The 12 Unhealthiest Chain Restaurant Salads

By now, we've reluctantly come to realize that not all restaurant salads are healthy. A bowl piled high with iceberg lettuce that's then topped with fried chicken and bacon before being drenched in ranch dressing — awesome as it sounds — really doesn't count as health food. 

However, let's remember that virtually no meal at any restaurant is healthy, and not every food choice you make needs to be made with health in mind. What's more, we don't all agree on what's considered healthy. In fact, different people with varying dietary needs and preferences should choose salad components based on their own health requirements. For example, a diner who doesn't need to keep track of their sugar levels might be just fine with a very sweet salad dressing — but on doctor's orders must cut down on sodium. Meanwhile, someone who is seeking to eat light may choose a salad over a burger, without realizing that a Big Mac has less calories than many restaurant salads. 

Once you start examining the nutrition facts provided by chain restaurants, you'll find that many healthy-sounding salads contain epic amounts of sodium, or other potentially unwanted ingredients. If you have no health restrictions and are hankering for a high-calorie, high-fat, sugary, salty salad, go for it every so often. But if you're ordering that salad because you want to choose the healthiest menu option, you might want to look again after eyeing the following chain restaurant menu items. 

With grilled chicken breast, heart-healthy avocado, and fresh vegetables, Sheila's Chicken and Avocado Salad at The Cheesecake Factory starts off looking pretty light. But once tortilla strips and honey-based dressing are added, the salad's fat, sugar, and sodium ratings go off the charts. While we have pretty strong feelings about why it's time for Cheesecake Factory to dump the SkinnyLicious Menu, that doesn't mean you can't make healthier choices on a menu that has an almost bewildering number of options. Even if you're not watching your overall fat or salt intake, you should know that with 124 grams of fat, and a staggering 2,150 mg of sodium, this salad somehow packs in more salt and fat than five large orders of McDonald's fries. 

Want more nutrition facts to ponder before you order? Let's talk about sugar — you know, the ingredient that nobody would surprised to find in a can of original Coke. But while a 12-ounce can of Coke has 39 grams of sugar; this salad has 57 grams of the sweet stuff. 

On the plus side, a full serving of this salad does provide a healthy 22 grams of fiber, a good indicator that you'll find real veggies in the mix. They might just be a little overwhelmed by all those other ingredients. 

With a solid portion of salmon atop an array of mixed greens, sunflower seeds, dried cranberries, and a harvest rice salad, there's a lot to like about this offering from the "Greens & Goodness" section of the Ruby Tuesday's menu. The greens are easy to spot, but what about the goodness? That's a matter of taste ... and this salad tastes very, very sweet. This is not surprising once you learn that this salad has 17 grams of sugar per serving, more than what you'll find in a standard two-pack of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. 

If you're watching your sugar intake, read menus carefully for red flags. Something "honey-glazed" is a pretty good tip-off that the dish will lean sweet — but how far? Well, the glaze sauce lists sugar as the first item, followed closely by corn syrup, molasses, and honey. A sprinkling of dried cranberries raises the sugar count even higher. 

This sweet accompaniment seems unnecessary when the centerpiece of this salad is a slab of heart-healthy grilled salmon. After all, fatty or sugary sauces are generally used to make boring foods taste better — so smothering delicious salmon in so much sticky sweetness should be a culinary misdemeanor. If you're craving a fresh salmon steak, a better bet would be to learn the key to grilling salmon with the skin still on, and make it yourself at home — the fish is delicious with simple seasoning, no sugar needed. 

When you find yourself ordering a salad at a Buffalo Wild Wings, you might also want to take a moment to evaluate your life choices. This is particularly true if your vision of a healthy salad looks anything like a bowl of lettuce topped with fried breaded chicken, bacon bits, and blue-cheese crumbles — dressed, naturally, with creamy blue-cheese dressing. Spa cuisine, this is not. And that's okay — so long as you're okay with the fact that a great deal of this salad's calories come from fat instead of protein or carbs. In fact, a single serving contains a whopping 78 grams of fat, the equivalent of well over 6 tablespoons of butter. 

But that's not even the most heart-stopping statistic here. The Crispy Buffalo Chicken Salad with Bleu Cheese Dressing also has a truly staggering amount of salt, with some 3,650 milligrams of sodium per serving. That's over twice the 1,500 mg per day recommended by the American Heart Association. In fact, you could eat 400 salted potato chips, and still consume less sodium than what's in this salad. (But please, don't do that.) Finally, this salad contains 2 grams of trans fats per serving. These fats can negatively affect your cholesterol levels and increase your risk of heart disease and diabetes. 

This antipasti-inspired take on the classic chef salad features provolone cheese and traditional Italian meats like capicola, salami, ham, and pepperoni, all served with a red-wine vinaigrette. Sounds pretty good, right? But we have a few things to consider. First, the deli meats in this salad are considered ultra-processed foods, a broad category of food and drink items that are frequently pumped full of artificial colors, flavors, and chemicals. Some are easy to spot (pro tip: If anything turns your tongue blue, it's probably ultra-processed). But we may forget to look for less-conspicuously processed items, like deli meats. Medical professionals have linked the prevalence of ultra-processed items in our diet to many health conditions, including serious stuff like cardiovascular disease, obesity, and type 2 diabetes. 

Deli meats are often processed with a hefty dose of salt as a natural preservative. That's likely why the full version of this fresh and wholesome-looking salad packs more sodium than you'd get from eating two large buckets of popcorn at the movies. And despite the fact that vinaigrette is generally a lower-fat dressing option, all that meat and cheese packs some 60 grams of fat per serving. Finally, a whopping 73% of its 740 calories come from fat, which is a high percentage for any salad. 

Wish we didn't have to break this to you, but a Cobb salad will almost never be your healthiest option on any menu. That's been the case ever since 1937, when Hollywood restaurateur Robert Cobb of the legendary Brown Derby is said to have conjured the first one from whatever was available in the refrigerator late one night. Luckily for diners everywhere, his fridge was stocked with romaine lettuce, bacon, chicken breasts, hard-boiled eggs, and Roquefort cheese. The rest is tasty, tasty history. 

A Cobb salad often features grilled chicken, which sounds like an ingredient that would make this a healthy choice. After all, skinless chicken breasts are practically synonymous with healthy protein. And that's generally true ... unless that chicken breast was marinated in a tub of seasoned oil or soaked in a high-fat, high-sugar sauce before cooking. While the Cobb's basic ingredients haven't really changed in almost a century, subtle differences can still affect its healthiness. 

The Chopt version does have a lot going for it, including a very modest 7 grams of sugar and a solid 55 grams of protein. Unfortunately, this Cobb's sodium is wildly out of proportion at 1,683 milligrams, more than the recommended dose for an entire day. You can build a better salad at Chopt, and we recommend that you do. 

Choosing the healthiest salad on any menu should be easy ... right? However, when ingredients or cooking methods vary even a little, the nutritional impact can be unexpected. Take IHOP's Chopped Chicken Salad, which you can order with grilled or crispy chicken. Oftentimes, "crispy" is restaurant-speak for "deep-fried" — and indeed, the menu photo shows a fairly basic green salad absolutely heaped with chunks of fried chicken, one of those subtle signs that you are not in a health-food café. But what if we opt for grilled chicken as the protein? That should seem to make it healthier.

Not so fast. If you dig a little deeper into the nutritional information, you'll find that while the grilled-chicken version of this salad does have 50 grams of fat compared to the 57 grams of fat found in the crispy option, it actually has more sodium by quite a bit. The grilled chicken salad will deliver 1,720 milligrams of sodium, as compared to the crispy option's 1,490 milligrams. 

However, both options have almost identically low levels of sugars and high doses of protein. So, if you're wavering between the two choices and worry more about sodium than fat in your diet, the counterintuitive choice of crispy chicken might well be the best pick for you. One bummer is that the two options each have a gram of trans fat, which is about a gram too much, according to the American Heart Association. 

As far as we're concerned, any ranch dressing is good, and pro chefs know all the tricks that explain why restaurant ranch tastes much better than the store-bought stuff. Add that to a plateful of traditional Cobb favorites — including chicken, bacon, avocado, and cheese — and you get the Million Dollar Cobb at TGI Fridays. 

We don't know about the million bucks, but this salad is definitely rich ... in fat. Many (if not most) chain-restaurant salads are higher in fat than salads that you'd make at home, unless you go all-out with oily marinades, extra cheese, and a heaping scoop of fried chicken. But even in a crowded and slightly greasy field, this salad remarkably has 67% of its overall calories derived from pure fat. And that's before we even get to discussing the 2,520 milligrams of sodium per serving. 

On the upside, this Cobb is relatively low in sugar, with only 8 grams. It provides 66 grams of protein, which sounds good until you learn that too much protein can be bad for you. The Mayo Clinic recommends that an average adult should have a daily intake of 60 grams of protein. While exceeding that amount every so often isn't a problem for most, an overload can lead to intestinal discomfort, fatigue, nausea, and dehydration. Chronic overconsumption can increase the risks of serious stuff like gout or liver and kidney problems.

Even once you get past the retro-cringe name of the Oriental Chicken Salad at Applebee's, this item has issues. The version with crispy chicken contains a staggering 105 grams of fat, equal to five servings of Ben & Jerry's vanilla ice cream. The generous helping of fried chicken pieces and an equally impressive sprinkling of deep-fried chow mein noodles are surely the prime culprits here. 

To be fair, this menu item is served with a breadstick, an accoutrement missing from the other salads discussed here. So if you wanted to, you could skip the gratuitous bread, which would lighten your meal somewhat. But really, once you've committed to this choice, you might as well enjoy the whole darn thing. However, if feasting on this big boy, consider asking for a to-go box when you order, and request for it to be brought out along with the meal. Before you take a bite, put half of the salad away for later. Split over two or more meals, this is still not exactly light cuisine, but you're less likely to upset your doctor (or your stomach), particularly given that lurking gram of trans fat. 

Let's make one thing clear right away — we love a good taco salad, and in fact believe that taco salads should be the next restaurant menu trend. In our rulebook, a classic taco salad should always be served in a crispy tortilla bowl. Sure, this salad has a lot of grease, and the bottom of the bowl is always completely soggy by the time you get to it ... but rules are rules. 

Wendy's entry into the not-incredibly-competitive fast food taco salad market abandons the canonical fried bowl in favor of chili-lime seasoned tortilla strips that are sprinkled over the other ingredients. This modification is certainly lower in fat, but it's also a lot less fun. You know what else is no fun? Discovering that this salad contains a full gram of trans fat, which may not seem like a lot, but it's more than we'd like to see in there. And while we're talking about your heart, the salad and dressing together pack 1,550 milligrams of sodium, which is a lot for a relatively small salad. If you're looking for a better salad option, a review of Wendy's Cobb salad declared that this alternative tastes great, and it features no trans fat, less saturated fat, and less sugar — all while featuring bacon and fried onions!

According to a recent Chick-fil-A menu leak preview for 2025, the chain's Grilled Spicy Chicken Deluxe Sandwich will soon be back at restaurant locations (except on Sundays, of course). However, Chick-fil-A fans who like a little heat can already order the chain's Spicy Deluxe Sandwich with a breaded slab of chicken, as well as the Cobb Salad with Spicy Filet, featuring the same breaded chicken with an avocado-lime ranch dressing. We might assume that the salad is a healthier option than the sandwich, right? Well, as with so many things in life (and particularly in fast-food and fast-casual salads), that depends. 

With 340 more calories than the Spicy Deluxe Sandwich, the Cobb Salad with Spicy Filet has 62 grams of fat while the sandwich — even with a slice of pepper Jack cheese — has a relatively modest (in comparison) 25 grams of fat. In addition, the salad packs a whopping 2,400 milligrams of sodium compared to the sandwich's (still high) 1,790 milligrams of sodium. To put that in perspective, you could eat 10 servings of the chain's beloved Waffle Potato Fries, and ingest the same amount of sodium as in that one salad. Now, of course, if you're keeping an eye on fat, eating all those fries would be a bad idea ... but it's still a pretty eye-opening comparison. 

Any diner who has witnessed the rise, fall, and resurrection of Chili's has almost certainly had their curiosity sparked if they spotted the Quesadilla Explosion Salad on the menu. While researching our candidates for the unhealthiest restaurant salad, finding questionable ingredients or cooking techniques has required a little detective work ... but pretty much anyone can guess that a salad with "quesadilla" in its name might not be the top choice of cardiologists. In addition to a high sodium content, the version of this salad with crispers offers 99 total grams of fat, 28 of which are saturated — more than double the 13 grams of saturated fat a day that the American Heart Association recommends as the maximum for an average person. 

And speaking of the mythical average person for whom American nutrition guidelines are written, a daily intake of 2,000 calories is widely considered sufficient for most people. That means that if you enjoy this entire 1,420-calorie salad and finish that off with a serving of Chili's Mini Molten Chocolate Cake for dessert, you'll already hit 2,090 calories in a single meal. Is it okay to do that every so often as a wonderful occasion? Sure, live large. But on a menu with a range of healthier options — including the nonexplosive Santa Fe Grilled Chicken Salad — this might not be your best pick for a random weekday lunch break. 

At first glance, this salad looks like it has a lot going for it, with heart-healthy, high-fiber black beans, along with sweet corn and jicama. And in fact, the full-sized version of this salad provides an impressive 16 grams of fiber. However, this salad also packs a higher amount of sugar — with a total of 18 grams — and even more saturated fat, at 20 grams. 

While the BBQ chicken topping on this salad is grilled, it is almost certainly prepared in a way that helps to explain the dish's 84 grams of total fat, an amount boosted by the fried tortilla strips and an herb ranch dressing. As for the carb count, we're talking 91 grams. By comparison, a slice of the restaurant's Original BBQ Chicken Pizza has 5 total grams of fat and 25 grams of carbs — so eating three pizza slices is an all-around healthier choice than this salad, even if you're curbing your carbohydrates. Salad may be great, but pizza is, well, pizza. Case closed.

This list of chain restaurant salads was compiled with nutrition information provided by the establishments featured. While healthy eating is subjective, this list highlights salads with considerable amounts of ingredients that are widely considered as potentially harmful in excessive doses. This may not be problematic for diners who actively choose these salads, but these salads are not necessarily the healthy alternative many restaurant patrons may consider them to be.