Macro Menu · Data
We read the published nutrition data for 3,140 items across sixteen Australian chains and worked out which ones actually give you the most protein for the calories. Nando's comes first. McDonald's comes fourteenth out of fifteen. And the vegetable option is rarely the lighter choice it looks like.
Average grams of protein per 100 calories, across every main-sized item on each chain's menu. Higher is better — it means a given number of calories buys you more protein.
The spread is bigger than it looks. A calorie at Nando's buys you 6.8 g of protein; the same calorie at Donut King buys 3.1 g. Eat 600 calories at each and you walk out with 41 g of protein versus 19 g.
The chains at the top are chargrilled or fried chicken specialists, which is not a surprise. What is a surprise is how far down McDonald's sits — fourteenth of fifteen — despite having the largest qualifying menu of any chain here, at 165 items. Size of menu is not the same as range of choice.
If you order the veggie option because you think it is the lighter choice, the numbers usually do not agree — but which veggie option matters more than anyone expects.
This is not an argument about whether plant-based food is good for you. It is about one specific assumption. At four of the chains below, the vegetable option carries more calories than a meat item sitting right next to it, and a fraction of the protein.
The exception is worth as much as the rule: where a chain sells a meat-substitute patty as well as a vegetable one, the trade is close to fair. Hungry Jack's Plant Based Whopper gives up 3.5 g of protein against the beef Whopper; its Whopper Veggie Cheese gives up 10.5 g. Same chain, same counter, very different trade.
| Chain | Vegetable option | Meat-substitute option | Meat item |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hungry Jack's | Whopper Veggie Cheese544 kcal · 17.6 g protein | Plant Based Whopper554 kcal · 24.6 g protein | Whopper582 kcal · 28.1 g protein |
| Grill'd | Garden Goodness - Panini497 kcal · 16.9 g protein | Beyond Garden Goodness - Panini545 kcal · 25.1 g protein | Simply Grill'd - Panini605 kcal · 28.1 g protein |
| Red Rooster | Reds Veggie Burger650 kcal · 11.1 g protein | none on the menu | Half Chicken560 kcal · 69.8 g protein |
| Carl's Jr. | Veggie Star with Cheese640 kcal · 17 g protein | none on the menu | Hand-Breaded Chicken Tenders - 5 Piece420 kcal · 41 g protein |
| Oporto | Vegan Rappa613 kcal · 14.7 g protein | none on the menu | 5 Grilled Chicken Tenders433 kcal · 63.3 g protein |
| Sushi Hub | Vegetarian Box476 kcal · 11 g protein | none on the menu | Assorted Sashimi191 kcal · 32.1 g protein |
Scroll the table sideways for the full comparison.
The single item on each menu that delivers the most protein per calorie, among things one person would actually order.
| Chain | Item | kcal | Protein | g / 100 kcal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Guzman y Gomez | Extra Grilled Chicken | 144 | 27.2 g | 18.9 |
| Nando's | 4 PERi-PERi Tenders | 220 | 39.6 g | 18.0 |
| Sushi Hub | Assorted Sashimi | 191 | 32.1 g | 16.8 |
| Grill'd | HotBird - No Bun | 225 | 36.6 g | 16.3 |
| Oporto | 5 Grilled Chicken Tenders | 433 | 63.3 g | 14.6 |
| Red Rooster | Half Chicken | 560 | 69.8 g | 12.5 |
| Subway | Peri Peri-Style Chicken Salad - Large | 375 | 41.4 g | 11.0 |
| Carl's Jr. | Hand-Breaded Chicken Tenders - 3 Piece | 250 | 25 g | 10.0 |
| McDonald's | Cappuccino Large - Skim Milk | 157 | 15.6 g | 9.9 |
| KFC | Zinger Fillet Piece | 224 | 20.4 g | 9.1 |
| Domino's | Saucy Chicken Wings - No Sauce (5 Pack) | 374 | 34 g | 9.1 |
| Hungry Jack's | Jack's Café Flat White Large | 204 | 15.8 g | 7.7 |
| Zambrero | Grilled Chicken Classic Bowl Big | 657 | 46.7 g | 7.1 |
| Boost Juice | Protein Supreme Medium | 340 | 20.3 g | 6.0 |
| Donut King | Outback Meat Deluxe Hot Dog | 654 | 36.8 g | 5.6 |
The most protein-dense thing on the McDonald's menu is not a burger, a wrap, or anything from the chicken range. It is a medium skim latte: 11 g of protein for 106 calories, or 10.4 g per 100. A Big Mac manages 4.6. A large flat white at Hungry Jack's does 15.8 g for 204 calories. It does not appear in the table above only because that table asks for 15 g of protein in a single serve, and a 106-calorie coffee carries 11.
Milk is doing the work, and it is the one thing on a fast food menu that most people never count at all — in either direction.
Source. Every figure comes from the chain's own published Australian nutrition information — their nutrition page, their PDF guide, or in several cases the live nutrition service behind their own ordering app. No third-party calorie databases were used at any point; we found too many errors in them.
Where that is not the whole story. three chains — Chatime, Donut King, Oporto — do not publish a complete macro breakdown. Some figures for them are derived from what they do publish rather than stated outright, and every such item is flagged as part-estimated in the app itself. They are included here for completeness and marked on their own pages; if you are quoting a single number from those chains, check the item page first.
Conversion. Chains that publish energy in kilojoules only have been converted at kJ ÷ 4.184. Domino's figures are per slice, as Domino's publishes them.
What we excluded. Combos, boxed meals and kids' meals are not in the dataset at all — they are bundles of items already counted. On top of that, 18 items a chain sells to share at more than one person's serve are left out of the averages: whole chickens, family chips, platters, and packs of ten pieces and up. The league table is an answer to "what should I order", and KFC's 21 Pieces of Chicken at 4,936 calories is not an answer to that. Smaller items with the same kind of name stay in — a 382-calorie ten-pack of nuggets is somebody's lunch. Nothing else is excluded by hand: the thresholds above do the filtering, and they are stated so you can disagree with them.
Definitions. A "main" is an item of at least 250 kcal carrying at least 10 g of protein — enough to be somebody's meal rather than a side or a drink. Protein density is grams of protein per 100 calories. A chain needs at least 5 qualifying items to be ranked at all.
Currency. Menus were last checked against their sources on 14 September 2026; this page was generated on 21 September 2026 from the same data the app serves, so the two can never disagree. Fast food menus change constantly — figures are correct as published on those dates.
Checking us. Every item above is on macromenu.com.au, free and with no login, and each one names its own source and the date it was last read. The full dataset is available on request.