McDonald's Breakfast Menu, Ranked (Including the New Spicy Egg McMuffin)

There may be no fast-food restaurant more famous for its breakfast than McDonald’s. They gatekeep the good stuff (save for a brief stint before Covid), locking up the eggs and bacon at 10:30 a.m. sharp.  

If you make it in during that magical window, what are you going to order? McDonald’s has a surprisingly deep breakfast menu, with a ton of stuff to choose from. I got in there and ordered 11 of the most popular things on the breakfast menu, plus the brand new Spicy Egg McMuffin. 

Here are 12 of the most popular dishes on the McDonald’s breakfast menu, ranked. 

Prices and availability are subject to change.

$3.99 

Franchise owner Herb Peterson had a dream in 1971: an English muffin with a slice of grilled Canadian bacon, cheese, and a poached egg. Today there’s nothing poached about the strange, UFO-shaped egg disc McDonald’s serves with the McMuffin, but that’s just fine. This egg is better than the omelette-style eggs that come with the other sandwiches. That’s because these eggs are indeed cooked fresh, and the other kind is frozen. The difference is night and day. 

You can make no better choice at McDonald’s; in fact, you can make no better choice anywhere. 

$3.99

We’re looking at an extreme case of personal preference here. To me, the lighter, thinner slice of grilled ham is a better compliment to the sandwich than McDonald’s sausage. While the sausage here has more of a depth of flavor than most other chains’ sausage patties, it’s also got a lot of gristle, and I don’t think that does the sandwich any favors. A great breakfast sandwich still, but you’re here to simulate a Benedict. Ham it up. 

$3.49 

I’ve eaten plenty of McGriddles in my time, but never have I eaten a chicken McGriddles. The bun of a McGriddles, if you don’t know, is a pancake with little syrup nuggets inside, waiting to burst. By the way, now’s a good time to address the fact that one singular sandwich is called a McGriddles. I don’t know, man. Take it up with McDonald’s.  

Because of the Steve Jobs-esque brilliance behind the McGriddles bun, it occurred to me that this is actually an ingenious way to eat a piece of fried chicken. Usually, when you’re served a chicken sandwich with some sort of sauce, even just honey (in this case, maple syrup), it starts to soften up the fried crispiness immediately. Here, it remains hidden in the pancake bun until you take a bite, at which point the sauce is dispensed. We’re talking about sauce applied bite for bite. That’s a next-level situation for fried chicken, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we start to eventually see this type of thing become more mainstream. 

$4.19 

There hasn’t been a lot of Egg McMuffin innovation in the past, but the spicy McMuffin has arrived. The spicy pepper sauce McDonald’s has cooked up for this is creamy, tangy, and definitely full of heat. I think it’s really tasty, for a spicy sauce, and probably best suited for chicken tenders. But first thing in the morning? This is aggressive. You can only acquire this before 10:30 a.m., so ask yourself how much you’re willing to sweat before work. 

$4.99 

Egg discs are no more. We’re now in the territory of the folded, omelette-style egg that McDonald’s uses for everything else. This egg is, a-how-you-say, a-no-good. I don’t care for it even close to as much as the disc. It’s tolerable while it’s piping hot, but every second it loses heat, the flavor evaporates. You can taste the water seeping out of the pre-frozen eggs with every bite. That beautiful McGriddles bun is the only thing keeping this together. 

$5.79 

Did you even know McDonald’s had steak as a breakfast meat option? I sure didn’t. This was something I expected to be a lot more like a salisbury steak, but I was stunned to find that this was chewy and didn’t feel like a patty at all. It came with grilled onions, too, which I didn’t expect.  

I gotta tell you, I didn’t hate it. The biscuit and cheese and egg really all helped build something greater than the sum of its parts. While I’m not sure I’d be able to finish and entire sandwich because it’s so damn oily, this is a tasty, if not mega-savory, breakfast sandwich. 

$3.99 

With just a chicken and a biscuit, this is pretty dry. Apply sauce and risk losing the structural integrity of the biscuit and the crispiness of the chicken. The lesson here: Just get chicken on the McGriddles bun. 

$3.59 

Guess how much a short stack of pancakes are at Denny’s? $3.59. Same price, friends. I’m aware that Denny’s pancakes are only moderately better than the flavorless sponges that McDonald’s serves. I’m aware that you’ll have to drive there, sit down, and pay a tip. I understand all this, but do you really want pancakes that badly that you’re willing to eat the ones from McDonald’s? They taste like nothing, and the syrup is too thin and too sweet. You don’t have to go to Denny’s. But you don’t have to get pancakes here. 

$2.39 

What is McDonald’s doing with its sausage in this thing? I like the sausage patties that come on the sandwiches. I don’t like these tiny little sausage nuggets. This could be a contender for the best thing on the menu if it was made with only a fresh egg and some melted cheese. 

$5.29 

My oh my, this is a bad bagel. It’s barely a bagel, really. I don’t know how to categorize this. It puffs into dust the second your tooth touches it. The cheese manages to grab hold of several clumps of what remains, but the top of the bagel is lost almost immediately, and the frozen egg is doing no favors for anybody. The sausage is the lone hero here, providing both flavor and texture in an otherwise bland, clumpy mess. 

$5.29 

There’s barely any bacon here. You need the sausage to help fill this sandwich out, or else you’re in trouble. Anybody seeking the iconic New York bodega sandwich they’re familiar with should look elsewhere: This is a B.E.C. at its worst. 

$4.29 

The smell on this thing was enough to make me consider not tasting it all. But I am a professional and a man of science, so I went for it. I took a bite of McDonald's attempt at biscuits and gravy, mysteriously named “Sausage Gravy Biscuit” as though "biscuits and gravy" is some trademarked term they’re not allowed to use. 

It tastes like it smells, folks. This isn’t the country gravy you know and love. This is more like sour milk with sausage pieces in it. Avoid at all costs. 

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