Nutrition
Panera Flags 21 Items High Sodium. Two Are On The Kids Menu.
There is a field in Panera's own menu records called wellness. Most of what sits in it is friendly: vegan, vegetarian, gluten conscious. Two of the values are not. High Sodium is attached to 21 items and High Sugar to 5, and unless you go looking you will never see either one.
What the labels say
- 21 items carry a High Sodium label Panera's own field, on 21 of the 269 products it sells nationally. Sandwiches, four soups, the mac, and two things off the kids menu.
- 5 drinks are flagged High Sugar Every one of them a fountain soda Panera buys in. 30 drinks it makes itself are 150 calories or more and carry nothing.
- 8 warnings depend on the size The soups are only flagged in a bread bowl. The cup and the bowl of the identical soup carry no label at all.
This is Panera's label, not ours
Worth being clear about before anything else. Nobody here decided that a sandwich is salty. The words come attached to the products in Panera's own menu records, in a field it fills in itself, and this article does nothing to them except sort them and count them.
That is the whole reason the list is interesting. Plenty of sites will tell you a Panera sandwich has a lot of salt in it. This is Panera saying so, about 21 of the 269 items it sells across the country, in writing, and then not showing it to you on the menu board.
One thing the data does not carry: milligrams. Panera publishes the label without a figure behind it, so every number on this page is a calorie count or a price. Where you want the actual sodium content of one sandwich, the nutrition sheet in the cafe and the app both have it. How this data was read.
Every item Panera flags High Sodium
All 21 of them, grouped the way a person would group them rather than the way the records do. Panera's own product types file the Greek Salad with Chicken next to the Mac and Cheese under pasta, so the categories below are ours.
Sandwiches
9| Item | Calories | Typical price | Other Panera labels |
|---|---|---|---|
| Toasted Italiano one size only | 1,330 | $13.25 | Complete Protein |
| Chicken Bacon Rancher | 1,010 | $12.32 | Complete Protein |
| Chipotle Chicken Avo Melt | 1,000 | $12.41 | Complete Protein |
| Bacon Turkey Bravo® one size only | 860 | $12.35 | none |
| Toasted Frontega Chicken® | 860 | $12.28 | Complete Protein |
| Smokehouse BBQ Chicken | 820 | $10.45 | Complete Protein |
| Grilled Cheese | 810 | $8.48 | Vegetarian |
| Kids Grilled Cheese | 810 | $6.37 | Vegetarian |
| Kids Ham & Cheese Sandwich | 640 | $7.67 | Complete Protein |
Soups
4| Item | Calories | Typical price | Other Panera labels |
|---|---|---|---|
| Broccoli Cheddar Soup one size only | 930 | $9.29 | none |
| Bistro French Onion Soup one size only | 850 | $9.29 | none |
| Homestyle Chicken Noodle Soup one size only | 770 | $9.29 | none |
| Black Bean Soup one size only | 740 | $9.29 | Gluten Conscious, Vegan, Vegetarian |
Family bundles
4| Item | Calories | Typical price | Other Panera labels |
|---|---|---|---|
| Family Feast | n/a | $37.73 | none |
| Family Feast with Cookies | n/a | $43.34 | none |
| Premium Family Feast | n/a | $42.41 | none |
| Premium Family Feast with Cookies | n/a | $48.03 | none |
Mac and cheese
2| Item | Calories | Typical price | Other Panera labels |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bacon Mac & Cheese one size only | 1,170 | $10.46 | none |
| Mac & Cheese one size only | 1,140 | $9.70 | Vegetarian |
Salads
2| Item | Calories | Typical price | Other Panera labels |
|---|---|---|---|
| Greek Salad with Chicken | 760 | $12.45 | Gluten Conscious |
| Caesar Salad with Chicken | 670 | $12.42 | none |
Calories are for the size that carries the flag. Where an item is marked one size only, the smaller sizes of the same product carry no label at all, which is the next section.
Where a warning is likeliest
21 items out of 269 sounds rare, and read that way it is easy to shrug at. Split it by what you are actually standing there ordering and it stops being rare in a hurry.
| Section of the menu | Flagged | Items | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Family bundles | 4 | 5 | 80% |
| Mac and cheese | 2 | 5 | 40% |
| Soups | 4 | 15 | 27% |
| Sandwiches | 9 | 48 | 19% |
| Salads | 2 | 46 | 4% |
Order from family bundles and it is 4 in 5, which is 80%. Order a salad and it is 2 in 46. The full menu with prices is here if you want to see what else sits in each of those sections, and the soup menu and kids menu both have their own pages.
The warning is on the bread, not the soup
This is the part that would be easy to get wrong, and plenty of round-ups do. Four Panera soups appear on the High Sodium list. None of them is flagged as a soup.
Order Broccoli Cheddar in a cup and you get 280 calories and no label. In a bowl, 420 calories and no label. Ask for the same soup in a sourdough bread bowl and it becomes 930 calories and Panera flags it. The soup did not change. The bread did.
| Soup | Cup | Bowl | Bread bowl |
|---|---|---|---|
| Broccoli Cheddar Soup | 280 cal | 420 cal | 930 cal flagged |
| Bistro French Onion Soup | 200 cal | 300 cal | 850 cal flagged |
| Homestyle Chicken Noodle Soup | 120 cal | 180 cal | 770 cal flagged |
| Black Bean Soup | 90 cal | 140 cal | 740 cal flagged |
We took the bread bowl apart in its own piece and the arithmetic came out at 648 calories of sourdough before any soup goes in, which is close enough to the 650 Panera prints on the empty bowl it sells on its own. That is the whole story of the bread bowl. What this list adds is that Panera's own labelling agrees: the warning turns up at exactly the point the bread does.
Two of them are on the kids menu
Of the 21 flagged items, 2 are sold as children's meals: Kids Grilled Cheese at 810 calories and Kids Ham & Cheese Sandwich at 640 calories.
Neither is unusual food. A grilled cheese is a grilled cheese. But a parent ordering off a kids menu is not typically running the numbers, and Panera has already run them: it decided both of these were worth a label, and then put the label somewhere no parent standing at the counter is going to find it. Everything else on that menu, with prices, is on the kids menu page.
Five drinks carry a High Sugar flag. All five belong to someone else.
The High Sugar list is short enough to read in one breath: Mountain Dew, Pepsi, Starry, Dr Pepper, Canada Dry Ginger Ale. Fountain sodas, every one, and not one of them made by Panera.
Set the bar low, at 150 calories, and 35 drinks on the menu clear it. 5 carry the flag. The other 30 do not, and they include a Frozen Signature Hot Chocolate at 610 calories, which is 2.2 times the Mountain Dew that does carry it.
| Drink | Calories | Typical price | Panera's label |
|---|---|---|---|
| Frozen Signature Hot Chocolate | 610 | $4.50 | none |
| Hazelnut Mocha Frozen Java | 460 | $5.38 | none |
| Rocky Road Frozen Java | 450 | $5.38 | none |
| Cafe Frozen Java | 440 | $4.86 | none |
| Snickerdoodle Frozen Java | 440 | $5.38 | none |
| Iced Mocha Latte | 380 | $5.39 | none |
| Iced Caramel Latte | 350 | $5.39 | none |
| Mocha Latte | 340 | $5.42 | none |
| Signature Hot Chocolate | 340 | $4.11 | none |
| Caramel Latte | 320 | $5.42 | none |
| Mango Smoothie | 300 | $6.68 | none |
| Iced Madagascar Vanilla Latte | 280 | $5.39 | none |
| Mountain Dew | 280 | $3.45 | High Sugar |
| Strawberry Smoothie | 260 | $6.68 | none |
| Madagascar Vanilla Latte | 250 | $5.42 | none |
| Pepsi | 250 | $3.45 | High Sugar |
| Starry | 250 | $3.45 | High Sugar |
| Strawberry Banana Smoothie | 250 | $6.68 | none |
| Dr Pepper | 240 | $3.45 | High Sugar |
| Canada Dry Ginger Ale | 230 | $3.45 | High Sugar |
| Chai Tea Latte | 230 | $5.42 | none |
| Iced Chai Tea Latte | 230 | $5.39 | none |
| Agave Lemonade | 210 | $3.46 | none |
| Hazelnut Mocha Iced Coffee | 210 | $4.30 | none |
| Rocky Road Iced Coffee | 210 | $4.30 | none |
| Tropical Green Smoothie | 200 | $6.68 | none |
| Dragonfruit Sunset Energy Refresher - Naturally Flavored | 190 | $4.32 | none |
| Island Mango Energy Refresher - Naturally Flavored | 190 | $4.32 | none |
| Snickerdoodle Iced Coffee | 190 | $4.30 | none |
| Cherry Lime Fresca | 180 | $4.32 | none |
| Iced Caffe Latte | 160 | $4.92 | none |
| Orange Juice | 160 | $3.66 | none |
| Horizon Reduced Fat Organic Chocolate Milk | 150 | $2.67 | none |
| Pepsi Can | 150 | $2.28 | none |
| Strawberry Basil Lemonade Fresca | 150 | $4.33 | none |
There is a reasonable explanation available, and it is worth saying out loud: a bottler hands over a sugar figure per serving, and a drink built at the counter with a pump of syrup and a scoop of ice is harder to pin down. That would explain why the labelled drinks are the bought-in ones. It does not change what a customer sees, which is a warning on the cheapest drink on the board and nothing on the one with the most sugar in it. The full drinks menu has every one of them with its calories and price.
Six items are the protein pick and the salty one
Panera also runs a label in the other direction. Complete Protein is on 23 items, and 6 of those carry High Sodium as well. If you are ordering by the reassuring label, these are the ones where the other label is sitting right beside it.
| Item | Calories | Typical price |
|---|---|---|
| Toasted Italiano | 1,330 | $13.25 |
| Chicken Bacon Rancher | 1,010 | $12.32 |
| Chipotle Chicken Avo Melt | 1,000 | $12.41 |
| Toasted Frontega Chicken® | 860 | $12.28 |
| Smokehouse BBQ Chicken | 820 | $10.45 |
| Kids Ham & Cheese Sandwich | 640 | $7.67 |
And everything Panera calls a Complete Protein
The whole list, for the sake of having it in one place. Rows marked salt also carry the High Sodium flag.
| Item | Calories | Typical price | Also flagged |
|---|---|---|---|
| Signature Hot Chocolate Tote | 3,530 | $24.70 | no |
| Toasted Italiano | 1,330 | $13.25 | salt |
| Ciabatta Cheesesteak | 1,160 | $13.36 | no |
| Chicken Bacon Rancher | 1,010 | $12.32 | salt |
| Chipotle Chicken Avo Melt | 1,000 | $12.41 | salt |
| Grilled Chicken & Avo BLT | 940 | $13.31 | no |
| Spicy Fiesta Chicken | 940 | $12.21 | no |
| Toasted Frontega Chicken® | 860 | $12.28 | salt |
| Smokehouse BBQ Chicken | 820 | $10.45 | salt |
| Bistro French Onion Soup - Group | 810 | $22.39 | no |
| Ultimate Garden Steak Salad | 800 | $14.18 | no |
| Ultimate Garden Steak Salad Stuffer | 790 | $12.08 | no |
| Tomato Basil BLT | 780 | $9.75 | no |
| Toasted Caprese Focaccia | 740 | $10.28 | no |
| Kids Ham & Cheese Sandwich | 640 | $7.67 | salt |
| Spicy Steak Asiago Bagel Stack | 630 | $7.21 | no |
| Chicken Roma Asiago Bagel Stack | 610 | $7.18 | no |
| Half Ciabatta Cheesesteak | 580 | $8.05 | no |
| Steak & Wake | 520 | $7.32 | no |
| Half Chicken Bacon Rancher | 510 | $7.25 | no |
| Half Grilled Chicken & Avo BLT | 470 | $8.00 | no |
| Half Spicy Fiesta Chicken | 470 | $7.25 | no |
| Half Ultimate Garden Steak Salad | 400 | $8.36 | no |
Four of the six labels are not warnings
Worth keeping the two in proportion. The same field carries four labels that exist to reassure, and between them they land on 359 products against 26 for the two that do not.
| Panera's label | Items | Kind |
|---|---|---|
| Vegetarian | 163 | reassurance |
| Gluten Conscious | 103 | reassurance |
| Vegan | 70 | reassurance |
| Complete Protein | 23 | reassurance |
| High Sodium | 21 | warning |
| High Sugar | 5 | warning |
Three of those four have been pulled apart on this site already, item by item and with the same caveats: what Panera means by Vegan, what Gluten Conscious does and does not promise, and what is actually on the kids menu. If you are reading this because you are counting something, the under-500-calorie list is built from the same records.
What this list does not tell you
No milligrams anywhere
Panera publishes the label and not the number behind it. So this page can tell you which items it flags and never how much sodium is in one. The Panera nutrition sheet in the cafe and the app both carry the figure, and if you want a Panera sodium number for one sandwich, that is where it is. For what the figure means once you have it, the FDA and the CDC both publish the daily limits.
A label is not a threshold
These 21 are the items Panera chose to mark, which is not the same as every item that would fail a dietary guideline. Something can be salty and carry nothing. The list is worth reading because Panera wrote it, not because it is complete.
A snapshot, not a live feed
The records were read in August 2026 across every US bakery-cafe. Panera can relabel an item whenever it likes, and the build behind this page fails rather than publishing a stale claim if the pattern in the drinks ever changes.
Questions people ask about this
Which Panera items are high in sodium?
Panera attaches its own High Sodium label to 21 nationally sold items. The heaviest is the Toasted Italiano at 1,330 calories, and the list also takes in four soups served in a bread bowl, the Mac and Cheese, the Grilled Cheese and two items from the kids menu. The full list is in the table above.
Is Panera Broccoli Cheddar Soup high in sodium?
Not in a cup or a bowl. Panera flags only the bread bowl version. The same soup is 280 calories in a cup and 420 in a bowl with no label on either, and 930 calories in a sourdough bread bowl, which is the one that carries the warning. The flag arrives with the bread.
Does Panera say how much sodium is in its food?
Not in the data behind this article. The label is there and the milligrams are not, so this page reports which items Panera flags and never how much sodium is in one. For a figure in milligrams you need the nutrition sheet in the cafe or in the Panera app.
Which Panera drinks are high in sugar?
Panera flags 5: Mountain Dew, Pepsi, Starry, Dr Pepper, Canada Dry Ginger Ale. All 5 are fountain sodas it buys in. 30 drinks Panera makes itself are 150 calories or more and none of them carries the flag, including the Frozen Signature Hot Chocolate at 610 calories.
What does Complete Protein mean at Panera?
It is Panera's own label, on 23 nationally sold items. It is not a claim this site makes or checks. Worth knowing: 6 of those items also carry the High Sodium flag, so the same sandwich can be the protein pick and the salty one at once.
Where do these labels come from?
They are read from the same menu records the rest of this site is built on, covering every US bakery-cafe, last read August 2026. The labels are Panera's own words, published on its own products. Nothing here is a nutritionist's opinion and nothing is calculated.
Are these the only Panera items with a lot of salt or sugar?
Almost certainly not. This is the list of items Panera itself labels, which is a different thing from the list of items that would fail a dietary threshold. An item can be salty and unlabelled. The value of the list is that Panera wrote it.
Labels read from Panera's own menu records, August 2026, across every US bakery-cafe. How the data was collected, and the calories and macros page covers the rest of the menu. This is an independent guide and is not affiliated with Panera Bread.
