7 Restaurant Meals That Are Way Saltier Than You Think

2 minute read

Salt has never looked so scary: a little white shaker surrounded by a forbidding black triangle. That’s the symbol diners will start seeing on the menus of chain restaurants in New York City, which are now required to label items with the symbol when they exceed 2,300 mg of sodium. That’s the current recommended limit for an entire day of the white stuff. Sound extreme? Sodium bombs are hidden in corners of the menu you’d never expect.

Chop’t or Applebee’s Salads

You’d never shake salt on a salad. Yet a kale chicken Caesar salad from Chop’t has 1,490 mg sodium: about 65% of the recommended limit. Order at Applebee’s, and your pecan crusted chicken salad, at 2,390 mg, will wipe out your whole day’s salt allotment.

Hale and Hearty soup

Low-fat, sure, but many soups are sodium bombs. A large 16-ounce bowl of lemon chicken soup with spinach and orzo, from Hale and Hearty Soups, has 2,436 mg sodium.

Sonic Blast Milkshakes

Desserts aren’t just the realm of sugar. At the burger chain Sonic, a large Sonic Blast—made with pieces of Oreos and ice cream—has 1,270 mg of sodium (plus 177 grams of the sweet stuff.)

Chipotle chips and salsa

An order of chips and fresh tomato salsa from Chipotle has 920 mg of sodium, which is more salt than the amount found in three large orders of French fries at McDonald’s.

MORE: 90% of Americans Eat Too Much Salt

Applebee’s lemon grilled chicken

It might seem like a relatively healthy choice, but order cedar grilled lemon chicken from Applebee’s, and you’ll be eating 2,480 mg of sodium in one entree.

MORE: 38 Things Americans Say They’ve Found In A Hot Dog

Wingstop chicken wings

They’re barely enough to make a meal, but half a dozen original hot wings from Wingstop somehow have 1,299 mg sodium.

Friday’s shrimp

Shrimp has sodium naturally, but eat it at a restaurant, and the numbers get fishy fast. At Friday’s, an order of shrimp has a whopping 3,320 mg sodium.

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Write to Mandy Oaklander at mandy.oaklander@time.com