams of carbs.
Can I Get Low Carb Crispy Chicken At Mc Donalds
If you asked this question in your mind or have ever asked before, you should be careful, why? The temptation is setting in. However, if you must have the crispy chicken at McDonald’s, be sure to remove the buns, doing this brings down the total number of grams. Don’t eat this too much, the crispy chicken also contains carbs.
In the menu you might find an option like the buttermilk crispy chicken sandwich, it contains 18 grams of carbs, there’s also the buttermilk chicken tenders which contain about 13 grams of carbs. These items can be eaten once in a very long while. But once you have fed your cravings STOP!
A better option would be to go with the artisan grilled chicken sandwich, without the bun it contains 0 carbs.
Best Sides And Drinks To Take At Mcdonalds
I always ask for iced tea at McDonalds (unsweetened). When I am not having this, I am drinking water which is by far the best thing to take in a fast-food restaurant while on a strict keto diet.
Avoid sweetened drinks in every possible way. You see someone beside you drinking it, look away so you don’t get tempted.
Coke and the likes, is a no-no.
Conclusion
There you have it guys, I hope this guide has been able to help you to select the best keto McDonalds breakfast, mcdouble, salad and drink. There are a lot of other low carb keto fast food options to choose from, but remember to completely stay off the buns, bread or biscuit, stay off the ketchup, remove tomatoes, and drinking only water or unsweetened ice tea.
No matter what, you need to stay off the french fries and shakes, if you must have a burger with buns, you can go to the restaurant with your keto-friendly buns.
Thanks for stopping by, I hope this article has been of help to you.
