Choose a category, an item and a size and the numbers appear immediately. Based on Panera's published nutrition data, which shifts with seasonal menu changes.
Sourced from Panera's own nutrition data. Regional menus and seasonal swaps can shift the exact figures.
Panera markets itself as the cleaner fast-casual choice, and for a lot of the menu that reputation holds. But the range is wide: a cup of soup and a half salad can sit at 350 calories, while a whole mac and cheese with a side pushes past 1,200. The category matters almost as much as the specific item.
Each entry in the lookup table below stores a whole-item figure. For sandwiches and salads, a half portion is calculated as exactly half of that whole figure, since Panera prices and prepares halves as a proportional cut. Soups store separate cup and bowl figures because a bowl is not a fixed multiple of a cup in Panera's own data.
| Item | Portion | Calories | Sodium |
|---|---|---|---|
| Low-Fat Garden Vegetable Soup | Cup | 90 | 480 mg |
| Fuji Apple Chicken Salad Sandwich | Whole | 570 | 900 mg |
| Strawberry Poppyseed Salad w/ Chicken | Whole | 340 | 590 mg |
| Broccoli Cheddar Soup | Bowl | 360 | 1,230 mg |
| Chicken Frontega Panini | Whole | 850 | 1,800 mg |
Figures read directly from the calculator's own lookup table, checked July 2026.
Close to it. This calculator divides the whole-sandwich figure in two for the half portion, since Panera builds halves as a proportional cut rather than a separate recipe. A few sandwiches may run slightly higher or lower per half in practice depending on how the bread is portioned that day.
The Low-Fat Garden Vegetable with Pesto is both the lowest-calorie and one of the lower-sodium cup options at 480 mg. French Onion runs highest at 1,230 mg per cup because of the broth base and the cheese topping baked on top.
Bakery items are sold and priced as whole units, so the calculator only tracks the whole-item figure for that category. If you eat half a muffin, divide the number yourself the same way you would for a sandwich.
It depends entirely on the bowl. A broth-based soup in a cup is far lighter than any sandwich on this list. A cheese-heavy bread bowl or a creamy mac and cheese bowl is not, and can exceed a full sandwich on its own.
Bakery is where the numbers jump fastest and least predictably. A Cinnamon Crunch Bagel with hazelnut cream cheese can clear 700 calories before a single sip of coffee. Muffins run 430 to 520 calories depending on the flavor. If you are trying to keep a bakery stop under control, a plain bagel is the steadiest choice on the board.
Pairing categories tends to work better than picking one large item. A cup of the Low-Fat Garden Vegetable Soup with a half Green Goddess Salad totals well under 400 calories and still leaves room for a side. Check a Subway build or a Chipotle bowl the same way if you are comparing lunch options across chains.
Naomi Foster built the half-portion math on this page as an exact division of Panera's published whole-item figures, rather than sourcing a separate half-size dataset that does not exist publicly.