The Receipts
Same order. Three kitchens.
Four everyday foods, each one made three ways: picked up at a national chain, pulled from a package at the grocery store, or cooked from scratch at home. Every number below is pulled from an official nutrition disclosure or USDA FoodData Central, and each assembled figure can be opened up to show the cited parts it adds up from. Full citations live on the Sources page.
Burger
2.0× more sodium, restaurant vs. homemade
Look closer: The patty is not what makes this salty. A BUBBA burger Original Beef patty carries 85 mg on its own, so almost the whole store bought total is the bun, the cheese slice and the ketchup around it.
Store BoughtBUBBA burger patty, bun, cheese slice and ketchup, assembled at home
712 mg
1 assembled burger
31% of a day's recommended sodium (2,300 mg)
Show the 4 parts that add up to 712 mg
Two of these four lines come from packaging that prints no gram weight. BUBBA lists the patty by the patty and Heinz lists ketchup by the serving, so both are quoted as the manufacturer states them rather than converted to grams.
HomemadeFresh ground beef patty, whole wheat roll, cheddar and mustard, cooked at home
525 mg
1 assembled burger
23% of a day's recommended sodium (2,300 mg)
Show the 4 parts that add up to 525 mg
The patty is USDA's own published portion: one patty yielded from a quarter pound of raw beef, which is 83 g once cooked. BUBBA prints no weight for its frozen patty, so the two are not matched by weight, and a heavier homemade patty would add sodium here. Nothing is salted during cooking, so every milligram below is what the ingredients already carry.
- 85% lean ground beef patty, pan broiled, no salt added (1 patty, 83 g cooked) [source]66 mg
- Whole wheat hamburger roll (1 roll, 56 g) [source]267 mg
- Cheddar cheese (1 slice, 21 g, matched to the Kraft slice) [source]137 mg
- Yellow mustard (1 tsp, 5 g) with fresh tomato and lettuce, which add under 10 mg [source]55 mg
- Total525 mg
Fries
2.6× more sodium, store bought vs. homemade
Look closer: The freezer aisle loses this one. Ore-Ida's extra crispy coating carries 430 mg per serving against 260 mg for a medium order of McDonald's fries, so this is not only a story about restaurants.
RestaurantMcDonald's Medium French Fries
260 mg
1 medium order [source]
11% of a day's recommended sodium (2,300 mg)
Store BoughtOre-Ida Extra Crispy Fast Food Fries, oven baked
430 mg
3 oz (84 g, about 27 pieces) [source]
19% of a day's recommended sodium (2,300 mg)
HomemadeFresh cut potatoes, oven baked, salted at the table
164 mg
About 3 oz (85 g)
7% of a day's recommended sodium (2,300 mg)
Show the 2 parts that add up to 164 mg
The potato itself is almost sodium free. Nearly all of this figure is the salt shaken on at the end, counted here as USDA's single dash of 0.4 g, and even that lands well under the frozen bag.
Pizza
1.4× more sodium, store bought vs. homemade
Look closer: Pizza is the category where cooking it yourself barely helps. A from scratch slice still lands within about 45 mg of the same slice from a chain, because pizza dough is salted at around 2% of the flour weight and cheese and cured pepperoni are salty no matter who assembles them.
RestaurantDomino's Large Hand Tossed Pepperoni, 1 slice
640 mg
1 slice of a 14 inch pizza (about 116 g) [source]
28% of a day's recommended sodium (2,300 mg)
Show how this figure was worked out
Domino's publishes this pizza by the component rather than by the finished slice, so the figure is the sum of their own numbers for one slice: crust 170 mg, pizza sauce 90 mg, regular cheese 210 mg and pepperoni 170 mg. Their optional 25 mg garlic oil blend is left out, which is the choice that makes the restaurant number smaller rather than larger.
Store BoughtDiGiorno Rising Crust Pepperoni, frozen
830 mg
1/5 of a pizza (140 g) [source]
36% of a day's recommended sodium (2,300 mg)
HomemadeFrom scratch dough, unsalted tomato sauce, mozzarella and pepperoni
597 mg
1 slice, one eighth of a 14 inch pizza
26% of a day's recommended sodium (2,300 mg)
Show the 5 parts that add up to 597 mg
Built from one 14 inch pie divided into eight slices: 265 g of flour at 60% hydration, salted at 2% of flour weight, which is the standard range for pizza dough; 1 cup of unsalted tomato sauce; 2 cups of shredded mozzarella; and 6 pepperoni slices per slice of pizza. The flour and the sauce contribute almost nothing. The salt in the dough, the cheese and the cured pepperoni are the entire story.
- All purpose flour (265 g per pizza, so 33 g per slice) [source]1 mg
- Table salt kneaded into the dough at 2% of flour weight (5.3 g per pizza, so 0.66 g per slice) [source]256 mg
- Tomato sauce, no salt added (1 cup per pizza, so 31 g per slice) [source]3 mg
- Shredded low moisture part skim mozzarella (2 cups per pizza at 86 g per cup, so 21.5 g per slice) [source]147 mg
- Sliced pepperoni (6 slices, 12 g) [source]190 mg
- Total597 mg
Sandwich
2.7× more sodium, restaurant vs. homemade
Look closer: The sandwich shop takes this one outright: one 6 inch turkey sub, as Subway lists it, is exactly half a day's sodium. The store bought build is not much better, because two slices of white bread and 2 oz of deli turkey already come to 814 mg before any mayo goes on.
RestaurantSubway 6" Oven Roasted Turkey
1,150 mg
1 sandwich (233 g) [source]
50% of a day's recommended sodium (2,300 mg)
Show how this figure was worked out
Subway publishes this sandwich as one line at 233 g in its January 2026 nutrition tables and does not state which toppings or sauces that line includes, so the figure is quoted exactly as published rather than rebuilt from parts. The same table notes that a footlong is double these values.
Store BoughtDeli turkey, white bread and mayo, assembled at home
902 mg
1 sandwich
39% of a day's recommended sodium (2,300 mg)
HomemadeRoasted turkey breast, whole wheat bread and mustard, made at home
430 mg
1 sandwich
19% of a day's recommended sodium (2,300 mg)
Show the 3 parts that add up to 430 mg
Turkey roasted at home rather than cured and sliced at a plant carries 99 mg per 100 g instead of the deli meat's 946 mg. That single swap is most of the gap.
Try it yourself
Build a Plate, Count the Sodium
Add whatever you'd eat in one sitting. Every item comes from the comparisons above, so the total is built out of real published label figures.
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