Doing a working lunch at Olive Garden today. I need help! What can I have there that will keep me within 500 calories?? I need suggestions.
Reason: Moved from WL to Foods forum
They have the soup, salad, breadstick lunch for about $6 dollars at Olive Garden. I forget the name of the soup, I think it's the minestrone which tastes good as well as the salad is really great too. One bowl of soup and one salad with a bread stick should put you right around 500 calories maybe a little less.
Good luck staying on target.
Venetian Apricot Chicken!
i got this last time i went. 380 cals total for the dinner entree, and 280 cals for lunch. (i guess it's just smaller?) quite tasty too. you can even allow for a breadstick or two. ;)
HOPE THIS IS THE SAME OLIVE GARDEN YOU ARE ON ABOUT!!
http://www.olivegarden.com/menus/garden_fare/ nutrition_information.asp
Do not have the salad!!!! I used to work at the Olive Garden and people do not realize how fattening the dressing on the salad really is. It is almost as bad as covering your salad in alfredo sauce! Seriously! The salad dressing is outrageously fattening. Get a bowl if minestrone soup.
Also, don't eat the normal breadsticks. They are covered in butter and garlic salt. If you really want a breadstick, ask your server to bring you some without butter or salt.
There salads are DELICIOUS! Ask for dressing on the side. 2 TBSP only have 80 cals per serving. that way it's not a fat-fest salad. I buy the dressing and take it home.
Also, I'm not much of a cheese fan on EVERYTHING, so take your cheese off your salad too. Cheese is on just about everything so you wont miss it. (the dressing has some Parmesan in it anyways)
Finally, before I go to a chain restaurant, I go to there website and make a cheat sheet of the foods I want to eat low in cals. It's takes as long as writing directions down from the net, so it's not time consuming...it's very educational, actually.
I'd just nurse a minestrone and water with lemon.
The minestrone is only 100 calories for a bowl if I remember correctly, and they have this Venetian Apricot Chicken with broccoli that is quite good, although I can't remember the calorie count (380 maybe). Their website has nutritional guides.
Like mperic81 said, I always go into the website to check the nutritional information. Incidentally, their Pasta e Fagioli is out of this world and only 130 calories per serving. I'm not an Olive Garden fan at all, but I LOVE this and their bread sticks.
Original Post by robin9395:
Like mperic81 said, I always go into the website to check the nutritional information. Incidentally, their Pasta e Fagioli is out of this world and only 130 calories per serving. I'm not an Olive Garden fan at all, but I LOVE this and their bread sticks.
PASTA E FAGIOLI ROCKS!!!!!! I could go there everyday to eat that soup!
I went to Olive Garden for the first time in my life about a month ago and let me just say, I was impressed - this typically is not the type of dining I do (chain restaurants) but I was pleasantly surprised! I ordered the salmon with extra broccoli and no starch... and I also had the all you can eat salad but asked for the croutons to be on the side as well as the dressing - it all worked out well... While salmon might have a tad more calories than 500... you should maybe try the chicken which is grilled and just ask for extra broccoli - always make sure everything is cooked in olive oil too NOT butter.
Enjoy your meal!
OMG! I don't believe this, the Olive Garden actually exists? i thought it was a made up restaurant in Friends (I live in Europe). This is so cool next time I'm over the water I'm gonna go! But first I'm going ot check out hte menu's and calory counts online, You guys don't know how lucky you are over there with all the labeling you get in restaurants etc, you would get laughed at if you asked forhte calorie count on wanythign where i live.
Original Post by dnsmills:
Do not have the salad!!!! I used to work at the Olive Garden and people do not realize how fattening the dressing on the salad really is. It is almost as bad as covering your salad in alfredo sauce! Seriously! The salad dressing is outrageously fattening. Get a bowl if minestrone soup.
Also, don't eat the normal breadsticks. They are covered in butter and garlic salt. If you really want a breadstick, ask your server to bring you some without butter or salt.
it really is outrageous how fatty some salad dressings are. it defeats the purpose of eating a salad as a healthier alternative. One time i ordered a salad at a fast food chain, the packet of dressing that it came with was 24g of fat!!! 
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