Quick Answer: A single restaurant entrée commonly carries 1,500–3,000 mg of sodium, which can equal or exceed a full day's recommended intake. Four things help most: check nutrition information before you go, ask for the dish prepared without added salt, request sauces on the side, and choose grilled or steamed over fried or breaded. Most kitchens will accommodate a clear request. If you are managing blood pressure or another condition, your personal sodium target should come from your clinician rather than a general guideline.
Why Sodium Matters When You're Eating Out
Eating out is where most low-sodium plans come unstuck, and it is not because of the salt shaker on the table.
The American Heart Association recommends no more than 2,300 mg of sodium a day for most adults, and an ideal target of 1,500 mg for people who stand to benefit most — which includes many people with high blood pressure. Plenty of chain restaurant sandwiches and entrées clear that in one sitting.
Worth saying plainly before anything else: individual targets vary. Heart failure, kidney disease, and some blood pressure medications all change the picture, and a few conditions require more sodium rather than less. Treat the numbers here as general orientation and get your actual target from the clinician who knows your history.
The reason restaurants are so difficult is that the sodium is already in the food when it reaches you. Around 70% of the sodium in the average diet comes from processed, packaged and restaurant food rather than from salt added at the table — it is in the bread, the dressing, the brine on the chicken, the spice blend on the steak. You cannot season your way out of a choice that was made in the kitchen.
One useful definition to carry with you: the FDA classifies a food as low sodium at 140 mg or less per serving. "Reduced sodium" only means 25% less than the original, which on a 1,600 mg dish still leaves you at 1,200. Read the number, not the adjective.
For building the home side of this, our low-sodium foods guide covers what to stock, and our guide to the DASH diet covers the eating pattern with the strongest evidence behind it for blood pressure specifically.
Before You Go
Most of the work happens before you sit down. Chain restaurants publish nutrition information online and are legally required to at scale, so five minutes with the menu at home lets you decide while you are not hungry — which is a very different decision from the one you make with a menu in your hand and bread on the table.
Where numbers are not published, the useful signal is how the food is made. Restaurants cooking to order have more room to leave the salt out. Fast-casual chains assembling from pre-prepared components often cannot, because the sodium went in upstream. Independent kitchens are frequently the more flexible option for this reason, which is the opposite of what people assume.
If you are travelling or caught out, MyFitnessPal and Nutritionix both hold most chain menus and will give you a number in under a minute.
Talking to Your Server
Say it when you first order, not after the food arrives.
A script that works: "I'm following a low-sodium diet for health reasons. Could the kitchen prepare this without added salt, and bring any sauces on the side?" Servers handle dietary requests constantly and will not react. For anything more involved — a set menu, a large group, an unfamiliar kitchen — call ahead and give them time.
Ask how things are made, too, because the surprises are rarely where you expect. A baked potato is sometimes rolled in salt before it goes in the oven. Grilled chicken is often brined or rubbed with a sodium-heavy blend before it touches the grill. Neither of those reads as salty on the menu.
What to Order
General patterns rather than rules — every kitchen differs, but these hold more often than not.
| Course | Usually lower | Usually higher |
|---|---|---|
| Starters | Fresh fruit, raw vegetables, house salad with oil and vinegar on the side, shrimp cocktail with the sauce used sparingly | Soup (800–1,200 mg a cup), nachos, mozzarella sticks, wings, bread with salted butter, anything "loaded" |
| Mains | Plain grilled chicken, fish baked or broiled, unseasoned lean steak, grilled tofu, anything described as simply prepared | Cured, smoked or brined meat; cheese sauces; teriyaki and soy glazes; blackened preparations; stuffed dishes |
| Sides | Plain baked potato, steamed vegetables without seasoning, fresh fruit, plain rice, side salad with oil and vinegar | Fries, onion rings, seasoned rice, creamed vegetables, coleslaw, bread rolls |
The menu language itself is a reasonable guide. Grilled, baked, broiled, steamed, roasted, fresh and plain generally point lower. Smothered, loaded, crispy, breaded, blackened, cured, smoked, pickled, marinated, teriyaki and au jus generally point higher — several of those words describe a salt-based process rather than a flavour.
By Cuisine
Asian restaurants. Soy sauce is the dominant variable at roughly 900 mg a tablespoon, so sauce on the side changes the arithmetic more than any other single request. Steamed rice, vegetables and dumplings beat their stir-fried equivalents. Sashimi without soy sauce is about as low as restaurant food gets. Some kitchens keep low-sodium soy sauce and will use it if asked.
Italian restaurants. The cured meats are the problem — prosciutto, salami, pancetta are preserved with salt, which is the entire point of them. Aged cheeses like parmesan add more. Grilled chicken or seafood dishes are the straightforward route.
Mexican restaurants. Chips and salsa arrive before you have decided anything, which is how a few hundred milligrams disappear before the meal starts. Seasoned rice, refried beans and cheese-heavy dishes stack up quickly. Fajitas work reasonably well if you ask for the meat grilled with minimal seasoning and lean on the peppers and onions.
At an American place or steakhouse, the thing to know is that steaks and burgers are usually seasoned with a salt-heavy blend before cooking rather than after, so "no salt" has to be requested at the order, not the table. Skipping bacon and cheese does more than most substitutions. Steamed broccoli or asparagus without butter is the reliable side.
Fast Food
Harder, but not impossible. These are current published figures, and chains do reformulate, so check if the number matters to you.
Wendy's plain baked potato is the standout at 40 mg, against 480 mg or more for a medium fries. Sour cream and chives add about 15 mg.
Chick-fil-A's 8-count grilled nuggets are 440 mg — compared with 980 mg for the same count of the original fried nuggets. Roughly half the sodium and considerably more protein.
Beyond those, a 4-count of McDonald's Chicken McNuggets is around 340 mg, Subway's 6-inch Veggie Delite around 360 mg, and scrambled eggs at most breakfast counters land near 120 mg.
The general moves are the same everywhere: skip the cheese, which is usually 200–300 mg on its own; ask for no salt on fries if you are having them, which most chains will do fresh; take sauces on the side; and choose grilled over breaded, since the breading and the brine underneath it are both carrying salt.
Flavour Without the Salt
Low sodium does not have to mean bland, and the substitutions are things restaurants already have.
At the table, ask for lemon or lime wedges, freshly ground black pepper, red pepper flakes, or vinegar — balsamic, red wine or cider. Acid does most of the work that salt was doing.
From the kitchen, fresh herbs, garlic, onion, citrus zest and a drizzle of olive oil are all easy asks. Most places will happily add them once you have explained why.
Balancing It Against the Rest of the Week
Even a careful restaurant meal usually carries more sodium than the same food cooked at home. The practical approach is to think in days rather than meals: if dinner is out, keep breakfast and lunch low and you are still within range.
That is easier when the home meals are decided in advance. Our menu lists sodium alongside every other macro on the nutrition information page, so you can check the number for any meal before ordering rather than guessing — and if heart health is the reason you are here, Build a Meal Plan has a Heart Healthy filter that narrows the menu to the meals built around it.
To be straight about it: prepared meals are not automatically low in sodium, ours included. The advantage is that the number is printed rather than unknown, which is more than you get from most restaurant menus. For the wider picture, our guide to the ten things that actually improve heart health puts sodium in proportion against the other levers, and the complete meal prep guide covers building the routine.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much sodium should I eat per day?
The American Heart Association recommends no more than 2,300 mg a day for most adults, and suggests an ideal target of 1,500 mg for people who would benefit most, including those with high blood pressure. Individual targets vary, so if you have heart failure, kidney disease, or take blood pressure medication, ask your clinician what your number should be rather than assuming the general one applies.
What restaurant foods are highest in sodium?
Soups are usually the worst offender at roughly 800 to 1,200 mg per cup. After that: cured meats, soy sauce-based dishes, anything described as smothered or loaded, bread and rolls, cheese-heavy dishes, and fried appetizers. The American Heart Association's "salty six" covers most of it — breads and rolls, pizza, sandwiches, cold cuts, soup, and burritos or tacos.
How do I order low-sodium at Asian restaurants?
Soy sauce is the main variable, at roughly 900 mg per tablespoon. Ask for dishes prepared without it, or for sauce on the side so you control the amount. Steamed rice, steamed vegetables and steamed dumplings are usually lower than stir-fried equivalents, and sashimi without soy sauce is naturally very low. Some kitchens keep low-sodium soy sauce if you ask.
What should I say to my server about a low-sodium diet?
Say it before you order, not after. Something like: I'm following a low-sodium diet for health reasons, could the kitchen prepare this without added salt and bring any sauces on the side? Servers field dietary requests constantly. For anything more involved, call ahead so the kitchen has time.
What are the lowest-sodium fast food options?
Wendy's plain baked potato is the standout at 40 mg. Chick-fil-A's 8-count grilled nuggets are 440 mg, against 980 mg for the same count of the original fried nuggets. A 4-count of McDonald's Chicken McNuggets is about 340 mg, and Subway's 6-inch Veggie Delite about 360 mg. Skip cheese, ask for no salt on fries, and take sauces on the side.
What counts as a low-sodium food?
The FDA defines low sodium as 140 mg or less per serving. Very low sodium is 35 mg or less, and sodium-free is under 5 mg. Reduced sodium only means at least 25 percent less than the regular version, which can still be a lot, so it is worth reading the number rather than trusting the wording on the front of the package.
This article is for educational purposes only and does not replace medical or personalised nutrition advice. If you are managing high blood pressure, heart failure, or kidney disease, or take medication affecting fluid or electrolyte balance, work with your clinician on your individual sodium target.
