Eating out · Diner & breakfast
Low FODMAP at Denny's
Denny's is one of the easier diner chains to navigate because the Build Your Own Grand Slam format lets you assemble a plate of eggs, bacon, plain hash browns, and fruit with no sauces attached. The traps are everywhere else: skillets and omelettes come loaded with onion-pepper-mushroom mixes, dinner plates arrive with garlic "dinner bread," and the pancake-and-syrup combos stack wheat, buttermilk, and corn-syrup sweeteners in one sitting.
✅ Safest picks
Build Your Own Grand Slam
Eggs, bacon or sausage links, plain shredded-potato hash browns, and fruit avoid onion, garlic, wheat, and most lactose entirely.
💬 Order it: Pick eggs, bacon (or sausage links), hash browns, and seasonal fruit as your four items; skip pancakes, biscuit, and toast, and leave the syrup off the table. Eat around any apple, watermelon, or honeydew pieces in the fruit cup.
Sirloin Steak Dinner
A plain grilled steak has no FODMAPs — the concerns are the default 'seasoned' spice blend and the garlic dinner bread on the side.
💬 Order it: Ask for the steak cooked with salt and pepper only (no signature seasoning), choose broccoli and hash browns as your two sides, and tell them to hold the dinner bread — it's garlic toast.
T-Bone Steak & Eggs
Steak, eggs, and plain hash browns are naturally free of onion, garlic, wheat, and lactose once you drop the bread and seasoning blend.
💬 Order it: Request salt-and-pepper-only on the steak, hash browns cooked dry, and skip the choice of bread entirely (all options are wheat-based).
Wild Alaska Salmon
The fillet itself is a clean protein, but the default preparation adds a garlic-and-herb blend that has to come off for this to work.
💬 Order it: Order it grilled plain with no garlic-herb blend or butter, pick broccoli and hash browns as sides, and hold the garlic dinner bread.
Fit Slam
Egg whites with spinach and grape tomatoes plus turkey bacon are low in common triggers, but the English muffin is wheat and the fruit cup can include higher-fructose melon.
💬 Order it: Skip or take home the English muffin (or eat just half), ask for no butter on it, and favor the grapes and cantaloupe in the fruit cup over honeydew.
House Salad with Grilled Chicken
Greens, tomatoes, and chicken are a light base, but croutons, red onions, and the standard dressings (ranch, honey mustard) bring wheat, onion, garlic, honey, and lactose.
💬 Order it: Order no croutons, no onions, no cheese if you're sensitive to lactose, and dress it with oil and vinegar or plain mustard instead of the bottled dressings.
⚠️ Skip these
Good to know
- •The 'dinner bread' that comes with every Classic Dinner is garlic toast — ask to hold it or swap it for an extra plain side like broccoli or hash browns.
- •Build Your Own Grand Slam is your best tool here: four picks with zero sauces — eggs, bacon or sausage links, plain hash browns, and fruit cover a full meal without onion or garlic.
- •Steaks and salmon come 'seasoned' by default; ask for salt and pepper only, since house spice blends at chains commonly hide onion and garlic powder.
- •Plain hash browns are shredded potato cooked on the flat top — stick with those and avoid any loaded or 'everything' versions topped with cheese and onions.
- •The table syrup is corn-syrup based, not real maple — skip it or bring a small bottle of pure maple syrup, which is lower in excess fructose.
- •Skip ranch, honey mustard, gravies, and queso-style sauces; they routinely combine onion, garlic, lactose, and corn syrup — oil and vinegar or plain yellow mustard are the cleaner calls.
At a different restaurant? Photograph any menu and get every dish ranked in seconds.
Scan a menu — freeMenus and recipes change; scores reflect typical preparations and published FODMAP research. Informational only — not medical advice. Always confirm ingredients with restaurant staff.