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What options are there for keto friendly restaurants in Toronto?
While there are restaurants in Toronto that offer keto options on their menu’s, like The Simple Kitchen with their keto boxes, salads, waffles, smoothies, Unbun burgers, and even hot chocolate or mochas, you don’t have to go out of your way to find keto friendly fast food in Downtown Toronto. Just because a restaurant doesn’t have specific keto food on the menu, doesn’t mean they don’t have keto friendly options.
Eating low carb in Toronto is easy, you just need to take the time to plan it out ahead of time. There are lots of keto friendly options at many sit-down and fast food restaurants in the downtown tourist area. You can easily find keto fast food on just about any menu.
One of my favorite parts of going on vacation is the break I get from cooking. But now that I’m doing the keto diet, it’s not quite as easy as just stopping in wherever we feel like to grab something quick. So, for my trip with Lil Sis last weekend I had to do a bit of research to find some keto friendly restaurants in Toronto that I could eat at.
I was lenient with Lil Sis, and let her treat herself to eating whatever junk food she wanted (including donuts and cotton candy). I also allowed myself some keto friendly treats, like Good Fats bars and some Zevia. But when it came to meals, I wasn’t bringing my own food so I still needed to find some keto friendly fast food places too.
The places we ate at weren’t all as healthy as I would have liked, but I was still able to easily find 5 places I could eat keto in downtown Toronto.
Zoup
Part of the fun of being on vacation is that you get to do something different, and eat somewhere different. So, when I saw there was a Zoup restaurant nearby, I figured it would be nice to try it out since I had never been. While their sandwiches were obviously all too high carb, and most of their soups were as well, they still had a lot of keto options on the menu.
Most of their salads have 6 grams of net carbs or less, except their Cranberry Almond Sonoma which has 11. Their power bowls are another good option, with 12 grams of carbs or less in each.
There are also 3 soup options that are keto friendly. Their Spicy Crab and Rice, Santa Fe Chicken Chili and Cheddar Broccoli, are all under 15 grams of net carbs.
While I was tempted to try the cheddar broccoli soup, I thought the Kale Chicken Caesar Bowl sounded a bit more filling.
I wish I had chosen the soup. The power bowl was not what I was expecting. Basically, it was a typical cheap fast food chicken Caesar salad, but with kale instead of romaine and way too much carrot.
Somehow, I had gotten the impression that Zoup served fresh foods, so I was pretty disappointed that the chicken wasn’t pieces of fresh chicken breast, but rather some little chewy pieces of processed meat. While I expected the parmesan cheese to be freshly shredded, instead it was the same cheap flakes that Mc Donald’s uses in their salads.
Even though the salad bowl ended up being a disappointment, I would still be willing to give them a chance with that cheddar broccoli soup next time.
Chipotle
We don’t have a Chipotle at home, but we do have a Mexican place called BarBurrito.
Unlike Chipotle, bar burrito doesn’t have salads on their menu, so to make a keto friendly dish there I have to order a bowl, skip on the rice and beans and ask for extra lettuce. Apparently, I am the only one who has tried eating keto there, because the girl looked pretty confused when I placed my order.
Luckily Chipotle does have a salad option on their menu, so I was able to make myself a keto friendly Mexican salad, without getting any funny looks for skipping the beans and rice.
While salads are the only keto friendly option at chipotle, once you customize it with all your favorite toppings, you can easily make a dish that doesn’t seem like just another keto salad.
All their meat options are keto friendly with 0-2 grams of net carbs each, though their Sofritas (tofu in spicy sauce) are a bit higher with 5.5 grams. While you obviously have to skip on the beans and rice to keep your salad keto you can still load up on the fajita vegetables, with only 3 grams of net carbs.
Their Roasted Chili-Corn Salsa isn’t too keto friendly at 13 grams of net carbs, but the rest of their salsas have 2-4 grams each. You can load up on the 0-carb cheese and top it off with some guacamole (2 grams of net carbs) or sour cream (3.5 grams of carbs).
Obviously, if your not careful with your toppings you could go a little too high on the carbs than you should, but their online calculator is easy to use so you can plan how to customize your salad before you order, without going over your carb limit.
I ordered my salad with steak, fajitas vegetables, fresh tomato salsa, sour cream, and cheese, with a total of 12.5 grams of net carbs.
With the spicy steak and fajitas vegetables, I forgot that I was eating a salad. While Lil Sis wasn’t a fan of the tacos she ordered, my meal was delicious. By far the best meal I had on our trip.
Subway
With all the low carb options there are at subway, they have become one of my favorite keto fast food options.
Before adding any toppings or dressing, most of Subways salads have 7 grams of net carbs or less.
The best keto friendly salad options are the Tuna, Veggie Delight, Chicken and Bacon Ranch, Oven Roasted Chicken or Roast Beef, all with under 5 grams of net carbs before you add anything.
Since most of the vegetables and cheeses have 1 gram of net carbs or less, you have a lot of freedom when it comes to customizing your salad too.
The salad dressings are where you have to be careful to keep it keto friendly.
Your best choices are the Ranch dressing, Chipotle Southwest or the house sandwich sauce, all with 2-3 grams of net carbs each. Then there are a few o carb sauce options, the mayonnaise, buffalo sauce or just plain oil.
Like Chipotle you can easily get your exact macros by customizing your salad on their website ahead of time, to make sure you are staying within your carb limits.
I had planned on getting a Chicken and Bacon Ranch with my toppings of choice making it a 7-net carb meal, but my breakfast had been pretty filling so I ended up just snacking on a vegetable cup from a coffee stand at Comicon instead.
A & W
While there was an A & W within walking distance of us, we didn’t end up eating there on this trip. Still, I thought it was a restaurant worth mentioning since they are my favorite place to grab a keto friendly burger.
While A & W doesn’t serve any salads, all of their burgers and chicken sandwiches are available in lettuce wraps instead of a bun. Their lettuce wrapped burgers have 10 grams of net carbs or less, with the lettuce wrapped baby burger being the lowest at only 4 grams of net carbs.
Most of their chicken sandwiches in a lettuce wrap are still a bit high on the carbs though, since all but one of them are made with a crispy chicken patty.
The best choice for a lettuce wrapped chicken sandwich is the chicken grill, which only has 5 grams of net carbs. But if you’re really craving a crispy chicken sandwich, the BLT Chicken with 13 grams of net carbs or the Chicken Buddy Burger with only 9, are the lowest carb options.
While I didn’t eat at the A & W in downtown Toronto, I have eaten at many others and have never been disappointed.
Mc Donald’s
This was the first time I had eaten at Mc Donald’s since going keto. When you switch to eating a healthy diet, Mc Donald’s kind of loses its appeal. But this seemed to be the easiest option for us to grab a quick dinner at the train station, so I figured I would give them a try.
I was impressed when I saw that their full-sized Caesar salad, with grilled chicken and no croutons, was only 3 grams of net carbs. Their side salads are also keto friendly, with only 1 gram of net carbs in the side Caesar (without croutons) and 2 in the side garden. With their Asiago Caesar dressing (2 grams of net carbs) or their Greek feta dressing (3 grams of net carbs), it’s pretty easy to keep your carbs under 5 grams.
I knew I would be getting sick of just eating salads by this point of the trip though, so I decided I would get a burger with no bun to go with it.
All of the following burgers ordered without a bun are 6 grams of net carbs or less.
- Hamburger
- Cheeseburger (single or double)
- McDouble
- Big Mac (single or double)
- Quarter Pounders without cheese (single or double)
- Bacon and Angus Burger
- Mozzarella with Grilled Chicken
- BLT with Grilled Chicken
While they may not be my favorite restaurant for keto fast food, at least they have a decent selection.
I decided to go with the Bacon and Angus with no bun, thinking it would be a bit of a thicker hamburger patty than their regular burgers. Plus, it had bacon.
I was wrong about the patty though; it was as thin as their regular burger patties and not very filling.
Apparently, whoever made my burger was as unfamiliar with making keto versions of their food as the girl at BarBurrito was. Instead of putting all the toppings on top of the patty, they put the cheese on the tray and the patty half on it, and just tossed the bacon in there with it.
At least the bacon was super crispy.
While I won’t be seeking out a Mc Donald’s to eat at again any time soon, next time they are my only option for some keto fast food I think I will go with one of their double burgers without a bun instead.
Bonus: Breakfast Buffet
While our breakfast wasn’t at a fast food restaurant, I figured I should mention some breakfast options for sticking with keto on vacation too.
With breakfast, whether a buffet or traditional restaurant, it’s pretty easy to keep it keto if you pass on the toast and hash browns.
We stayed at the Novotel Toronto Centre Hotel, which offers an amazing full breakfast buffet in their restaurant, Café Nicole. They had tons of extra’s that you don’t normally get at a buffet, most of which were not keto friendly though.
While Lil Sis enjoyed the banana bread pudding, a Danish and one of the smoothies they served in mini mugs, I resisted the temptation. They at least had some cheese set out, giving me another keto friendly option besides the eggs, bacon, and sausage.
Normally I don’t even eat breakfast, but since I did still need to feed my kid (and kids eat free with a paying adult) I figured I might as well fill up too. I easily stayed under 10 grams of net carbs and was full enough to skip on lunch.
A & W is still my favorite restaurant for keto fast food at home, but it was nice to try a couple of new keto friendly fast food options while we were on vacation. I will definitely be stopping at a Chipotle next time I have the chance.
While Lil Sis enjoyed the treat of being able to eat whatever fast food she wanted, I was still able to stick to my keto diet and keep my carbs under 50 grams both days.
What’s your favorite Keto fast food restaurants? Are there any other great keto friendly restaurants in Toronto that I should check out next time I’m there?
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