Avoiding Soy At Chick-fil-A

Hello! Welcome to Beyond Soy!

One of our most common pieces of advice for eating at a restaurant with a food intolerance or allergy is to check the allergen menu. Allergen menus are incredibly helpful for identifying which menu items contain soy, but they aren’t a complete solution. Many allergen menus (especially in the US) contain a statement like this one on the Chick-fil-A allergen menu: “According to the FDA, highly refined oils, such as highly refined soybean and peanut oil, are not considered major food allergens and therefore are not listed here.” So, practically speaking, what should you order at Chick-fil-A to avoid soy? Since items with soybean oil aren’t called out on the allergen menu, we’ll need to dig a little deeper to identify which products are actually soy-free. Using information provided from their allergen menu and website, here’s what to eat to stay soy-free at Chick-fil-A:

These chicken nuggets contain soy at Chick-fil-A - IMAGE VIA PEXELS

On their allergen menu, Chick-fil-A states that they use highly refined peanut oil for frying. This means that fried food items (e.g., french fries) that normally contain soy might actually be okay, but we need to check the individual ingredients of each menu item.This ingredient check indicates that many of the breaded and seasoned products contain soybean oil, so even items like grilled chicken that aren’t listed on the allergen menu actually do contain soy. That being said, there are plenty of soy-free products available for a meal at Chick-fil-A

Food
Hashbrowns
Grilled Market Salad with Honey Mustard Dressing (remove the chicken, it contains soybean oil)
Waffle Fries
Fruit Cup
Side Salad

Drinks
Milkshake - Vanilla, Chocolate, or Strawberry
Frosted Lemonade
Frosted Coffee
Fresh-Squeezed Lemonade
Iced Tea
Iced Coffee

Sauces
BBQ Sauce
Honey Mustard Dressing (NOT Honey Mustard Sauce, which contains soybean oil)
Ketchup
Yellow Mustard