Keto At Olive Garden
Keto At Olive Garden: People on a ketogenic diet may want to eat at Olive Garden when they don’t have time to cook or just want to eat out.
If you’re travelling and can’t cook, or if you’re having a special occasion with people you care about, Olive Garden has some delicious low-carb options.
There are ways to get a keto meal at Olive Garden, but you have to get creative with your custom order.
What Does a Keto Meal Look Like?
On a ketogenic, or “keto,” diet, you eat a lot of fat, few carbohydrates, and a moderate amount of protein. For each type of keto diet, there are different amounts of each nutrient that need to be eaten.
But for a 2,000-calorie diet, it might look like about 165 g of fat, 75 g of protein, and 40 g of carbs per day.
If you eat fewer carbs, your body makes less glucose (its usual energy source). Instead, it burns ketones, which are a type of fuel that your body makes from fat stores.
Ketosis is the body’s metabolic state when there are ketones in the blood. You won’t be in ketosis if you eat too many carbs.
Keto-friendly foods include:
- Full-fat dairy products
- Non-starchy vegetables such as greens
- Oils
- Meat
- Fish
- Eggs
- Nuts and seeds
How to Order Keto at Olive Garden
To eat keto at Olive Garden, you need to change up your meal. So you won’t order high-carb foods like pasta, breadsticks, or even croutons on your salad.
The nutrition facts for all of Olive Garden’s dishes are available online and on the menu at the restaurant. Before you go to Olive Garden Menu, check the menu to see what you can eat there that fits your keto diet.
If you didn’t have time to plan ahead, you can ask your server what low-carb substitutions you can make.
Olive Garden Appetizers, Soups, and Salads
If you’re eating inside, tell your server not to bring you the free breadsticks as a first step. As an appetiser, salad or soup are your best bets.
Calamari or fried mozzarella might sound like they are low in carbs, but each has more than 45 g.
The Gluten Sensitive menu at Olive Garden says that if you order a salad, you should ask for it without croutons. There are 8 g of fat, 7 g of carbs, and 2 g of protein in a salad without any croutons.
Per serving, Olive Garden’s regular Italian dressing has 8 g of fat, 2 g of carbohydrates, and 0 g of protein.
(Avoid the low-fat dressing, which has the same number of carbs as the regular dressing but less fat.) Or, ask your server for oil and vinegar without carbs and mix them yourself.
Among soups on the menu, the lower-carb options include:
- Minestrone (1 grams fat, 17 grams carbs, 5 grams protein)
- Zuppa Toscana (15 grams fat, 15 grams carbs, 7 grams protein)
- Pasta fagioli (5 grams fat, 16 grams carbs, 8 grams protein)
Olive Garden Entrées
The Lunch Favorites menu at Olive Garden is full of carb-heavy pastas. So, no matter what time of day it is, stick to the dinner menu for the most keto-friendly meal.
Most main dishes include “unlimited” soup and salad. Don’t forget to count them in your daily nutrient counts if you splurge.
You can order the following low carb dinner items:
- Grilled Chicken Margherita (27 grams fat, 14 grams carbs, 65 grams protein)
- Herb-Grilled Salmon Coho (15 grams fats, 8 grams carbs, 50 grams protein)
- Herb-Grilled Salmon (29 grams fat, 8 grams carbs, 45 grams protein)
- 6-ounce Tuscan Sirloin (12 grams fat, 8 grams carbs, 46 grams protein)
You can also just order cooked meals. And you have to ask the server what is available. But if you look at the “make your own pasta” menu for kids, it looks like this:
- Grilled chicken (2.5 grams fat, less than 1 grams carb, 26 grams protein) with tomato or alfredo sauce. Add steamed broccoli if you like.
- Meatballs (no noodles), for about 13 grams fat, 2 grams carbs, and 8 grams protein. Top with tomato sauce for another 5 grams fat, 8 grams carb, and 1 grams protein.
- Shrimp (0 grams fat, 0 grams carbs, 10 grams protein) with Alfredo sauce (43 grams fat, 5 grams carbs, 8 grams protein), plus steamed broccoli (0 grams fat, 7 grams carbs, 4 grams protein) on the side.
Olive Garden Dessert and Drinks
Don’t order dessert if you want to stay in ketosis.
On its drinks menu, Olive Garden has a long list of beers, wines, and mixed drinks. Most of them are full of calories, sugars, and carbohydrates.
Stick to water, coffee, or tea without sugar. But if you can’t help yourself, a small glass of white or rosé wine has about 4 g of carbohydrates.
FAQs – Keto At Olive Garden
Is Olive Garden Italian keto friendly?
Surprisingly, Olive Garden has a number of dishes that are good for keto dieters in addition to its famous pastas.
Even though the restaurant’s Minestrone, Pasta Fagioli, and Zuppa Toscana soups are not good enough to eat on their own, each serving has 13 g of net carbs.
Is the Olive Garden famous house salad keto?
A keto-friendly choice is a house salad without croutons. Even with the famous Italian dressing, one serving has only 5 g of net carbs.
Is Olive Garden minestrone soup keto friendly?
If you’re on a ketogenic diet, going out to eat for a change of pace can be hard. However, Olive Garden’s minestrone is a great keto-friendly option that tastes great and fills you up.
Is shrimp scampi keto?
No, it is not keto-friendly if you order it with pasta. But the shrimp in the sauce (without the pasta) can be eaten on a keto diet.
What is Olive Garden’s Pasta Fagioli?
Ground beef, beans, tomatoes, and pasta are used to make this soup. Each serving has 13 g of net carbs, so it is not a good choice for people on the keto diet.