The Healthiest And Unhealthiest Items On The Menu At Long John Silver's

The world needs more Long John Silver's. Serving up plates, platters, bowls, and boxes of golden brown fried fish in an inviting, nautical setting, it's all very appealing. It's one of the few national seafood chains, but also one of the best places to go for tasty (because it's deep-fried) cod, shrimp and clam strips, along with some hushpuppies, coleslaw, and maybe a chicken strip. Alternatively, customers can skip the battering and opt for lightly-seasoned and gently prepared shrimp and salmon and pair it with some vegetables. Long John Silver's seemingly has a fish in the sea for every person out there. But how much of it can find a spot in a balanced diet?

In evaluating the items at Long John Silver's in late 2024 and weighed their nutritional merits, we used the USDA's Dietary Guidelines. Per the USDA, the average American adult should consume foods, across the entire day, that provide no more than 2,000 calories, 65 grams of fat (of which 20 grams is the heart-unhealthy saturated fat), 300 milligrams of cholesterol, 2,400 milligrams of sodium, and 50 grams of added sugar. With those figures in mind, here are the best and worst things to order at Long John Silver's.

Long John Silver's doesn't only serve fish and seafood that's been coated and immersed in hot oil. It sells shrimp that have been saved a crispy outside and fat bath, merely lightly marinated and grilled with very little to no fat involved whatsoever. At Long John Silver's, the Grilled Shrimp are available as an al a carte item, sold from the "Add a Piece" menu. One order consists of three pieces of meaty, flavorful shellfish treated with an unobtrusive sauce.

The Grilled Shrimp trio is among the most purely protein-packed options at Long John Silver's, providing 11 grams of the stuff while also containing less than one single total gram of fat. However, just three shrimp add 98 milligrams of cholesterol to one's diet, which is almost a third of the USDA's recommended daily intake, along with 1,220 milligrams. The preparation is a salty one, so much so that it provides half of a day's sodium allowance. It's still one of the more conscientious foods at Long John Silver's.

While heavily battered and cooked until they're a deep brown, and very nearly burned, the Long John Silver's clam strips are extremely fish-forward. Diners know they're eating clams, as these are chewy, salty, fishy, and even a little bit sandy. While prepared in large quantities and heated up in the restaurant, these taste and feel surprisingly fresh, and they add another layer to the seafood dining experience.

Sold as an add-on or side to a combination meal or platter, the Long John Silver's clam strips arrive in a small paper boat or box, more or less a handful of meaty crumbs of varying sizes. It doesn't look very substantial, but that order of breaded clam strips packs a nutritional wallop. Those few extra bites add 343 calories, 19 grams of fat, 8 grams of saturated fat, and more than 900 milligrams of sodium to a diner's daily intake. This represents just under a third of the average total daily fat needs (as determined by the USDA), nearly half of the saturated fat limit, and about 40% of the salt one should take in over a day.

One expects fast food fish chains to usually serve some kind of white fish, like cod or pollock, that's been breaded and fried in some way. Long John Silver's does offer those things, and in that manner, but it also sells an exception to the rule: salmon. It's rare to find that beloved and hearty fish in drive-thru-oriented restaurants, but Long John Silver's leads the way with its Grilled Salmon Meal.

The chain gives customers their generous filet of seasoned, grilled, and flaky fish atop a bed of rice, and they can choose from an array of other side dishes, so isolated for nutritional counts and judging it on its own merits, the grilled salmon is a remarkably healthy Long John Silver's selection. To the USDA-recommended daily diet of 2,000 calories and 65 grams of fat, this salmon adds just 110 calories and 2 grams of fat. It's also very low in cholesterol and sodium, with 41 grams (well below the 300 total) and 325 milligrams (far under the 2,4000 per-day limit).

Long John Silver's expanded past fish and chips with Mexican-inspired items fish tacos. The standard taco at the seafood restaurant chain is a simple construction: a strip of breaded and fried pollock goes into a tortilla, where it's joined with some chopped cabbage and carrots as well as a few squirts of a slightly spicy and creamy sauce.

A Long John Silver's taco doesn't seem like a lot of food, at least not for the price, and so the chain sells them in pairs, and as part of combo meals. And seeing as how they're made with calorie-heavy and fat-laden fish sticks, they add a lot to a diner's USDA daily recommended allowances. The numbers from two standard fish tacos at Long John Silver's add up to 576 calories, 54 grams of fat (including 20 grams of saturated fat), and almost 2,600 milligrams of sodium. While that provides just over a quarter of one day's calorie total, it also gives nearly a full day's fat need, the entire saturated fat amount, and more than enough sodium the USDA says should be eaten in a whole day.

Long John Silver's serves tacos in multiple ways, including with grilled salmon. One taco gets a still fairly weighty half piece of salmon, cooked without the aid of a deep-fryer and then glazed with a sweet and savory sauce and topped with a mixed cabbage blend that suggests coleslaw without the milky sauce.

Deciding to order the grilled salmon tacos, instead of the standard Long John Silver's preparation of the dish made with fried pollock, frees up a lot of calories, fat, saturated fat, and sodium. One of the Long John Silver's tacos comprises just 145 calories, while adding in 4 grams of fat (and just 1 gram of saturated fat) and 580 milligrams of sodium. Even consuming a pair of the Long John Silver's tacos is a solidly healthy notion — that still results in less than half of the USDA-suggested daily sodium intake being met.

As the first name in fast food fish, Long John Silver's has to stock a fish sandwich. The chain has toyed around with a lot of different styles of a breaded patty between two pieces of bread, resulting in a few discontinued fish sandwiches we'll probably never eat again, and as of 2024, serves one consisting of a big fried and breaded cod fillet on a brioche bun along with a hefty dollop of tartar sauce and some pickle slices.

There's not much to the Long John Silver's Fish Sandwich, which finished poorly in The Takeout's official fast food fish sandwich power rankings, but it all adds up, nutritionally. The sandwich contains 446 calories and 22 grams of fat — that's almost a quarter of an adult's daily requirement, and a third of the recommended total fat intake. What's worse is that of the 22 fat grams, eight are of the artery-clogging saturated variety, and almost half of what a person should consume across an entire day. The Fish Sandwich is also egregiously salty, containing 1,229 milligrams of sodium, which gets a consumer more than halfway to the USDA's single-day limit.

The Long John Silver's menu encourages and makes it easy to group selections — its combos, baskets, and variety platters all include at least one entrée and in everything but the basic combo, two side dishes. Judging by the menu photos and anecdotal evidence, it seems most Long John Silver's customers order waffle fries as their side. But there's another option that's probably the single healthiest item on the entire Long John Silver's menu: green beans.

By the looks and taste, they're off the canned variety, so they're soft, pleasant-tasting, and boast a sickly green pallor. And yet, they also can help fill a stomach without adding many calories or fat to one's daily consumption to balance out the rest of your order. An order of the Long John SIlver's green beans contain just 25 calories, no fat, no saturated fat, no cholesterol, and 600 milligrams of sodium. That's a quarter of the USDA's advised daily limit, but apart from that, this is a vegetable, and vegetables are generally healthy.

The majority of the markets where Long John Silver's operates are in the interior of the United States. As it caters to a populist, Midwestern or adjacent clientele, Long John Silver's sometimes offers items that have nothing to do with traditional seafood, such as its cheese bites. The restaurant proudly touts how this American delicacy is made with product from the historical dairy hotbed of Wisconsin — the cheese bites are built out of white cheddar cheese, formed into round nuggets, and then breaded and fried.

It should come as no surprise that battered and deep-fried cheese isn't objectively considered to be a health food. One order, sold by Long John Silver's as a snack item, provides the nutritional macros of an entree and then some. The Cheese Bites have 349 calories and 24 grams of fat, of which 13 grams is the more dangerous saturated fat. The dish provides an adult with about 35% of their USDA-recommended total fat intake and two-thirds of their saturated fat.

In and of itself, crab is nutritionally sound — it doesn't have a lot of fat but loads of protein. To make crab cakes out of it, it's a challenge to keep things healthy while also bulking up the relatively pricey protein with vegetables, seasonings, breadcrumbs, and other fillers before battering and frying the whole melange. Somehow, Long John Silver's manages to sell a crab cake at a reasonable, fast food-level price that has a good amount of actual meat in it while also maintaining nutritional integrity.

It might be because the Long John Silver's crab cake is pretty small and only lightly breaded, but nevertheless it's a healthier menu choice with its 280 calories, 9 grams of fat, 4 grams of saturated fat, 30 milligrams of cholesterol, and 450 milligrams of sodium. Those all make up a small or modest share of the daily totals the USDA says an average American adult should take in over the course of a day.

It's the flagship item at Long John Silver's, the one offering upon which a chain flourished and the menu revolves around: Alaskan-caught cod, breaded in a tempura batter, and then deep fried. The thick, sizable parallelograms of carb-encased whitefish, served piping hot, are available at Long John Silver's on their own or as central to its many combo meals and family platters, but they're as objectively unhealthy as they are vital to the success and sustainability of the entire enterprise.

A meal, basket, or combo comes standard with two pieces of battered Alaskan cod. Not including the sides, which can vary greatly according to customer preference, a duo of fish pieces include 424 calories. That's about 20% of the USDA's advised daily amount, but where the cod really packs a punch is in the fat categories. Two pieces contain 32 total grams of fat and 14 grams of the worrisome saturated fat. Respectively, that's half and 70% of the USDA-recommended figures. The battered Alaskan cod is also very salty: Two fillets add 1,618 milligrams of sodium, or 75% of what the USDA says should be the maximum eaten in a day.

Not everyone likes fish, and Long John Silver's is keenly aware of that fact. While still keeping up with the seafaring theme, the restaurant chain sells a fish alternative: breaded and fried chicken breast strips, marketed under the name Chicken Planks. While lacking the telltale fishy tang of its fried cod, the Chicken Planks taste almost the same, prepared with a similar batter that results in an airy and crispy golden brown coating.

That chicken is also one of the more health-aware things sold by Long John Silver's. Compared to a single cod fillet, a Chicken Plank has far less calories, fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, and sodium, while containing virtually the same robust amount of protein — 10 grams in the chicken versus the fish. Overall, one Chicken Plank contains 145 calories, 8 grams of fat (of which just 4 are saturated), 36 milligrams of cholesterol, and 546 milligrams of sodium.

Clearly, Long John Silver's tried to entice healthy eaters or bring back former customers who eschewed the chain's fried fish and fries to embrace better dietary habits with its miniature line of rice bowls. Long John Silver's sells many different combos and platters piled high with breaded seafood, hushpuppies, and fries, and the bowls notably and visibly contrast that, consisting entirely of rice, shredded cabbage, a drizzle of sauce, and the diner's choice of either seasoned and grilled salmon or shrimp.

Looks and perceptions can be deceiving, however. Neither the Grilled Salmon Rice Bowl nor the Grilled Shrimp Rice Bowl can claim a modest nutritional profile. The salmon option results in 667 calories, a full third of the USDA's recommended daily need for an adult; the shrimp bowl has even more, at 765 calories. Both options add a scant 8 grams of fat to the day, but they each approach 90 milligrams of cholesterol and more than 1,700 milligrams of sodium each — that's almost three-quarters of the upper-limit for the latter category.

The standard fish and chips dinner in a lot of restaurants includes breaded fish fillets, french fries of some kind, and a cup of coleslaw. Some fast food chains have tastier coleslaw than others, and that includes Long John Silver's. In flavor and texture, it counters the salty, savory, crunchy fish and waffle fries with soft and creamy sweetness. It's made with little more than chopped cabbage, carrots, and a tangy sauce that makes a perfect coleslaw dressing, but it's enough to make a meal out of an otherwise uniformly brown and fried combo.

The good news is that Long John Silver's coleslaw is fairly healthy. It's made up mostly of vegetables, which are generally easy on the body. Even drenched in mayonnaise-based sauce, this coleslaw adds just 170 calories, 11 grams of fat, 20 milligrams of cholesterol, and 410 milligrams of sodium to a diner's daily dietary collection.

With no real post-meal sweet-treats associated with traditional seafood or deep-sea fishing, the dessert menu at Long John Silver's consists of standard restaurant takeout choices — a selection of individually portioned cheesecake slices, most coming on and off of the menu on a seasonal rotation basis. While it doesn't provide the seafood restaurants with every one of its cheesecakes, the Cheesecake Factory does come through for Long John Silver's.

The most dietarily devastating of all of the cheesecake options at Long John Silver's, more so than chocolate, pumpkin, and Oreo preparations: the Cheesecake Factory Red Velvet Cheesecake. One small slice contains 530 calories, which is more than most entrées at the fried seafood fast food chain. A lot of those calories come from fat — a slice has 30 grams (almost half of the USDA advised daily limit) of which 12 grams is saturated fat. The USDA recommends that adults not eat more than 50 grams of sugar a day — one piece of Red Velvet Cheesecake has 49 grams.

Along with any big combo meal or platter that involves fried fish, Long John Silver's includes a generous amount of detritus from the battering-and-frying process. Bits of varying sizes of crispy, oily, salty breading that Long John Silver's calls "Crumblies" make their way into the boxes and serve as a bonus side dish, something to nibble on after all the big pieces of fish have been eaten.

There's no real uniform serving size of Crumblies — however many a diner gets seems to be at the whim of employees or luck of the draw, with how many fallen away chunks get turned out of the fryer at any given time. On its nutritional information guide, Long John Silver's estimates that a serving of Crumblies equates to one grasp of tongs, or 1 ounce. That's a very tiny amount, and even if one ate just that little bit, they'd put away a not inconsequential amount of calories, fat, and sodium. Crumblies are pure breading and fat, and just 1 ounce packs 172 calories, 12 grams of fat, and 410 milligrams of sodium. That's almost a fifth of the fat an adult should eat in a day, and one-sixth the sodium.