Chick Fil A Salad Options: Every Salad and Topping Explained

The best pick depends on what you want from lunch. The Cobb Salad is the richest and the most filling, the Spicy Southwest Salad is the boldest, and the Market Salad is the lightest. All three list their calories with toppings and dressing included, so the numbers below are for the salad as served.

On the chick fil a menu salads section, every entrée comes with a default protein, a suggested dressing and a topping set. You can change the protein and the dressing, and that is where most of the calorie swing comes from.

Chick Fil A Salad Comparison: The Three Entrée Salads

How do you choose? Start with how hungry you are. If dinner is the goal, the Cobb gives you the most protein and the most staying power. If you want flavor without the heaviest build, the Southwest sits in the middle. If you are watching calories, the Market is the one to order.

The greens are the same across the board: a blend of romaine lettuce, green cabbage, and red and green leaf lettuce. What changes is everything on top. That is why two salads with the same base can differ by almost 300 calories.

Want the full story on one of them? The sections below link to a dedicated page for each.

The chick fil a kale crunch side is a small portion of curly kale and green cabbage tossed in an apple cider and Dijon mustard vinaigrette, then topped with salted roasted almonds. Official nutrition lists it at 170 calories, 12 grams of fat and 4 grams of protein.

People often call it a salad, and it eats like one, but it is sold as a side. It sits next to the fries and fruit cup, so you order it with a meal or on its own.

Nutrition for the side is simple. Beyond the 170 calories, it has 13 grams of carbs, 4 grams of fiber and 8 grams of sugar, much of that from the apple in the vinaigrette. Sodium is listed at 250 milligrams.

Because it is a side, it will not fill you up the way an entrée salad does. Many people use it as a swap for waffle fries to lighten a sandwich meal. Others pair it with a grilled protein and eat the two together. That is a customer habit, not a menu item, and the result is whatever you assemble.

It contains tree nuts because of the almonds, and it carries no dairy, egg or wheat flags on its official page, which makes it one of the easier sides for people avoiding those. The full list of sides like Kale Crunch and fruit cups shows what else is available.

Chick Fil A Salad Toppings: Crispy Bell Peppers, Pepitas and Nuts

Toppings are where each salad gets its personality, and most come as separate pieces so you decide how much to use.

On the Cobb, the chick fil a crispy bell peppers are listed at 80 calories. They are crunchy strips of red pepper that add sweetness and texture, and they also appear on the Side Salad. Roasted corn, bacon, egg and the cheese blend are built into the bowl.

The Spicy Southwest Salad adds Seasoned Tortilla Strips at 70 calories and Chili Lime Pepitas at 80. The Market Salad adds Harvest Nut Granola at 70 and Roasted Almonds at 60.

Since toppings arrive on the side, you can skip any of them. Leaving off the pepitas on the Southwest saves 80 calories by simple subtraction. Blue cheese crumbles are an optional extra on the Cobb and Southwest, at 30 calories.

No. The old chicken salad was a sandwich, and Chick-fil-A stopped selling it after September 30, 2017. The company said guests wanted new tastes and fresh flavors. In 2023, a company representative said there were no plans to bring it back.

Chick-fil-A did publish the recipe so fans could make it at home, and that is the closest you can get today.

It was not the only salad to leave. The Asian Salad, with almonds, mandarin oranges, wontons and a honey sesame dressing, was dropped in 2016, and the Spicy Southwest Salad is widely described as its replacement. A carrot and raisin salad also disappeared around the same time. None of them are on the current menu.

If you are craving chicken on greens, the current salads all use real chicken pieces, not a mixed chicken spread. You can choose from several proteins on each salad:

• Chick-fil-A Nuggets or Grilled Nuggets
• Chick-fil-A Filet or Spicy Filet
• Grilled Filet, served warm or cold
• Chick-n-Strips

For the closest match to the old chicken salad flavor, grilled chicken on the Market Salad is the mildest and cleanest route. Skip the spicy options if you want that classic, plain-chicken taste.

Each salad suggests one dressing, but every chick fil a salad can take any of the seven. Calories vary a lot, from 25 to 310, so this choice moves your total more than almost any other.

The pairings in the last column are flavor suggestions, apart from the three marked as the official ones.

Here is the arithmetic. The Cobb total of 830 includes Avocado Lime Ranch at 310. Swap in Light Italian and the total drops to about 545. The same swap takes the Southwest to roughly 415 and the Market to roughly 345. Those are estimates that assume the same dressing portion, so treat them as a guide and not an official number.

Avocado Lime Ranch is the richest of the group. Its ingredient list starts with soybean oil and includes buttermilk and egg yolk, which explains the milk and egg flags on the Cobb and Side Salad. If you avoid either, a vinaigrette is the safer direction.

The light dressings do change the eating experience. Light Italian is thin and sharp, so it coats greens without making them heavy. Fat-Free Honey Mustard is sweeter and works well against the spicy chicken.

Looking for dip flavors instead? See the sauces and dressings page.

There is no Caesar on the permanent menu today. The caesar salad chick fil a fans remember was the Lemon Kale Caesar, a limited-time item from spring 2021. It combined romaine, kale, grilled nuggets, shaved parmesan, lemon wedges and a Lemon Caesar Vinaigrette.

It was never a permanent fixture, and Chick-fil-A has not brought it back as a standard item.

If you want something close, build it yourself. Order the Cobb or Market Salad with grilled nuggets, skip the sweet or smoky toppings, and add Light Balsamic or Zesty Apple Cider for a sharper dressing. It will not taste like a Caesar, because no parmesan or lemon dressing is offered, but it keeps the lettuce-and-chicken focus.

Chick Fil A Garden Salad and Side Salad Explained

Nothing on the menu is named a garden salad. The closest match is the Side Salad, a small bowl of mixed greens with a shredded Monterey Jack and Cheddar blend, grape tomatoes and crispy red bell peppers.

It comes with Avocado Lime Ranch, and the official 470 calories reflect that dressing. The salad itself is light, but the dressing carries most of the total. Switching to Light Italian cuts it sharply, by the same subtraction used above.

These figures come from the nutrition numbers Chick-fil-A publishes for each salad as served, including toppings and the suggested dressing.

Dressing is a big share of each total. By simple division, it makes up roughly 37 percent of the Cobb, 43 percent of the Southwest and 42 percent of the Market. That is why a dressing swap is the fastest lever you have, ahead of dropping toppings.

Protein is the second lever. The grams above are for the default chicken, so a different cut will shift them a little. Grilled chicken generally has less fat than breaded, but exact figures for each combination are in the official calculator.

Allergen lists can change, and cross-contact is possible in any kitchen that handles milk, eggs, wheat, soy and nuts. Check the current chart before you order if you have an allergy.

Want to compare against the rest of the menu? The nutrition and calories guide lines up every item.

You can order in the Chick-fil-A One app, at the counter, in the drive-thru or through a delivery app. In the app, you pick the salad, then choose a protein and a dressing before you pay.

The two choices that matter most are the protein and the dressing. Protein choices include Nuggets, Grilled Nuggets, Chick-fil-A Filet, Spicy Filet, Grilled Filet, Chick-n-Strips, or no chicken at all.

A few build ideas help if you are not sure where to start:

• For more protein, keep the nuggets on the Cobb or ask about a larger chicken choice.
• For less fat, pick Grilled Filet and a light dressing.
• For more heat, choose Spicy Filet on the Southwest or Cobb.
• For a lighter fruit-forward bowl, stay with the Market and a vinaigrette.

Salads are prepared fresh daily, and the toppings come on the side. Tell the cashier or tap in the app if you want to hold something, such as bacon or pepitas.

Prices vary by location. In delivery apps, the price shown is a "from" price and can run higher than in-store. Most locations are closed on Sundays.