Panera nutrition guide · Official guide edition Sept 2, 2026
247 menu items taken from Panera’s official nutrition guide, with 2026 prices alongside. Most nutrition pages hand you a long list and wish you luck. This one starts with your goal: pick light, high protein, or easy on sodium, and the table below shows only what fits. Don’t just count calories: run the 3-number check. The same checked numbers sit inside everything on the menu in one place, organized by category for browsing.
Independent guide, not affiliated with Panera. Nutrition taken from the official Panera Nutrition Guide dated September 2, 2026; prices are 9-city averages checked September 30, 2026.
Pick your goal
Choose a goal and the full table filters itself. Combine it with search, sort any column, and the count keeps score. This is the whole menu, not a curated top ten: if it doesn’t fit your goal, it disappears.
247 items in the full table, taken from the official guide.
Every row below is a single-serve Panera Bread menu item matched to Panera’s official Nutrition Guide (effective 9/2/2026), with the 9-city average price from September 2026. Items marked ‘nutrition not published’ carry price only; nothing is estimated.
Reading the sodium column: values in red carry at least the full 2,300mg FDA daily value in one item. Coverage: 247 of the 263 items in our menu numbers listed the official guide. Panera does not publish nutrition for every item, and where the guide is silent we would rather leave a gap than guess a number. Drinks are listed in the sizes the guide publishes; customizations change the math.
The 3-number check
Panera Bread is a US bakery-cafe chain. The three numbers that decide an order here are calories, protein, and sodium: sodium is the chain’s hidden number, with one sandwich carrying 179% of the daily value.
A full nutrition label has a dozen lines. For deciding what to order, three of them do nearly all the work. Run these before the tray arrives.
Calories are the budget line: not good or bad, just spend. At Panera the same counter sells a 180-calorie soup and a 1,330-calorie sandwich, so the budget question is really “is this the meal, or a side that got ambitious?”
The decision: under 500 cal is a light meal here; over 1,000 cal should be a deliberate choice, not a surprise.
Protein is what keeps a lunch from evaporating by 3pm. As a general rule of thumb (not medical advice), aiming for 20g or more at a meal is a reasonable target for most adults. Plenty of Panera salads sit at 8 to 18g: fine food, weak anchor.
The decision: if protein is under 15g, treat the item as a snack or pair it with something that carries the meal.
The FDA daily value for sodium is 2,300mg. One Panera sandwich, the Toasted Italiano, carries 4,110mg: 179% of the whole day in a single item. Sodium rarely shows on the menu board, which is exactly why it decides more than people think.
The decision: if lunch crosses 1,500mg, plan a lighter, fresher dinner. The day balances even if the sandwich doesn’t.
Sodium watch list
Six single-serve items, ranked, each shown against the 2,300mg daily value. None of these is forbidden knowledge: the point is knowing before you order, not after the thirst kicks in.
The Toasted Italiano is a hot deli sandwich and the saltiest single-serve item Panera sells.
4,110mg sodium179% of the 2,300mg daily value
The read: the most protein-heavy sandwich on the menu is also the saltiest thing Panera sells. A great sandwich; just make it the day’s main event.
139% of the 2,300mg daily value
The read: a grain bowl that out-salts most sandwiches. The sauce does the damage; the chicken and grains are innocent bystanders.
129% of the 2,300mg daily value
The read: the protein champion (66g, most on the menu) pays for it here. If you order it for the protein, you have already made the trade knowingly.
115% of the 2,300mg daily value
The read: cheese plus bacon plus an edible bread bowl. Comfort food math: worth it on the right day, an ambush on an ordinary Tuesday.
115% of the 2,300mg daily value
The read: the joint-priciest bowl carries a full day’s sodium too. Seasoned meat and cheese are doing what they do.
114% of the 2,300mg daily value
The read: yes, a salad. Feta, olives, dressing, and seasoned chicken stack quietly. More on this one below.
Know before you order
None of these is a bad order. Each one just wears a healthier costume than its numbers deserve, and the gap between expectation and label is where lunch decisions go wrong.
A salad with more calories than the Mediterranean Veggie sandwich (520 cal) and only 18g of protein to show for it. The crunch is fried, the dressing is generous, and the total lands like a sandwich that skipped the bread PR.
The move: order it because you want it, not because it says salad. If light was the goal, the Green Goddess Chicken Cobb (580 cal, 40g protein) is the salad that actually delivers.
Sodium, in a salad, at 114% of the daily value: more than the Bacon Turkey Bravo sandwich (2,430mg). Feta, olives, dressing, and seasoned chicken each add a quiet layer, and greens do not dilute any of it.
The move: keep the salad, fix the stack: dressing on the side and a lighter rest of the day. Or pick the Harvest Medley Salad at 870mg and keep the same idea.
It reads like a side and eats like the heaviest lunch on the menu: 1,170 calories in the bread-bowl build, 39g of protein, and 115% of a day’s sodium. The plain Mac & Cheese soup alone is 980 cal before any bowl.
The move: promote it honestly to main-event status, or take the soup without the edible bowl and keep the same comfort for far less.
Smart swaps
Small, verified, and repeatable. No invented equivalences: every number below comes straight from the same official guide as the table above.
Panera does not publish separate nutrition for halves, so half of the full portion is the honest estimate: a 1,010-calorie Chicken Pesto Ciabatta Dipper becomes roughly a 505-calorie half next to a soup or salad.
The move: build the combo from the table’s full-portion numbers, halve them, and add. Flagged as an estimate because that is what it is.
The Fruit Cup is 60 calories for $4.00, against 150 cal for chips and 190 cal for a baguette side. As a You Pick Two or sandwich side, it is the cheapest calorie cut on the menu that still feels like food.
The move: when the entree is heavy (and the watch list above says plenty are), let the side be the light one.
The Greek Salad with Chicken hits 2,630mg of sodium with the dressing worked in. You cannot un-pour a dressed salad, but you can control the pour: dressing on the side turns a fixed number into your decision, fork-dip by fork-dip.
The move: ask for it every time. It is the one customization that only ever moves numbers in your favor.
A Cinnamon Crunch Bagel is 430 calories before any spread; add the plain cream cheese spread (110 cal) and breakfast opens at 540. Nothing wrong with that, as long as it is filed under dessert rather than a light start.
The move: want the bakery case without the ambush? The Blueberry Bagel is 290 cal, and every plain bagel on the menu is $1.98.
Where your next question leads
If you have a goal in mind, start with the picks sorted by light, protein, or low sodium. Need gluten-free options too? Here is what is actually safe to order without the guesswork.
Looking for plant-based choices? These vegan orders need only simple swaps.
FAQ
Lowest calories, most protein, the sodium question, and where the official numbers live: answered from the same listed menu numbers as the table.
The Homestyle Chicken Noodle Soup: 180 calories with 14g of protein for $8.13, taken from Panera’s official Nutrition Guide dated 9/2/2026. It is the lightest item on the menu that still eats like a meal. The Greek Yogurt with Berries Parfait (250 cal, 15g protein, $5.63) is the lightest breakfast-style option.
The French Ciabatta Dipper, with 66g of protein. The trade: it also carries 1,240 calories and 2,960mg of sodium for $11.88. The Chicken Pesto Ciabatta Dipper is close behind at 59g for $9.96, the better protein buy of the two. For protein per dollar across the whole menu, the homepage finder ranks it properly.
Three stackable sources: bread, cheese, and cured or seasoned meats. A sandwich combines all three, which is why Panera’s hot sandwiches average about 2,318mg of sodium and the Toasted Italiano reaches 4,110mg, about 179% of the 2,300mg FDA daily value, in a single item. The watch list above shows where it concentrates.
Panera publishes its official Nutrition Guide on panerabread.com; the current edition is effective September 2, 2026. Every number on this page was taken from that edition, so what you see here should agree with the official guide for standard builds.
It depends entirely on the order. The same menu holds a 180-calorie soup with 14g of protein and a 1,330-calorie sandwich with 179% of a day’s sodium. Run the 3-number check (calories, protein, sodium) and use the goal filter at the top of this page: pick light, high protein, or easy sodium, and the table shows only what fits.
Yes, Panera offers an official nutrition calculator for building custom orders. This page is the quick version: the full standard menu taken from the official guide, sortable and filterable by your goal, with prices alongside so the trade-offs are visible in one glance.
In the official guide, soups served in a bread bowl run 770 to 1,170 calories depending on the soup, and the sourdough bread bowl on its own is 650 calories. The same Homestyle Chicken Noodle Soup is 180 calories as a regular soup and 770 in the bowl: the edible bowl is most of the difference.
The figures here are Panera’s own, taken from the official Nutrition Guide dated 9/2/2026, and they describe standard builds. Customizations (extra cheese, dressing swaps, added bacon) change the numbers, sometimes by a lot, so treat the table as the honest starting point for your actual order.
Keep deciding
The numbers tell you what an item is. These pages tell you what it is worth, and when to order it.
The homepage finder ranks the menu by your goal, including protein per dollar and protein per calorie, with the same official-guide data behind every pick.
Open the finderAll 20 sandwiches with prices, protein, and sodium: why the hot case averages 2,318mg, and which builds keep you near 1,000mg instead.
Sandwich guideEvery breakfast item with calories, protein, and sodium, plus the 10:30am weekday cutoff and what is still worth ordering after it.
Breakfast guideThe bottom line: don’t count every calorie. Run the 3-number check: calories for the budget, protein for staying full, sodium because nobody else will warn you. Pick your goal at the top of this page and Panera’s menu gets very manageable, very fast.