Gluten Free Food At Panera: What To Eat (Plus a Broccoli Cheddar Soup Copycat Recipe)

Last Updated on September 1, 2024

Casual dining can become quite difficult following a gluten-free diagnosis. However, we’re here to make that easier for you. Panera Bread is a relatively popular casual dining outlet, which serves a range of foods – but is there any gluten-free food at Panera? Let’s take a closer look.

What Is Panera Bread?

If you’re from the US, you’ll likely already be familiar with Panera Bread. It’s a casual dining restaurant, more like a café, that’s predominantly based in the US. However, there are some locations in Canada too. In fact, they have over 2,000 locations around the US and Canada, and have been around for over a quarter of a century.

Panera offers two options: dine-in or takeout. It offers foods such as pizzas, grain bowls, pastas, sandwiches and soups. There’s also a selection of drinks too including fruit smoothies, iced drinks, lattes and hot chocolate.

Does Panera Bread Have A Gluten-Free Menu?

While Panera Bread does not have an exclusively gluten-free menu, it does have a “gluten-conscious” menu. For a menu to offer an exclusive gluten-free menu, it must meet strict guidelines, such as having a separate area for preparation of gluten and non-gluten-containing foods. As Panera doesn’t offer this, instead they have a “gluten conscious” menu. This means that these products are made without gluten ingredients, but they can not be 100% sure that your final dish will not contain traces of gluten.

You can find out more about the Gluten Conscious menu at Panera Bread here.

 Are Panera potato chips gluten free?

Does Panera Bread Offer Gluten-Free Bread?

Despite bread being the main ingredient of many of their infamous dishes, Panera Bread does not currently offer any gluten-free bread. This is quite disappointing considering how easy it is nowadays to source gluten-free bread. However, they do have a few dishes that do not contain any gluten ingredients, and are considered safe to consume on a gluten-free diet.

Gluten-Free Food At Panera Bread

While there isn’t a huge selection of gluten-free offerings at Panera Bread, you can certainly have a quick, easy lunch here and have a few choices available. Let’s take a closer look at what they have to offer.

Soup

  • Mexican street corn chowder
  • Thai chicken soup
  • summer corn chowder
  • southwest chicken tortilla soup
  • baked potato soup

Salad

  • seasonal green salad
  • Fuji apple salad with chicken
  • Greek salad
  • green goddess cobb salad with chicken
  • Caesar salad (with chicken) – be sure to order without croutons
  • BBQ chicken salad (with no onions)

 Are the grain bowls at Panera gluten free?

Grain Bowls

  • Baja warm grain bowl (with chicken)
  • Mediterranean warm grain bowl (with chicken)

Sides and Snacks 

  • fruit cup
  • potato chips
  • Greek yoghurt with mixed berries parfait
  • steel cut oatmeal with strawberries and pecans

Drinks 

  • tea (all teas)
  • lattes and frozen coffee drinks
  • coffee
  • orange juice
  • lemonade
  • milk
  • soda (all varieties)
  • smoothies (all varieties)
  • grapefruit soda
  • hot chocolate with marshmallows

 Is the turkey chili at Panera gluten-free?

Gluten-Free Broccoli Cheddar Soup Copycat Recipe

The broccoli cheddar soup at Panera Bread is one of their most popular dishes. Unfortunately, this particular dish isn’t gluten free. However, this copycat recipe is super easy and you’ll have your favorite soup ready in no time at all! This recipe is inspired by one from Savory Saver.

Ingredients

The ingredients you’ll need for this recipe are:

  • 1/4 cup of butter
  • 1/2 finely chopped medium onion
  • 1 shredded large carrot
  • 1/4 cup of white rice flour
  • 2 cups of half and half
  • 2 cups of chicken broth
  • 3 cups of chopped broccoli (bite size pieces)
  • 1/8 teaspoon of nutmeg
  • 8oz of grated cheddar cheese
  • salt (to taste)
  • pepper (to taste)

Step-by-Step to Make Gluten-Free Broccoli Cheddar Soup Copycat Recipe

 Will Panera ever have gluten free bread?

Now all you need to do is:

Step 1: Prepare the Soup

Place your butter into a pan/pot and melt over a medium heat. When melted, add the chopped onions and carrots. Mix well and leave to cook for around 3-5 minutes. Now add the flour to your pot and stir for around a minute or so. Next, add the broth, broccoli, half and half and black pepper to taste. Give the mixture a stir.

Step 2: Simmer

Lower the heat to low and leave to simmer for around 15-20 minutes, being sure to stir every so often. Once the veggies are fork tender, add the nutmeg and mix well. Remove from heat and gradually add the cheese. Don’t add more cheese until the previous lot has melted.

Step 3: Serve

Reheat on a low heat if needed and your soup is ready to serve! Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve with side of your choice, such as gluten free rolls. Enjoy!

Conclusion

I hope this post has helped you to become more familiar with the gluten free food at Panera Bread. While there aren’t a huge amount of options, we can hope their gluten conscious menu continues to grow. And who knows, we may even have gluten free bread available soon too!

What’s your go-to order from Panera? Please feel free to let me know in the comments below. Sharing is caring!

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