McDonald's Breakfast Sandwiches Ranked Worst To Best

Once upon a time, way back in the dark ages of the 1960s, hungry people had to figure out breakfast for themselves. You couldn't just pop down to your local McDonald's to get your morning bite. Hard to believe, but back then, McDonald's didn't serve breakfast. Your only options were to make your own breakfast or eat somewhere else.

And then McDonald's changed the way America eats breakfast by introducing the Egg McMuffin. Developed in 1971 and rolled out nationally by 1975, the Egg McMuffin was a breakthrough in fast food breakfast technology. What you don't know about the Egg McMuffin is that it didn't just boost McDonald's but spearheaded the entire fast food breakfast industry, spurring a revolution in cheap early morning chow for workers and students on the go.

But the Egg McMuffin was just the start of things. Today, McDonald's offers a vast menu with a dizzying number of different breakfast sandwich options. With more than a dozen breakfast sandwiches to choose from, even the most devoted McDonald's diner would be hard-pressed to sample all of them in order to discover just which is the best. But don't worry. That's where we step in. Armed with the all-powerful McDonald's app, we set out to determine once and for all which McDonald's breakfast sandwiches you should buy and which you should avoid by eating trying them firsthand — one McMuffin at a time.

Do you like biscuits? You'll have to in order to appreciate McDonald's Sausage Biscuit, which consists of — checks notes — a sausage patty on a biscuit. Technically, there's also butter on the biscuit, but otherwise, this is a case of truth in advertising. What you see is what you get, and what I got was a whole lot of really dry biscuit.

That's not to say the biscuit is bad. It's a perfectly fine biscuit. The problem comes with the proportions. The ratio of biscuit to sausage is off, and the ratio of biscuit to anything that might add moisture is way off, given there isn't any. Oddly, the Sausage McMuffin comes with cheese, which this biscuit version could have desperately used. As my mouth filled with a crumbling pile of seemingly endless biscuit, I felt like a cartoon character dragging myself across a desert in search of a shimmering oasis that didn't exist.

The biscuit was also so overwhelming that I barely detected the faint flavor of sausage, which was more of an aftertaste in the back of my throat than a major player. I like sausage, and I like biscuits, but this combo was absolutely not it.

It's a common myth that snakes unhinge their jaws to eat large animals whole, but it's something I wish I could have done to make eating the McDonald's Sausage Biscuit with Egg a little easier. The biscuit itself was thick and dense. With an added layer of a folded egg on top of another layer of sausage — albeit a pretty thin sausage patty — this breakfast stack proved to be a bit of a challenge to wrap my teeth around.

After finally managing to chomp down, though, my first impression was a universe of biscuit. Beyond that, interestingly, the second flavor note was the egg rather than the sausage. This is more a testament to how flavorless the sausage patty was, though, rather than praise for the egg. While the egg was fine in both taste and consistency, it mostly pointed out that the McDonald's sausage could probably use a little more spice in the recipe. Between the biscuit and the egg, the sausage flavor was completely lost.

Though the egg did help somewhat with the inherent dryness of the biscuit, the overall bite was still like chewing on some kind of desiccant. Usually, desiccants included with food have a "do not eat" label on them. This sandwich could also use one.

While the straight Sausage Biscuit was like biting into a sandcastle, the Bacon, Egg & Cheese Biscuit from McDonald's is a notably more palatable eating experience. Sure, the egg and cheese were almost completely flavorless (though the texture of both wasn't unpleasant). But the pair provided some much-needed fat and moisture to the breakfast sandwich. And without the distraction of Saharan dryness, I was able to appreciate the biscuit's good qualities.

While still too dry, it had a nice crumbly texture and actually tasted pretty good. The bacon stood up to the biscuit better than the sausage did, with a pleasant flavor that came through clearly. Unfortunately, the sandwich as a whole was too salty, with the bacon contributing significantly. Still, the combination of bacon, egg, cheese, and biscuit made this the best of all the biscuit options.

It also meant that I felt freed from the burden of trying a couple of the other biscuit-centric McDonald's breakfast sandwich options. My location also had Egg Biscuit and Egg and Cheese Biscuit variations, which were essentially this sandwich but with some of the good parts removed. Both would rank lower than this.

One of my personal pet peeves with food is unexpected ingredients. I like to know what I'm eating, thank you very much, so when a restaurant slips in something that's not on the tin, I don't appreciate it. You wouldn't expect that to be the case with a McDonald's breakfast sandwich, given that they have descriptive names like Steak and Egg McMuffin. But while most McDonald's breakfast sandwiches list all the main ingredients in the name, the Steak and Egg McMuffin failed to mention anything about the pile of sautéed onions I found heaped prominently on the meat.

That could have been a problem, as onions famously have a strong flavor. However, when I ate the sandwich, I could barely detect any onion flavor. Instead, the onions mostly provided a slightly crunchy texture, adding only small, sweet hints to what was overwhelmingly a steak-forward flavor profile. That texture note, it should be said, was actually welcome. Between the naturally spongy English muffin, the egg layer, and the steak patty itself, the sandwich was quite chewy. The onions mixed things up in what would otherwise have been a one-note eating experience. For the sake of transparency, though, the presence of a big pile of onions should probably be noted up front for potential diners.

Back in 2023, North America was thrown into a panic over the possible loss of McDonald's signature special breakfast sauce. If that put you off McDonald's breakfast sandwiches forever, I have some good news: Forever is now over, as the breakfast sauce is alive and well on all of the bagel offerings I tried.

Despite the breakfast sauce, which is kind of like a hollandaise, the most prominent flavor that came through for me on biting into this sandwich wasn't the sauce — or the sausage, the egg, or the bagel. It was actually the cheese. A surprise, but not an unpleasant one, although the breakfast sauce did help both with adding flavor as well as some much-needed moisture. Unlike the bone-dry biscuit options, which almost called for an IV, the sauced-up bagels were moist enough to eat without issue. The bagel also tasted fine. However, as with many of the breakfast sandwiches, the folded egg and the sausage were both so nearly flavorless as to be overpowered by the other ingredients.

Finally, it should also be noted that the Sausage, Egg & Cheese Bagel is the McDonald's breakfast sandwich that packs the most calories at 710, while also having the most fat, at 42 grams. For the nutritionally inclined, other options may be superior.

Hey friends, let's talk about salt! Useful for both flavoring and preserving food, people have been cultivating salt for at least 8,000 years. That's just one of many little-known facts about salt, which you may end up contemplating after eating a McDonald's Bacon, Egg & Cheese Bagel. Clocking in at 1,320 milligrams of sodium, a single Bacon, Egg & Cheese Bagel provides 57% of the total recommended daily value for sodium. And believe me, you'll taste that salt in every bite.

As salt-forward as the Bacon, Egg & Cheese Bagel is, though, it still manages to find a reasonable flavor balance. Though the folded egg is too bland to really taste, the saltiness of the bacon plays nicely against the tang of the breakfast sauce. That sauce also helps give the bagel some much-needed moisture. And the toast on the bagel and the sear on the bacon also combine for a pleasant crunchiness that gives the sandwich an interesting textural dichotomy, with the crunch contrasting the softness of the bagel and the egg.

Overall, eating the Bacon, Egg & Cheese Bagel is a solid experience. It just left me wondering how good the sandwich could have been if the saltiness had been toned down a little.

Coming in at the dead middle of our list is a McDonald's breakfast sandwich so average that even Goldilocks would agree it's just aight. And sometimes, that's all you want for your breakfast. Who wants to deal with an exceptional sandwich when you're dealing with traffic trying to get to work on time? No, thank you, that would be too distracting. Just something middle of the road will do, and that's the Sausage McMuffin with Egg.

Thanks to the sponginess of the English muffin and the fluffiness of the freshly-cracked egg, biting into this sandwich isn't too hard. Nor is it too soft, with the toasted exterior of the muffin giving it a little texture. It's neither too dry nor too moist, and while the sausage flavor is — yet again — lost a bit in the mix, it's also not too salty. As a bonus, the blandness of the other flavors actually allows the egg to stand out more than most of the other McDonald's breakfast sandwiches, so if you're an egg fan, this one will be right up your alley.

The Egg McMuffin is the OG of fast food breakfasts. But does a breakfast sandwich invented more than five decades ago still hold up today? Thankfully, the answer to that is a definite yes.

The secret weapon deployed on the Egg McMuffin is a thin slice of Canadian bacon, a slice of meat that's not really Canadian and tastes more like ham than bacon. This is the only regularly offered McDonald's breakfast sandwich that uses Canadian bacon instead of sausage, bacon, or steak, and after eating one, it's hard to understand why. The Canadian bacon gave the sandwich I sampled a unique texture, adding an unexpected crunch to some bites. Combined with occasional crunches from the toasted cornmeal on the muffin exterior, the sensation was a bit like having Pop Rocks sprinkled on my sandwich.

Personally, I liked that, as it added a bit of zhuzh to my breakfast. There are also ways to improve and customize your Egg McMuffin experience with special requests when you order, but I found the baseline Egg McMuffin to be a solid breakfast option even after all these years.

Sausage McGriddles are as basic as they come: a sausage patty between two McGriddle griddle cakes. That's it. But that's all a hungry breakfastgoer really needs. After all, griddle cakes are just tiny pancakes, and what's more classic for breakfast than pancakes with sausage?

Pairing the two as a sandwich is maybe the greatest achievement in McDonald's history, if not the whole breadth of human endeavor. The inherent sweetness of the griddle cakes plays nicely against the savory spiciness of the sausage patty. It's not perfect — the sausage patty is just too lightly seasoned to bring much flavor, meaning the balance is tilted strongly towards the griddle cake. But compared to other McDonald's breakfast sandwiches with sausage, the simplicity of just two ingredients means less competition, offering a rare chance to taste any sausage at all.

There were some salty afternotes, but again, the sweetness of the griddle cake mitigated things. And the griddle cake was also extremely moist, making this a vastly superior eating experience compared to the similarly stripped-down (but sadly bone-dry) Sausage Biscuit sandwich.

It might seem counterintuitive to remove the egg from a McMuffin, given that the Egg McMuffin is McDonald's signature breakfast sandwich. But the Sausage McMuffin proves that going eggless has its benefits. Consisting of a sausage patty and a thin slice of American cheese on an English muffin, the Sausage McMuffin ends up having a nearly perfect balance of all three.

In particular, this allows the sausage flavor to shine in a way it doesn't in just about any other McDonald's breakfast sandwich. Across the board, I found the sausage underseasoned, meaning its flavor was easily overwhelmed by more potent ingredients. Here, though, the sausage is actually boss, allowing me to finally taste it. Having such a mild centerpiece, though, also meant that this was one of the rare sandwiches where I could distinctly taste the cheese.

Add in some nice taste and texture from the English muffin itself, and you end up with a well-balanced profile that highlights all three main ingredients equally. They work together to provide a satisfying bite in a way that not all McDonald's breakfast sandwiches manage.

The best of the three McDonald's breakfast bagels was the Steak, Egg & Cheese Bagel. The steak here is the star of the show, with the meat lending this sandwich a hearty smokiness that was absent from the other sandwich options. The Steak, Egg & Cheese Bagel manages to deliver this steak flavor without overwhelming the other notes; you can still taste both the signature breakfast sauce and the slice of cheese.

Between the sauce, cheese, and egg, the overall bite ended up not being too dry either. In fact, the bagel itself was pleasantly moist and not too dense, with a nice springy texture. It's true that the egg was still mostly lost as a flavor. On the other hand, this steak option was also happily missing the distinct saltiness of the Bacon, Egg & Cheese Bagel. And while I barely clocked the presence of onions in the sandwich, that was a definite upgrade over the surprise mound of onions on the Steak McMuffin. I didn't miss them at all.

If there's one downside to the genius that is the McGriddles, it's that using the griddle cakes as the "bread" for a sandwich can result in getting very greasy hands indeed. A McGriddles right off the griddle has that buttery, oily sheen that makes it so moist and delicious, but it can easily get all over your hands — and clothes if you're a messy eater.

Luckily, that's what napkins are for. Or, for some truly advanced breakfast technology, you can hold your Sausage, Egg & Cheese McGriddles in the paper wrapper it comes in. That's what I did, and I have no regrets, especially after sinking my teeth into this delightful breakfast sandwich. The sweet notes of the griddle cakes play beautifully against the salty and savory notes of the sausage, just as they do in the basic Sausage McGriddles. But adding in the cheese and egg as well gives this upgraded version an extra dimension of unctuousness that elevates the whole eating experience. A good bite, and one I look forward to repeating.

The undisputed champion of the McDonald's breakfast sandwich gauntlet is the Bacon, Egg & Cheese McGriddles. Like the other varieties of McGriddles, the Bacon, Egg & Cheese McGriddles deliver a wonderful contrast of flavors, with the saltiness of the bacon acting as a perfect counterpoint to the sweetness of the griddle cakes.

Where the Bacon, Egg & Cheese McGriddles rise above the rest, though, is in texture. The crispy bacon adds a satisfying crunch that acts as a satisfying counterpoint to the softness of the griddle cakes, egg, and cheese. The folded egg and slice of American cheese also provide additional minor flavor notes as well as a rich mouthfeel. And there's nothing remotely dry about it, with every bite being perfectly moist without any need for special sauce or other condiments.

Just about the only knock against Bacon, Egg & Cheese McGriddles is the fact that, since McDonald's discontinued its all-day breakfast during the COVID-19 pandemic, you can only get this delicious sandwich during breakfast hours. Otherwise, Bacon, Egg & Cheese McGriddles might be in contention for the best thing on the McDonald's dinner menu, too.

In order to determine the best of the best when it comes to McDonald's breakfast sandwiches, I started by choosing a single representative McDonald's location, as getting all the sandwiches from the same location eliminates one possible variable. For the same reason, I ordered them all at the same time, to ensure they would be made by the same cook or cooks.

I then sampled each of the sandwiches in turn and judged each using a rigorous list of criteria. Taste, texture, mouthfeel, and dryness were all noted, along with nutritional information. These metrics provided the basis for an overall score for each breakfast sandwich, which determined the ultimate rankings.

It's also important to note that I ate each of these exactly as presented with no alterations. This especially affects both taste and dryness. However, as condiments or other post-production changes are very much a matter of individual taste, I decided that the only way to fairly judge each sandwich on a level playing field was to eat them exactly as made, right out of the bag. The results speak for themselves.