Lowest Calorie Choices in IHOP: Breakfast For Under 500 Calories

Woke up this morning and can’t be bothered to cook breakfast? Then you might want to head down to your local IHOP for some yummy pancakes or omelettes!

But if you’re someone who’s counting their calories, when you run down to the IHOP, you might want to run a little faster, as IHOP isn’t necessarily known for having low calorie meals – and it’s possible to blow most of your day’s calorie budget before 9am if you’re not careful.

It’s also a bit time-consuming (and complex if you haven’t even had to your first coffee yet) to work out the exact calories on the IHOP menu – as, dishes like combos will vary depending on what you choose – so, we’ve done all that work for you – and in this guide to IHOP calories, you’ll find a heap of breakfast choices for under 500 calories.

So, let’s get cracking!

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Is IHOP healthy?

IHOP has been famous for its breakfast dishes since 1958, and the best part is that you can have breakfast any time of the day. Pancakes at 9 pm? Don’t mind if I do!

That’s the upside of IHOP.

The downside is that their dishes are usually quite high in calories. Pancakes, french toast and waffles are loaded with butter and sugar, and in they can come in large portions, so the simple answer to whether IHOP is healthy is; not necessarily, if you’re going for the signature dish.

That being said, if you like eggs, you can make so many healthy/low calorie meals at IHOP we had to change the normal format we use in these posts as it was impossible to do a list of all the options!!

So, let us explain how you find them…

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What’s the Lowest Calorie Breakfast at IHOP?

The absolute lowest calorie breakfast meal at IHOP comes from the ‘make your own omelet’ section. This gives you the choice of whether to use whole eggs or, just egg whites and gives you complete control over your fillings and side dishes.

The absolute lowest ‘full’ combo you can create using this sees you order the egg white omelet for 110 calories as your base, pick American cheese (100 calories) – then add some tomatoes for an additional 10 calories. 

Then, pick the Fruit Salad for the side dish – which adds just 60 calories. Bam, you’re done – a whole meal for just 280 calories… but there’s a few reasons why you might not want to just order that.

For starters, it’s a little bit too low in calories to start your day – it’s suggested that a healthy breakfast should be closer to 350-500 calories. Therefore, it might be a good idea to add some more veggies to your egg white omelet – peppers and onions will add just 70 calories, and/or spinach or avocado another 80.

Another good option would be to add the veggies, lose the cheese and add some multigrain toast (without butter) (140 calories) as a side dish which will give a super filling, low fat and higher fibre meal for 330-410 calories.

We’ll talk a bit more about customising omelet in a minute, but if you want the absolute lowest calorie breakfast in IHOP, go egg white omelet!

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The Lowest Calorie Breakfast Combo at IHOP

Combos are another areas where counting your calories can get tricky at IHOP!

Each combo comes with pancakes, eggs and a choice of meat which can add up, and if you’re not careful, you could order a meal with as many as 1600 calories.

So, the lowest calorie combo meal is the 2 x 2 x 2 combo. This comes with two eggs cooked your way, 2 strips of bacon or pork sausage and 2 fluffy buttermilk pancakes. 

The combos are another place where it might be worth plumping for the egg whites as it means you can enjoy all of the IHOP pancake yumminess yet keep the calories of your meal on the lower side.

The lowest calorie combination would be to have just scrambled egg whites for 60 calories, 2 pieces of turkey bacon for 60 calories and the Buttermilk Pancakes for 320 calories. In total, this would come to 440 calories.

If you wanted to have whole eggs, pick them fried and you’ll still only add another 60 calories.

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Lowest Calorie Two Egg Breakfast

Because I don’t like pancakes, but love hashbrowns, this is my go-to IHOP order, so I was a bit shocked to see that, according to the numbers on the menu, it busts the calorie budget by starting at 600 calories.

But, you can decrease that.

To create lowest calorie two egg breakfast at IHOP sees you ordering scrambled egg whites, turkey bacon, hashbrowns and Multigrain Toast without any butter.

That cuts the calories to 430 – personally, I’d spend another 60 calories and get fried eggs, over hard. I hate egg whites!

Oh – and if you’re menu offers sourdough – pick that to cut a few extra calories. I haven’t found it on any of the menus I’ve looked at, but it is on their nutritional information at just 110 calories a portion (without butter).

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Lowest Calorie Omelets at IHOP

As we said, an egg white and tomato omelet with fruit is the lowest calorie breakfast meal at IHOP full stop, but, there are a huge number of other possibilities to create breakfast for under 500 calories from this section.

Normally in these posts we do a big list of all the low calorie options at the end (see this one for Olive Garden to see what we mean) but we couldn’t do our normal list of all the choices at the end of this post as it would have been a book!

So, here’s the quick and easy way to create your own low-calorie omelet no matter what combination you fancy….

DIY The Perfect Low Cal IHOP Omelet

Step One: Decide on Your Eggs

If You Want an Egg White Base

This contains 110 calories. You’ve therefore got between 240 and 390 calories to play with, depending on how many you want to allocate to breakfast.

If You Want Whole Eggs

There’s no reason why most people shouldn’t consume whole eggs – the cholesterol the yolks contain does not raise cholesterol in the body of most people – and, the yolks contain nutrients including B12, vitamin A and vitamin D that are essential to health – but they do contain more calories.

If you pick whole eggs for the base of your omelette at IHOP, you’re already starting with 400 calories in the bank.

This means, to keep your calories as suggested, you only have 100 more to play with so you might have to make some tough choices going forward!

Step Two: Choose Your Side Dish

Depending what mood you’re in, this may bump things up a bit so spend these calories first. This table shows your options, pick the one you fancy, add the calories to those in your base.

Side Dish	Calories	Side Dish	Calories
Fresh Fruit	60	Multigrain Toast, no butter	140
White Toast, no butter	180	Hashbrowns	210
Multigrain toast, with butter	210	White Toast, with butter	250
Wholewheat toast no butter	270	Wholewheat toast, with butter	340

Step 3: Do You Want Cheese?

If so, the lowest calorie choice is American which adds 100 calories. So, add that to the above and now see what’s left between this and your calorie goal.

Step 4: Add Your Add Ons

Whatever is left is what you have to spend on fillings – and here’s what’s on offer from lowest to highest calories…

Filling	Calories	Filling	Calories
Fresh Tomatoes	10	Roasted Tomatoes	30
Ham pieces	35	Peppers and onions	70
Sauteed mushrooms	70	Spinach	80
Avocado	80	Bacon	80
Pork Sausage	210

And as you can see there are lots of ways to spend your calories and a lot of combinations you can create.

If You Like This Chart…

We’ve created it as a printable. Simply sign up here and download it…

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Lowest Calorie IHOP Pancakes

It’s called IHOP for a reason, and if you’re wondering about the pancake calories in IHOP, we have good news – you can eat them and stay under 500 calories.

The lowest calorie pancake option at IHOP is the Short Stack Original Buttermilk Pancakes at 450 calories – but that’s without any further topping. 

And you are going to have to skip lashings of syrup we’re afraid. Or, at least only drizzle a tiny amount to sneak in under those 500 calories.

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Waffles

Your lowest calorie waffle option is the Gluten-Friendly Belgian Waffle at 410 calories. 

If you want to add a topping to that, the lowest calorie topping is the Rosette Whipped Topping at 25 calories or fresh fruit at 60 calories.

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French Toast

Unfortunately, French Toast busts the healthy calorie budget.

The lowest calorie French Toast option at IHOP would be the Original French Toast at 740 calories. This would be plain French Toast with nothing on it. 

If you want to add a topping, the lowest calorie topping would be the Rosette Whipped Topping at 25 calories or fresh fruit at 60 calories. 

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Breakfast Burritos and Bowls

Okay, as the Breakfast Burrito starts at 960 calories, you can probably guess that you’re looking at the Breakfast Bowl as the lower calorie choice here.

Even so, the traditional version of this with scrambled egg, bacon, cheese with hashbrowns also knocks the calories out of the park at 680 – so, again it’s time to customise things a little.

Pick scrambled egg whites and you cut 200 calories taking the dish down to 480 calories. Leave off the bacon and pick fruit as a side dish and you’ve got a meal of 540 calories – a little over what’s healthy, but tasty though!

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The Flip Side

So there you have it, the lowest calorie breakfast meals at IHOP. As you can see, if you’re a fan of omelets, there’s a huge number of choices for those counting their calories. 

And, the good news is you can still enjoy their world-famous pancakes if you’re willing to sacrifice 450 calories and forgo the syrup!

You can also leave things off your meals which can cut things further. The IHOP nutritional calculator helps you work out exactly what’s in your meal – or, the IHOP nutritional information gives you everything on a printable list if you don’t want to be staring at your phone during your meal.

Both of these also include IHOPs lunch and dinner options if you’re dining there at another time of day.

If there’s something on the menu you really have your eye on, talk to your waiter about maybe serving just half a portion. After all, the IHOP philosophy is to make sure every customer leaves with a smile, which is exactly why they put a smile on their logo. 

I hope this guide helped you decide what to order at IHOP. 

What to Read Next

If you liked it, you might like to check out some of the other posts in our calorie guide section.

You can find out the lowest calorie choices in Red Lobster – if you’re in the mood for seafood.

Or, if you’re feeling more like Italian, then you might want to see what the best choices are to order in Carrabbas.

If you’re in a healthy mood you could also see what’s on offer at Tender Greens.

And if General Tso’s chicken is called your name, you’re going to want to check out our guide to the calories in Panda Express.

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