Protein-Packed Fast-Food Burgers Ranked by Protein-to-Calorie Ratio

In this post, we'll break down the protein content and protein-to-calorie ratio (protein density) of popular fast food burgers from major chains. While not the optimal nutrition choice, when fast food is your only option, we'll help you maintain your protein goals with our comprehensive list. Which burger deserves an occasional spot in your diet—and which ones should you skip? Get ready for our deep dive through 300 burgers from the top chains.

What We Aim to Discover

What can analyzing dozens of menus and running comparisons tell us about the best burger for packing in protein or optimizing your calorie-to-protein ratio?

Burgers might not be the perfect choice, thanks to the bun and condiments like sauce and mayo, but when it’s your only option, we’ve got the data to help you make a smarter pick.

We’ll rank the highest-protein burgers (regardless of size, cost, or calories) and highlight the most protein-dense options—burgers that deliver the most protein for the fewest calories.

How We Broke It Down

We researched the menu's of 26 USA based burger franchises.  Here were the qualifying criteria.

1. Needed to have full nutrition information published, including macros (and somewhat recent).
2. Needed to have at least 70 US locations (Portillo's was the smallest to make the cut).
3. Had to be a self-serve location, meaning no wait staff (this eliminated locations like Red Robbins & Apple Bees).
4. We also eliminated White Castle (not traditional burger), Fuddruckers (slowly dying, mostly in TX now), and Dairy Queen (most stores are treats-only).

Most burger establishments publish their nutrition information assuming default condiments.  This makes apples-to-apples a little more difficult if you customize your burger removing or adding ingredients, but we'll add some general guidance on how to figure this out as well.

Most Total Protein

Least Total Protein

Highest Protein Density

Lowest Protein Density