McDonald's Burgers You Can't Get In The US

Love it or hate it, McDonald's is the top fast food restaurant chain in the world. An icon of globalization and ambassador of American efficiency, the Golden Arches has been going strong for well over half a century, and it all started with a hamburger and a side of fries.

However, while many associate McDonald's with the United States, the restaurant's menus are not uniform across the globe. In order to stay in business, each region has had to innovate and mold itself into a reflection of the local culture to best cater to its customers. In India, for example, roughly 30% of families are vegetarian. Thus, a McDonald's menu in India contains quite a few more vegetarian options than other countries. If it didn't, those families would simply go to another restaurant.

Now you might be wondering what kinds of menu items McDonald's offers in other countries that you can't find stateside. The answer is a lot, but for this list, we're sticking to just the burgers.

To say that teriyaki sauce is popular in Japan, the place of its birth, would be an understatement. The word teriyaki itself refers to a style of either grilling or broiling meat that has been brushed in a special kind of sweetened soy sauce. So pairing teriyaki sauce with a hamburger just makes sense! And in this case, it's a literal "ham" burger that uses ground pork rather than ground beef to make the meat patty.

In addition to the signature sweet teriyaki sauce, McDonald's Teriyaki McBurger is topped with shredded lettuce and a sweet lemon mayonnaise-based sauce. The original Teriyaki McBurger was introduced in 1989, but in the decades since, new teriyaki burgers have been created and sold for a limited time only. In 2021, customers could tuck into an Oyako Teriyaki, a fried chicken teriyaki patty topped by an egg, lettuce, and mayonnaise; an Akakara Teriyaki, which added spicy cheese and spicy mayo to a regular Teriyaki McBurger; and a Kurokosho Teriyaki, flavored with black pepper and topped with garlic mayo and bacon.

Two years later, McDonald's debuted the Hokkaido Jaga Butter Teriyaki, which was topped with a buttery potato sauce and a slice of cheese; Osaka Okonomiyaki-style Sauce Tamago Teriyaki, another burger topped with a fried egg with the extra bonus of okonomiyaki sauce; and Hakata Mentai Teriyaki Chicken, a chicken patty with a sauce made from spicy cod roe.

You might think that, like the previous two burgers, McDonald's Arabia's Big Tasty Mushroom would be a description of what this burger is. And you would be partly correct. Yes, there are mushrooms, but the halal patty is all beef.

Outside of the U.S. the Big N' Tasty lives on in the form of the Big Tasty line of sandwiches. With some regional variations, Big Tasty burgers can still be found across Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and parts of Africa. The Big Tasty Mushroom is a beef patty topped with grilled mushrooms, two slices of Emmental cheese, tomatoes, and a special smoky sauce on a toasted sesame seed bun. As of this writing, it can only be found in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. (Even Jeddah, Saudi Arabia does not have the sandwich on its menus.)

Qatar's McDonald's briefly had the Big Tasty Mushroom on its menu in 2019, but it included crispy onions in addition to the ingredients piled on Saudi Arabia's version. In 2016, an earlier version of the Big Tasty Mushroom was also introduced for a limited time on McDonald's Arabia menus, called the Mushroom Melt. It was the same as the current version with the addition of grilled onions, slices of tomato, shredded lettuce, and black pepper mayonnaise.

Over in Italy, McDonald's saw the rest of the world's love of bacon on a burger and decided to dial it up a notch. Enter the My Selection Speck and Asiago burger. Speck is a specific type of cured and lightly smoked Italian ham that is cut from pork leg largely from the northern region of Alto Adige. In order to be certified Speck Alto Adige IGP (indication of geographic protection), the pigs are raised in a specific way and fed a regimented diet.

McDonald's uses thinly sliced Speck Adige IGP in making the Speck and Asiago burger as well as Asiago DOP (protected designation of origin), making this a truly premium fast food burger. There is also a 100% Italian-raised beef patty, lettuce, a sauce of mayonnaise with whole grain mustard, and slices of grilled zucchini. We're not sure it can get much more Italian than zucchini, speck, and asiago. Buon appetito!

Singapore is an island country of many cultures. Even so, it seems a little surprising to find a burger celebrating the 150th anniversary of the naming of one of Japan's four largest islands in its seasonal menu rotation. The Hokkaido Salmon burger first appeared in 2018 on McDonald's Singapore menus and continues to make repeat appearances.

The native people of Hokkaido, the Ainu, have long relied on salmon for sustenance, and the love of this tasty fish continued with the arrival of Japanese colonizers hundreds of years ago. Hokkaido today is known for its wild-caught salmon dishes. This is likely why McDonald's in Singapore chose to name its salmon burger after the island.

To make the burger, McDonald's crusted the salmon with panko crumbs, then topped the crunchy patty with sliced cabbage, onions, and roasted sesame mayonnaise. The bun is also sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds. If you ever find yourself in Singapore, maybe you will be lucky enough to catch this sandwich on the menu.

Pork cutlet is a pretty common dish across East Asia so it's no surprise that it makes appearances in McDonald's menus in that region. It is a lean cut of meat that makes it easy to sandwich between a hamburger bun.

In 2018, McDonald's Hong Kong partnered with celebrity Chef Nicholas Tse to create the Crispy Pork Cutlet Burger with Onions, which was zhuzhed up with a cornmeal bun, caramelized onions, Emmental cheese, fried onions, and a signature white dressing.

In Japan, where the word for pork cutlet is tonkatsu or sometimes just katsu, pork cutlet burgers make regular appearances on McDonald's menus in various forms. The Cheese Katsu Burger, which featured a cheese-filled pork cutlet patty, hit menus for a limited time in 2016. Every spring since 1996, McDonald's has put out a special menu it calls Teritama, which is short for teriyaki and tamago (meaning egg). The patties are always pork, and in 2020, a tonkatsu burger was part of the lineup.

Considering how much tonkatsu is a beloved part of Japanese cuisine, expect it to make more appearances in the future. However, don't expect pork cutlets to appear on U.S. menus. Pork patties just aren't popular enough in the American market.

The McRaclette is a favorite of McDonald's customers in Switzerland. The basic McRaclette is a burger made up of a beef patty, three slices of Swiss raclette cheese, pickles, onions, and a special raclette sauce. The ciabatta bun is what makes this burger visually distinct. There are three alternatives to the regular McRaclette. If you're feeling fancy, choose between the McRaclette Bacon, McRaclette Chili, or go all with the McRaclette Chili Bacon.

The McRaclette is a uniquely Swiss burger, so don't expect to find it anywhere else. Raclette is a dish of melted cheese that is often served with boiled potatoes. There are records of it in Switzerland from at least the 13th century.

Unfortunately, McDonald's seems to have a tendency to remove the McRaclette from the menu only to bring it back later with much fanfare. This is one unique burger experience that you need to grab while you can.

Here is another McDonald's burger that has different variations around the globe and, if you like your burgers spicy, are worth trying wherever you happen to come across them.

South Africa has the Chili Cheese Double with two beef patties, a slice of cheese, nacho cheese sauce, a spicy sauce, and slices of jalapenos. Germany calls this the McDouble Chili Cheese. In Norway, you may come across the Chili Mayo Cheese, a single patty with one cheese slice, shredded lettuce, and a spicy sauce.

McDonald's Sweden, however, has really kicked it up a notch with the Chili Mayo and Cheese. Unfortunately, it is only served at select restaurants, and you may want to seek out those locations to try it. Stacked between a sesame seed bun are, depending on the size of your appetite, one or two large beef patties, two slices of cheddar cheese, onions, pickles, and a creamy chili mayonnaise. Sounds like a tasty way to warm up in a chilly northern winter.