The 8 Unhealthiest Things You Can Order At White Castle
Looking for a healthy fast-food meal? You might think your best bet is to run through the Chick-fil-A drive-thru (chicken is healthy, right?) or to swing by Panera for a salad, but you actually don't need to give up red meat and french fries for your health's sake.
While a burger joint may not be your first choice for a healthy meal on the go, at White Castle, the brand's iconic sliders make for, potentially, part of a healthy diet, if you practice a little portion control. These compact burgers come with less of the unhealthy stuff — think sodium, trans fat, cholesterol, and carbs — than their larger counterparts, which is sure to make you happy if you're craving a burger but can't justify devouring the unhealthy menu items you'll find elsewhere.
That said, while it's totally possible to eat healthily off the White Castle menu, there are still some menu items that are worse, health-wise, than others. To help you avoid the menu items that are most likely to tank your nutrition goals for the day, here are some of the unhealthiest things you can order at White Castle.
1. Unhealthiest slider: The Double Cheese Slider
What's better than just one slider? What about essentially two sliders combined into one? That's what the White Castle Double Cheese Slider is, with its two patties, two layers of cheese, and a layer of bun in the middle of it all (kind of like a White Castle take on the Big Mac).
Unfortunately, bigger isn't always better — at least not when it comes to your health. The Double Cheese Slider is the unhealthiest beef slider on the White Castle menu, packing in 17 grams of fat, including 1 gram of trans fat, and 1,050 milligrams of sodium. If you upgrade the cheese on the slider to White Castle's smoked cheddar or jalapeno cheese options, the result is similar, but with an extra few grams of fat. Compared to an Original Slider, the Double Cheese Slider boasts nearly three times the sodium. The Original Slider also does not have any trans fat.
Don't get what the big deal is with that measly, little, single gram of trans fat? According to the Mayo Clinic, all trans fat is bad fat, as it increases bad cholesterol and including trans fat in your diet can increase your risk of potentially lethal conditions like heart disease. (It is such a serious issue that some countries have even banned trans fat!)
2. Unhealthiest vegetarian slider: The Impossible Slider with Smoked Cheddar
Many people switch to a vegetarian or vegan diet for health reasons, and with great results. However, it's important not to just automatically assume that all things vegetarian are by definition healthy and you can eat as much vegetarian food as you want, as often as you'd like. As Stanford Medicine points out, one of the major pitfalls of following a vegetarian diet is eating too many vegetarian foods that are highly processed and full of unhealthy — albeit vegetarian — ingredients.
Do you know what's highly processed and full of unhealthy ingredients? As Harvard Health explains, meatless burgers. In fact, a four-ounce Impossible Burger contains more saturated fat than a traditional lean ground beef burger, and more than four times the sodium.
For this reason, if you're hoping to eat healthy at White Castle, and you're not a vegetarian, you'd do best to just order an Original Slider rather than the Impossible Slider with Smoked Cheddar, which is the unhealthiest vegetarian slider on the menu. If you are vegetarian, though, you do still have other options. The White Castle Plain Veggie Slider contains far less sodium than the Impossible Slider, is made using the Dr. Praeger's brand, and was introduced in 2014.
3. Unhealthiest chicken slider: The Crispy Chicken and Waffles Slider
Just like it's often incorrectly assumed that all vegetarian options are healthier than red meat, it's also often assumed that chicken is healthier than red meat. However, a lot of experts and studies are showing that good health doesn't necessarily always come down to whether you eat red or white meat. Instead, how the meat is prepared is far more important — as we see with the unhealthiest chicken slider at White Castle.
The Crispy Chicken and Waffles Slider is exactly what it sounds like — a sandwich take on the classic fried chicken and waffles combo. This slider comes with twice the amount of saturated fat as the other chicken sliders on the menu (at 7 grams), and seven times the amount of sugar, thanks to those waffles. While the Crispy Chicken and Waffles Slider is just slightly lower in sodium than some of the other chicken sliders on the menu, that fact is not enough to make up for the slider's other shortcomings.
4. Unhealthiest fish slider: The Panko Surf & Turf with Cheese Slider
At one point, the Surf & Turf Slider was a secret menu item that White Castle customers cobbled together on their own, ordering separate Double Sliders and Fish Sliders and then creating a singular sandwich by placing the fish patty atop one of the beef patties. However, since this option has received a lot of love, it was officially added to some White Castle menus.
Unfortunately, the Surf & Turf Slider not only combines the flavors of a Double Slider and a Fish Slider, it also combines the nutrition. Compared to a plain Fish Slider, the Surf & Turf with Cheese Slider comes with more fat, more cholesterol, and more than double the sodium. Compared to a plain Original Slider, the Surf & Turf with Cheese Slider comes with about five times the amount of fat, five times the amount of cholesterol, and about triple the sodium. These numbers only increase if you change the regular cheese on the Surf & Turf slider to a specialty cheese selection, like the jalapeno cheese or smoked cheddar cheese.
5. Unhealthiest side: Mozzarella Sticks
When deciding on the unhealthiest side at White Castle, it's a bit of a toss up, as there are two very similar, very unhealthy options on the menu: the Mozzarella Sticks and the Loaded Fries. However, at the end of the day, the Mozzarella Sticks reign supreme as the unhealthiest option of the two for a few key reasons.
First, while you only get one serving size option for the Loaded Fries, the Mozzarella Sticks come in small, medium, or large options, with three, five, or 10 sticks. For comparing the Mozzarella Sticks against the Loaded Fries, we looked at just the three-stick option, where things are unhealthy, and then things just get unhealthier from there.
Second, while the Mozzarella Sticks have less fat than the Loaded Fries, it's to a minimal degree (38 grams compared to 33 grams), and the mozzarella sticks come with more sodium (990 milligrams compared to 900 milligrams), as well as more carbs (26 grams compared to 20 grams). While you can healthily consume up to 78 grams of fat per day on a 2,000-calorie-a-day diet, the 990 milligrams of sodium is quite close to the American Heart Association's ideal limit of under 1,500 milligrams per day.
6. Unhealthiest breakfast: The Breakfast Toast Sandwich or the Waffle Breakfast Slider
You have four options for breakfast at White Castle: the Original Sliders but with the addition of an egg and cheese; the Breakfast Sliders, which come on a traditional slider bun; the Waffle Sliders, which come sandwiched between two waffles instead of buns; and the Breakfast Toast Sandwiches, which come on toast. For the last three, they all can come with the same toppings — an array of breakfast meats, cheese, and egg — so the big differentiator is the bread-y vessel on the outside.
If you're specifically looking for your healthiest breakfast at White Castle, go with the more traditional Breakfast Sliders or the Original Sliders plus the egg and cheese, because both the Breakfast Toast Sandwiches and the Waffle Breakfast Sliders come with some serious and equal issues. The Breakfast Toast Sandwiches are all packed with sodium, some with as much as double the amount of sodium you'll find in the Waffle Breakfast Sliders. Meanwhile, the Waffle Breakfast Sliders have more fat and sugar than the Toast Sandwiches. Conversely, the Toast Sandwiches have more carbs.
7. Unhealthiest breakfast side: The Hash Round Nibblers
If you're ordering breakfast at White Castle and you think you'll go the healthier route by ordering the inconspicuous, innocent-looking Hash Round Nibblers (aka, White Castle's take on a bite-sized hash brown), rather than the super-sugary donuts, think again. While, sure, the donut options do come with 10 or 12 grams of sugar per serving, depending on the donuts you order, whereas the Hash Round Nibblers contain no sugar, the Hash Round Nibblers outrank the donuts in a few other key areas.
To start, the Hash Round Nibblers — at just a small size, though you can get a medium size or a sack as well — contain more than triple the fat that you'll find in any of the donut offerings, with 28 grams of fat in a small serving. Similarly, the Hash Round Nibblers contain triple the amount of sodium, at 460 milligrams. That's nearly a third of your ideal sodium intake for the day, gone with just a simple breakfast side.
8. Unhealthiest dessert: Fudge-Dipped Brownie on a Stick
Who doesn't love food on a stick? All of White Castle's desserts are propped on a stick, for easier, on-the-go munching. There's a Gooey Butter Cake on a Stick, Cheesecake on a Stick, and then the unhealthiest of the batch, the Fudge-Dipped Brownie on a Stick. With 12 grams of fat and 26 grams of sugar, the Brownie ranks highest in both of these areas, out of all the White Castle desserts. If you'd prefer to watch both your fat and sugar intake, you'd be better off opting for the healthiest by those two standards, the Strawberry Swirl Cheesecake on a Stick.
That said, there are some areas where the Fudge-Dipped Brownie on a Stick does show a (maybe slightly) healthier side. It's the lowest-carb option on the White Castle dessert menu, as well as the lowest-sodium option. It also has the highest iron content, if that's something you're hoping to increase in your diet.
Should you avoid White Castle's dessert menu altogether? Not at all. Fun (it's on a stick!), tasty, highly ranked, and even affordable, when enjoyed as part of a balanced diet, these desserts are nothing to feel bad about.