Healthy Eating in Chicago: Calories in Deep Dish, Italian Beef and the Chicago Dog

What does Chicago actually eat?

Chicago eats sandwiches and pizza that were built for factory shifts and winter, plus the food of the communities that settled its neighborhoods. Wikipedia's article on the cuisine of Chicago lists the classics: deep-dish pizza, said to have started at Pizzeria Uno; tavern-style thin crust cut into squares; the Chicago-style hot dog, an all-beef frank on a poppy-seed bun with yellow mustard, onion, tomato, neon-green relish, sport peppers, a pickle spear and celery salt, never ketchup; the Italian beef, thin-sliced roast beef simmered in seasoned broth on an Italian roll with sweet peppers or giardiniera; and the Maxwell Street Polish, a beef-and-pork sausage with grilled onions.

Then come the neighborhoods. Pilsen and Little Village are full of taquerías. Devon Avenue in West Ridge has rows of Pakistani and Indian restaurants. Greektown popularized flaming saganaki, and Chicago is the hometown of mass-produced gyros. Polish delis line Milwaukee and Archer Avenues, Chinatown sits on the South Side, and Borinquen Restaurant in Humboldt Park invented the jibarito, a sandwich with fried, flattened plantains in place of bread. There's even a Chicago hybrid, the mother-in-law: a tamale in a hot dog bun under chili.

None of that is diet food, and you don't need to give it up. You need numbers for the things you order most, and a plan for the rest of the day around them. That's what this guide gives you.

How many calories are in Chicago's signature foods?

Calories in Chicago's signature foods range from about 108 for a tavern-style square to more than 1,000 for a big Italian beef. The Portillo's figures below are the chain's own, as compiled on FastFoodNutrition.org (Portillo's itself blocked our request); the pizza, gyro and tamale figures come from USDA FoodData Central's survey foods, scaled to the portion sizes USDA lists. All were checked on October 28, 2026.

Sodium is the other number to watch in Chicago sandwiches. The same Portillo's data puts the Italian beef at 1,237 mg of sodium for one sandwich. A salty beef-and-fries dinner can show up on the scale the next morning as water weight, so judge your progress by the weekly trend, not one weigh-in.

Deep dish or tavern-style: which Chicago pizza is lighter?

Tavern-style thin crust is the lighter Chicago pizza, mostly because of portion size, not ingredients. Per 100 g, USDA's thin-crust and thick-crust cheese pizzas are close: 266 and 271 calories. The difference is how much you eat. USDA weighs a piece of a large thin-crust pizza at 86 g, or 229 calories, and a piece of a large thick-crust pizza at 132 g, or 358 calories.

Tavern-style squares make portions easy to count. USDA puts one square inch of thin-crust cheese pizza at 4.5 g, so a 3-inch square is about 40 g and 108 calories, with 4.6 g of protein. Four squares are about 430 calories. Two slices of deep dish, the usual order, are 716 calories or more before the garlic bread.

• For fat loss: order tavern-style, count your squares, and pair them with a salad so pizza night is one meal, not two.
• For deep dish: one slice and a side salad, then take the rest home. A deep-dish pizza reheats well for the next day's lunch.
• For protein: neither pizza is a protein food. Four tavern squares carry about 18 g of protein for 430 calories; the 200 g gyro has 22.5 g for 368.

What should you order at a Chicago beef stand or hot dog stand?

At a Chicago beef stand, the Italian beef is the better choice than the Polish or the combo if you want protein for the calories. Portillo's lists the regular Italian beef at 690 calories with 33 g of protein; the Big Beef jumps to 1,040 calories, and the combo, which adds a sausage, is 740. The Char-Grilled Maxwell Street Polish is 570 calories. Fries are 380–530 calories depending on size, and a slice of Portillo's chocolate cake is 720, more than the sandwich.

1. 1

   Get the regular beef, not the big one

   That one choice saves 350 calories. If you're hungry, add protein instead of bread: Portillo's char-broiled chicken sandwich is 440 calories.

2. 2

   Ask for it dry

   A dipped beef soaks the whole roll in seasoned broth. Dry keeps the bread from turning into a sponge, and hot giardiniera still gives you the flavor.

3. 3

   Skip the fries or share them

   A small order still runs about 380 calories. Split them, or swap them for a side salad.

4. 4

   Make the salad your main

   Portillo's chopped salad is 550 calories with 40 g of protein without dressing, and 800 with it. Ask for the dressing on the side and use half.

5. 5

   Treat the cake as its own meal

   At 720 calories, a slice of chocolate cake is a whole lunch. Share it, or have it on a day you trained.

The Chicago dog itself is one of the lighter things at the stand, especially compared with a Polish. Because the published 150-calorie figure likely leaves out the bun, budget for more than that, but it's still well under the 570 for the Polish. The toppings are mostly vegetables and mustard, and ketchup was never on it anyway.

Where are the high-protein meals in Chicago's neighborhoods?

Chicago's neighborhood restaurants are where the high-protein meals are. A taquería in Pilsen or Little Village, a gyro counter in Greektown or a Devon Avenue grill will feed you better per calorie than a pizza night, if you order with protein in mind.

The burrito bowl is the standout: 41 g of protein for 457 calories, by USDA's figures for a chicken bowl with beans and rice. A tamale is lighter but lower in protein, 244 calories and 10.4 g, so two tamales make a snack rather than a meal. In Greektown, a gyro sandwich gives 22.5 g of protein for 368 calories; skip the fries and add a Greek salad. On Devon Avenue, tandoori and kebab plates with salad and one bread are a better bet than a rice-heavy biryani if protein is what you're after.

A jibarito from Humboldt Park, a Polish plate of pierogi from Milwaukee Avenue or a bag of Garrett Mix from downtown don't have reliable published numbers, so we haven't guessed. Eat them as the treats they are, and log them as a generous estimate.

How do you build a fat-loss day around Chicago food?

A fat-loss day in Chicago works when you pick one local meal and keep the rest simple. Here is one built from the numbers above, with your own breakfast at home:

1. Lunch near the office in the Loop or River North: Portillo's chopped salad, dressing on the side and half used. About 550–675 calories, 40 g of protein.
2. Dinner in Pilsen: a chicken burrito bowl with beans and rice. About 457 calories, 41 g of protein.
3. Snack: fruit or yogurt from home.

Those two meals come to roughly 1,000 to 1,130 calories and 81 g of protein, leaving room for a breakfast and a snack inside most fat-loss targets. On pizza night, swap the dinner for four tavern-style squares and a side salad: about 430 calories for the pizza.

How do you eat for muscle gain in Chicago?

Eating for muscle gain in Chicago is mostly a question of adding protein-dense meals, and the city makes that easy. A muscle-gain day built from the same data:

1. Lunch: a regular Italian beef, dry with hot giardiniera. 690 calories, 33 g of protein.
2. Afternoon: a gyro sandwich from Greektown. 368 calories, 22.5 g of protein.
3. Dinner: a chicken burrito bowl with beans and rice. 457 calories, 41 g of protein.

That's about 1,515 calories and 96.5 g of protein from three Chicago meals, before breakfast and snacks. Add eggs, Greek yogurt or a shake at home to reach your target. Lift three times a week with a coach checking your form and the extra food goes toward muscle rather than just weight.

Want to see a coached day? Our Chicago page shows the session times. For what training costs locally, read what a personal trainer costs in Chicago, and for running routes and winter plans see how to stay fit in Chicago. The US page lists every city we coach.