Oreos and red velvet cake: Dream come true or your worst nightmare?
Keep your eyes on the screen to find out which items you should never order at Steak 'N Shake.
The Frisco Melt is arguably one of Steak 'n Shake's most popular menu items.
These famous steak patties are sandwiched between two buttery slices of grilled sourdough toast
and layered with gooey American and Swiss cheese along with a healthy helping of Steak 'n Shake's
original Frisco sauce, which is really just a mix of Thousand Island and French dressings,
ketchup, and Worcestershire sauce.
But you'll pay for all that melty goodness. If you're watching your health in any way,
you'll absolutely want to stay away from the Frisco Melt. The sandwich alone contains 960
calories, plus 21 grams of saturated fat, 1,440 milligrams of sodium, and 12 grams of sugar.
For fewer calories, you could order a Bacon Lovers Steakburger or even two Original Double
Steakburgers. If you're keeping an eye on your saturated fat, you'd be better off with the
majority of other sandwiches on the menu, and the same advice holds true for the sodium as well.
Considering that you should really only have around 16 to 22 grams of saturated fat and
no more than 1,500 milligrams of sodium per day on a 2,000-calorie diet, the Frisco Melt
just really isn't worth it, unless it's the only thing you're planning to eat that day.
Steak 'n Shake's chili has a large following, as attested to by the large amount of copycat
recipes you can find on the Internet. Maybe it's the perfect blend of steak and beans,
maybe it's the little oyster crackers on the side. Or maybe it's the whopping pile of grease that
the cooks add to the chili before it makes its way to your table. But despite its popularity,
it may just be best to avoid it. As one Steak 'n Shake employee wrote in a Reddit thread
in which restaurant workers revealed what they'd never order from their restaurant,
"In my opinion, you should never order any kind of mac, chili mac,
or mac supreme. We are told to put in more grease than beef. So if you are really craving it,
specifically ask for it dry. You will get less grease and more beef."
"What's the beef here exactly?"
A look at Steak 'n Shake's ingredients lists reveals that this grease is likely beef fat.
If you were making chili at home, you'd likely drain that fat off before adding the beef to your
chili mixture. Even if you're fine with a rather skewed grease to beef ratio, the chili mac is bad
news when it comes to calories, saturated fat, sodium, and sugar. Just one serving consists of
1,200 calories, 61 grams of saturated fat, 2,710 milligrams of sodium, and 16 grams of sugar.
When you're eating out at a restaurant,
you usually assume that your calories are mostly going to be wrapped up in
your entree. That's where you're getting the majority of your food, after all.
But that's not the case with a certain sneaky side dish on Steak 'n Shake's menu. A large serving of
chili cheese fries packs in a whopping 2,990 milligrams of sodium. That's nearly double the
American Heart Association's recommended intake for one day. That's also more sodium than what
you'll find in all of the burgers on Steak 'n Shake's regular menu, except for the mammoth
7x7 burger. So if you're craving some fries when selecting your side at Steak 'n Shake,
opt for the regular fries or even the cheese fries for a relatively healthier alternative.
What's a hot dog without chili? Steak N' Shake asked and definitively answered that question
with its Chili Cheese Steak Frank. Offering such a menu item was a foregone conclusion.
Not only are chili dogs super popular, but Steak N' Shake already had all the
necessary components in the kitchen. They serve chili, they've got onions and cheese,
and they've got very large hot dogs in the form of their all-beef Steak Franks.
But this all might be too much of a good thing. There are plenty of calories in a big bowl of
chili, and plenty in a hot dog as well. Both make a fine and filling meal on their own,
but most nutritionists would argue that they should only be a "sometimes" food,
considering their high sodium count. Put them together, and that makes for a chili
dog that is certainly hearty and delicious but that also contains a wallop of sodium.
Altogether, the Steak N' Shake Chili Cheese Steak Frank packs a substantial
710 calories and 44 grams of fat, as well as a heart-clutching 1,620 milligrams of sodium.
According to the FDA, that's like eating almost an entire spoonful of table salt.
The trend in fast food burgers over the past decade or so has been to pile delectable
toppings of various complementary tastes and textures atop meat patties until the burger
can no longer maintain structural integrity. A clear example of this trend is Steak N' Shake's
Jalapeño Crunch Steakburger. It's so much sandwich that there's little chance that the average person
can eat this handheld and without a knife without making a mess. Steak N' Shake's burger tacticians
start with two big beef patties and then add a slice of spicy pepper jack cheese and spread
chipotle-infused mayo on both buns along with a hefty portion of salsa, jalapeños, and breaded and
crispy fried onions. It's that last ingredient that gives the sandwich its titular "Crunch."
While that's a lot of vegetables, with a volume and variety generally not seen at
meat-and-cheese-oriented fast food franchises, the Jalapeño Crunch Steakburger remains a less
-than-healthy choice. The federal government's dietary guidelines recommend that adults consume
about 2,000 calories and 65 grams of total fat a day. With 790 calories and 53 grams of fat,
the Jalapeño Crunch Steakburger contains almost half of those daily calorie needs and almost all
of the fat. It's also one of the saltiest items on Steak N' Shake's menu, with 1,590
milligrams of sodium, so your digestive system will probably be the next thing to get crunched.
"Ooh, what just crunched?!"
When a meal smells wonderful while it's cooking, garlic is often doing a lot of the olfactory work.
The fragrant, flavorful, mildly spicy plant is essential to numerous global cuisines,
and it's healthy as well. It's low in calories, contains numerous essential nutrients and
vitamins, and may help reduce cholesterol and blood pressure levels. Steak N' Shake's Garlic
Double Steakburger sandwich obviously contains garlic, but its benefits may be canceled out
entirely by the mountain of actively harmful ingredients necessary to make this sandwich.
Steak N' Shake isn't shy with any element of the Garlic Double Steakburger. It starts with two beef
patties on a fluffy bun, plus melted cheese and a garlic butter spread, along with some more garlic
butter and garlic salt on top. The butter gets that healthy garlic to go where it needs to go,
but the fatty dairy product isn't the most heart-healthy delivery device. When all is said
and done, the Garlic Double Steakburger contains a massive 750 calories and 51 grams of fat.
"Garlic don't work, boys."
Steak N' Shake's Royale is simply and elegantly named, carrying a grand title that downplays the
caloric and nutritional chaos within. On that note, it's probably never a good idea in the
name of personal health to consume a food that seems to be inspired by something that made
proud glutton Homer Simpson aggressively salivate. In the 1992 Simpsons episode
"Bart's Friend Falls in Love," Homer sees a commercial for "The Good Morning Burger,"
"We take 18 ounces of sizzling ground beef…"
"Ooh!"
"And soak it in rich creamery butter."
This behemoth is then topped with bacon, ham and a fried egg.
It's so extreme that it couldn't possibly be real,
but about three decades later, The Good Morning Burger is available
at many Steak N' Shake outlets, because that's essentially what The Royale is.
The only major differences are that Steak N' Shake doesn't douse it in butter or add a slab of ham,
but they do top it with cheese, and the bacon and egg remain. Altogether, this beast is anything
but modest, containing 800 calories, 56 grams of fat, and nearly 1,400 milligrams of sodium.
There's a lot going on with Steak N' Shake's Oreo Cookie Red Velvet milkshake.
It starts with a standard milkshake base of milk and velvety vanilla ice cream. Then the kitchen
wizards at this chain add not just any old cookies to the mix, but the enormously and widely popular
Oreo chocolate-and-creme sandwich cookies, as well as hunks of red velvet style cake.
In other words, this is a Frankenstein-like concoction consisting of three very sugary
desserts, any of which on their own would be a nice treat to celebrate a special occasion
or enough to satisfy even the sweetest of sweet tooths. Few people would ever consume a milkshake,
slice of cake, and a handful of Oreos all in one sitting, but Steak N' Shake makes this
unlikelihood a reality. Diners who choose this option should really be aware just how
much sugar they're putting into their bodies. With a count of 940 calories,
the Oreo Cookie Red Velvet tops the energy load of all other Steak N' Shake shakes.
It also contains 128 grams of sugar, which is the most of all Steak N' Shake drinks by a long shot.
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