How to Order Low Carb at McDonald’s

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Learn how to order low carb McDonald’s.

Get my 37 item McDonald’s low carb menu for free. It’s a great resource for any keto McDonald’s eaters or anyone doing low carb, Atkins, sugar free or diabetic friendly diets.

I also share pics, reviews, and recommendations from my real-life McDonald’s low carb orders.

I’m on a mission to order low carb at the top 30 fast food chains in the US. For each fast food restaurant I evaluate:

  1. Availability of low carb entrees (less than 20 net carbs).
  2. Satiety of low carb entrees.
  3. Price of low carb entrees.
  4. Taste of low carb entrees.
  5. Ordering experience.

What to order

My first time into McDonald’s for this project I ordered a bunless Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese. That’s my go-to low carb order at McDonald’s.  For additional flavor & calories, I added extra lettuce and bacon.

It was delicious. Instead of trying to make the burger more filling by adding lettuce and bacon, I should have just ordered two burgers.

Ordering a bunless burger at McDonald’s is pretty easy, you tell the drive through attendant which burger you want and then ask for “no bun” and make sure they confirm it on the little ordering screen outside their drive-thru. The drive-thru attendants at McDonald’s must get the “no bun” order often because I wasn’t questioned about it.

Of course, the attendant always asks if you want to “make that a meal with fries and a drink,” and your answer should always be “No.” The fries alone have way too many carbs.

For this review, I went back ordered a few other entrees including a bunless Big Mac.

It looks small outside of its bun, but tastes delicious. The tender beef patties, shredded lettuce, melted cheese, and Big Mac sauce all combined to make this one of the best low carb fast food entrees I’ve eaten.

Wonder how many carbs are in a Big Mac with no bun? There are 7 carbs and 330 calories. It’s a good low carb option. The only problem is that you’ll need to order two Big Macs to fill up.

I also ordered a bunless Artisanal Chicken Sandwich with extra bacon and some mayo. I never really get excited about chicken entrees but this was really good.

The added bacon and mayo offsets the blandness of grilled chicken. One piece of feedback for McDonald’s: I wish they’d chop up the chicken breast and put it on shredded lettuce so I could eat this like a salad. Sonic does this surprisingly well.

I went back again and ordered breakfast since I figured many people would be interested in ordering a low carb McDonald’s breakfast. As a practitioner of intermittent fasting, I rarely eat breakfast, but I did so for you, dear reader.

For breakfast, I ordered one bunless Egg McMuffin, one biscuit-less Sausage & Egg Cheese biscuit, and one biscuit-less Bacon, Egg & Cheese biscuit.

What you should order

For breakfast, I recommend you order one bunless Egg McMuffin (comes with sliced ham, egg white patty, and slice of cheese ) and one bunless Sausage & Egg Cheese McMuffin.  I was plenty full after eating those two.

For lunch or dinner, I recommend the bunless Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese. Get two if you’re pretty hungry.

If you need a small snack, they have a side salad with 4 net carbs and a 4-piece chicken nugget with 10 net carbs.

For drinks, you can get a low carb McDonald’s coffee, a Dasani Bottled water, Diet Coke or Diet Dr. Pepper, or unsweetened ice tea.

What you can order

Bunless burgers, grilled chicken salads (crispy chicken has too many carbs), and bunless breakfast sandwiches.

There’s really no such thing as low carb McDonald’s chicken nuggets unless you can be satisfied by a 6-piece which offers only 270 calories for 15 net carbs.

If you’re into sauces, dips, dressings, & condiments, the following are great options at McDonald’s because they have 3 net carbs or less (net carbs in parentheses):

  • Creamy Ranch Sauce (1)
  • Spicy Buffalo Sauce (1)
  • Marinara Sauce (2)
  • Ketchup Packet (3)
  • Newman’s Own® Low Fat Balsamic Vinaigrette (3) – This is the ONLY salad dressing you should order at McDonald’s. The others are too high carb.

If you’re super hungry, I wouldn’t mess with the grilled chicken salads or the tiny nugget orders. They won’t be satisfying enough for a meal based on my previous experiences (not described in this post).

What you should avoid

In case you’re new to low carb or keto eating, I’ll start by saying that all McDonald’s buns, fries, hash browns, tortillas, pancakes, and desserts (cookies, shakes, cones, etc) should be avoided.

There are also some less obvious entrees and sides to avoid that I’ve listed below. They seem like they might be low carb, but aren’t.

Tempting entrees to avoid:

  • 10-piece Chicken Nuggets or larger – 24 net carbs (due to food starch and wheat starch in the breading)
  • Crispy Chicken Salads –  20 – 40 net carbs due to breading on the chicken.
  • Bunless Crispy Chicken Sandwiches – 20+ net carbs due to breading on the chicken
  • Southwest Salads – 20 net carbs thanks to add tortilla strips, corn, and beans.

Tempting sides to avoid:

  • Cuties (the little oranges) – 8 net carbs
  • GoGurt – 9 net carbs

Tempting sauces to avoid:

  • Honey Mustard Sauce – 5 net carbs
  • Chipotle Barbecue Sauce – 11 net carbs
  • Tangy Barbecue Sauce – 12 net carbs
  • Sweet Chili Sauce – 12 net carbs
  • Sweet ‘N Sour Sauce – 12 net carbs

Tempting salad dressings to avoid: 

  • Newman’s Own® Low Fat Italian Dressing – 7 net carbs
  • Newman’s Own® Ranch Dressing – 9 net carbs
  • Newman’s Own® Creamy Southwest Dressing – 11 net carbs
  • Newman’s Own® Low Fat Sesame Ginger Dressing – 14 net carbs

Basically stick to bunless burgers and bunless egg sandwiches and stay from the sides & sauces, and you’ll be fine :).

Overall Ratings

I rated McDonald’s as low-carb friendly because you can order almost any of their burgers without a bun and they’ll be low carb.  They also have a few on-menu, low carb salads you can select from if you’re in the mood for greens. For breakfast, you can order bunless Egg McMuffins along with a black coffee and concoct yourself a decent little low carb breakfast.

  • Low carb friendly – Yes
  • Low carb entrees on menu – Not many. They have three different grilled chicken salads and a 4-piece & 6-piece chicken nugget that come in under 20 net carbs. Low carb dieters will need to special request / order off menu, mostly.
  • Low carb entrees off menu – Yes, this is where McDonald’s shines. Their bunless burgers are delicious. You can also get bunless Egg McMuffins.
  • Satiety of low carb entrees – Good. I felt somewhat satisfied after eating a bunless double quarter pounder with cheese & bacon, but still had room to eat my son’s cheeseburger patty that he didn’t touch (and I could have eaten more too). The bunless burgers don’t come with much lettuce and they pack it snugly in a small bowl, so psychologically it doesn’t feel like you’re eating a lot. Their bunless breakfast sandwiches were surprisingly filling.
  • Taste of low carb entrees – Great. My bunless burger was amazing and I really enjoyed my bunless sausage egg & cheese biscuit and my bunless egg mcmuffin.
  • Price of low carb entrees – Great. I only paid $6.25 for my double quarter pounder with cheese and that includes $1.20 for extra bacon and $0.25 for extra lettuce. If I had to do it over again, I’d scratch the extra bacon and lettuce, and just order two double quarter pounders for $9.60 ($4.80 each) — which would be an even better value. My bunless Big Mac was $3.30 and my bunless Artisan Chicken Club with Bacon was $6.00. For breakfast, I paid about $2.90 apiece for the three bunless egg sandwiches I ordered. I only really needed two to get full, so a low carb breakfast at McDonald’s can be had for less than $6.
  • Ordering experience – Ok. Going through the drive through for lunch, they got my double quarter pounder right, but accidentally left the bun on my son’s bunless cheeseburger. My son didn’t mind, of course :). He’s a lovable 2-year old Carb Eating Sucka so he actually ate only the bun and left the patty with cheese for me. For breakfast, I ordered inside at the counter and the employees were very helpful and friendly, but made a few mistakes. You can read more about those mistakes below in the “What I ordered” section of this post.

I really enjoyed my two low carb eating experiences at McDonald’s for this project. My main criticism of McDonald’s is that they only carry four entrees on the menu that are less than 20 grams net carbs.

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