Panera Bread Recommendations?

Please recommend a healthy low fat meal at Panera Bread... I haven't eaten here before and I am going to lunch with a friend on Saturday here. I tried viewing their nutrition facts online but they only list the calorie/fat content for a meal with everything on it, everything included, etc.. (for instance if i wanted a salad w/o the dressing or cheese etc). Thanks!

They have a salad out now with lots of fruit on it and it is soo yummy and they use low fat dressing. i think if you get that and even with the dressing on it it is BIG and less than 200 calories.

They have alot of light soups: black bean, chicken noodle, vegetable (if they're low cal they say: "LF" next to them on the menu)

I suggets getting the soup and half salad combo, you get a small soup (say vegetable is 80 calories I think), a half of a salad  (the fruit salad is about 75 for half I think) and then choose an apple (about 75) or a big piece of whole grain bread (about 150) for a delciously balanced meal!

The stats for the salad dressings are given, I haven't quite figured out if the dressing is included in the counts for the salads or not.

I second the soup and half salad combo.  They do list which soups are LF on the menu board.  The Strawberry Poppyseed salad is good, it doesn't have cheese, you can get it without chicken and you can ask for it with no nuts.  I would get an apple for the side.  The bread piece they give you as a side with the combo is actually 2 servings.  Oh, and you can order your salad dressing on the side.

I would go with the You Pick 2 option.  Get the Strawberry Poppyseed salad with chicken (only 140 calories, and sooo good!) along with either the low-fat vegetable garden soup (70 calories) or the low-fat chicken noodle soup (100 calories).  So if you order that, your total intake would be either 210 calories or 240 calories.  Not bad.

I don't know if when you order the You Pick 2 option you get the extra side (usually chips, baguette or an apple).  So I think, if you're still hungry, the apple would be the desirable choice.

I'd go with a modified salad - because these days you can basically modify any order to your own specifications, plus they make it right in front of you so it's not like it's a premade salad or anything - You could start with the classic salad and then ask for extras such as, grilled chicken, olives & hardboiled eggs and you can swap out the dressing for olive oil & dijion mustard on the side.

Enjoy your lunch!!

I went there this week and did a You Pick two with half a turkey on sourdough(240) without mayo and 1/2 a cafe salad(90) with reduced sugar poppyseed dsg(20 or so).  i had skipped breakfast since we ate early, so I had a small nonfat latte too...that was awesome.  I had the apple(80) as the side and unsweet tea to drink.

I wanted to try the lowfat black bean soup, but it was 100 degrees and the latte made me hot.  Next time.(90)