Check, please!

My wife and I love to eat out. Our signature date night involved a trip to Olive Garden and the latest movie. Well, Olive Garden consists of Italian cuisine, and Italian cuisine is heavily made up of dairy. You won’t find many dishes on the menu without cheese or milk in them! I mean, can you imagine cheese-less lasagna? Milk-free alfredo sauce? Neither could we. But regardless of the limited choices, we have managed to find some pretty tasty options at almost every restaurant we love to visit. Compiled below is a list of allergen-friendly restaurants that have allergen and ingredient information available, and we’ve also included what dish Leanne has found most compatible with the allergens she is trying to avoid. If the restaurant you’re looking to dine at is not listed here, you can usually find the allergen information on their website. Sometimes it is right out in the open for you to find, and other times it requires some digging. The most common places we have found it are: under the “Menu” tab, the “Frequently Asked Questions” page, or “Nutrition Info” (which is sometimes listed at the very bottom on the web page).

Restaurants with allergen information:

• Olive Garden: Breadsticks with no butter (still very tasty!), salad with no dressing (oil and vinegar could be substituted), and spaghetti with meat sauce. (Keep in mind, meatballs contain egg.)
• BJ’s Restaurant and Brewery: Any burger sans cheese and mayonnaise with a whole wheat bun. A lot of their items can be modified, just speak with their manager.
• Kentucky Fried Chicken: Crispy strips, green beans, corn on the cob, and sweet golden corn.
• Jack in the Box: Breakfast Jack with no egg or cheese (their sausage patty has whey in it), hamburger with no mayonnaise or cheese.
• Wendy’s: Hamburger with no mayonnaise or cheese, baked potato with no butter or sour cream, chili with no cheese or sour cream.
• Burger King: Whopper or Whopper Jr with no cheese or mayonnaise.
• Five Guys Burgers and Fries: Lettuce-wrapped hamburger with no cheese or mayonnaise, fries.
• In-N-Out: Lettuce-wrapped hamburger with no cheese or secret sauce, fries.
• Jimmy John’s Gourmet Sandwiches: Any sandwich with no mayonnaise or cheese.
• Papa John’s: Original Hand-tossed crust, no cheese. (It is super yummy!)
• Pizza Hut: Original Hand-tossed crust, no cheese.
• Subway: Any bread without cheese in the title, no mayonnaise, no cheese, no meatballs (remember!).
• Denny’s: English muffin “dry” (no butter) with jelly, hash browns “dry” (surprisingly the lack of butter didn’t leave them flavorless!), sausage links, bacon, fresh fruit bowl

If you are unable to find allergen information, or do not have specific ingredients for a dish marked with milk, egg, or soy, use your smarts. Pasta is usually safe as long as it isn’t stuffed with cheese; just make sure you always get a plain marinara sauce or meat sauce with no parmesan cheese in it or on top.

Some burger buns have milk in them, so be sure to check the ingredients list. If that isn’t available it is best to go without.

A lot of salads are safe, but some vinaigrettes contain cheese.

Most of the French fries at the fast food chains contain beef flavoring that has Soy Protein in it.

Some tortillas contain dairy or lactose. Rubio’s is one of those establishments, and as much as we love to eat there we haven’t found anything on their online allergen menu that Leanne can have, but are going to take a gander soon to see if the manager has any more information that could give us a viable option for her.

IHOP does not disclose their nutritional information as far as allergens are concerned, so if you choose to eat there or are in a situation where you don’t have a choice, I would stick to a fruit bowl and some coffee!

If you think about what you can eat at home, and make a mental list of the top items for each meal you are safe to consume, it makes menu browsing much easier.

Don’t worry, if a lack of restaurants gets you down, there’s always a fruit cup on the menu!