McDonald's Vs Chick-Fil-A: Who Serves The Best Sausage Biscuit Breakfast Sandwich?

One of my go-to breakfasts — when I'm home and actually have the time to make a breakfast for myself — is a sausage, egg, and cheese sandwich on an English muffin. Just a reheated frozen sausage patty, a fried egg, and a slice of American cheese. It's satisfying and protein-packed. But as a GRIT (a girl raised in the South), if I had my druthers, that muffin would be a biscuit. I'm a good cook, but baking, especially biscuits, is not my forte. So, when I'm craving one, I'll sometimes hit the fast food drive-through for the next best thing. My closest options are McDonald's and Chick-fil-A, both of which happen to be among the fast food restaurants with the highest-quality breakfast sandwiches. But which one has the best sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit?

I grew up loving McDonald's Egg McMuffin, the sandwich that changed how Americans eat breakfast, so I naturally think of McDonald's first for breakfast sandwiches. But as a Southerner, I have a special place in my heart for Chick-fil-A, the restaurant founded in my old hometown of Atlanta by Samuel Truett Cathy, whose true story isn't widely known but is certainly inspiring. Plus, I still turn first to Southerners to make a great biscuit.

The Sausage, Egg & Cheese Biscuit is one of only a handful of breakfast items the two fast food giants have in common, although the McDonald's version is sold as a Sausage Biscuit with Egg, for which cheese is an upgrade that comes with an extra charge. Both feature a biscuit, a pork sausage patty, a folded egg, and a slice of cheese — but who does it best?

My first sandwich (for no other reason than its closer proximity to my house) was from McDonald's. And the biscuit is, I'm happy to report, a good one. It has a good flavor, though noticeably crumbly. As soon as I took my first big bite, a chunk of the bottom half of the biscuit broke off. However, while you might expect crumbling equals dryness, it wasn't actually dry; in fact, it was moist, which was important for ensuring the savoriness of the sandwich didn't totally dry my mouth out. While certainly not on par with a homemade biscuit, it's a respectable offering, which is probably how McDonald's landed a respectable spot on our fast food biscuit rankings.

But as soon as my Chick-fil-A sandwich hit my table, I spotted a difference. The Chick-fil-A version is not only shaped differently — it's an octagon, which gives it corners — but it's thicker, which is a more promising sign of being closer to homemade. The biscuit has a lot more crispness on the outside, which helped hold it together as I ate, as well as a soft, pillowy interior. It also has a distinctively delicious, buttery flavor.

One strike against it, however, is those corners: They were downright hard. I don't know if it was because I had ordered it at the tail end of the breakfast service (the restaurant stops serving breakfast at 10:30 a.m.) or if it was just a fluke. But it did actually scrape the roof of my mouth and made for a somewhat unpleasant experience. Even small parts of the bottom half of the biscuit were hard as rocks.

To properly evaluate both sandwiches, I had to deconstruct them and look at each one's individual ingredients. Though their appearances differed, the two patties seemed to be the same size and thickness. The McDonald's pork sausage looks like real meat. It's lighter in color than the Chick-fil-A version, and I like the flavor, which has a touch of maple sweetness. I actually had lower expectations for this sausage, and I was pleasantly surprised to find it holds up against its competitor.

The Chick-fil-A version is not only darker but also bears grill marks that did make me think about the fake grill marks some fast food restaurants apply to their food. Nonetheless, its flavor is slightly smokier than the McDonald's sausage, and I liked it quite a lot. Again, it also looks slightly more homemade than the McDonald's offering.

The real competition comes down to the egg in this situation. I'm pretty picky about my eggs. First, McDonald's, which I know is one of the few fast food chains that serve real whole eggs as well as liquid eggs that are precooked, folded, and flash-frozen. Unfortunately, my Sausage Biscuit with Egg and Cheese came with the latter, and it suffers as a result.

The folded egg looks unappetizingly fake from the get-go. It offers almost no real egg flavor, with a texture I can only describe as mealy, with an insubstantial, dry, granular quality. It seemed mushy when I bit into it, almost as if it might turn into dust. It's worth mentioning, however, that the restaurant will serve freshly cracked eggs on certain sandwiches, so it might be worth requesting, though there may be an upcharge.

The contrast between that and the Chick-fil-A egg is startling. Does Chick-fil-A use real eggs? The short answer is yes, though they also contain additives that include salt and butter-flavored oil. That bulking up creates a resulting egg patty that looks a whole lot more appetizing — thick, with those telltale crispy, fried-egg edges — than its opponent. However, it does taste like egg is supposed to taste, with a pleasing mouthfeel and moisture that balances the dry biscuit and salty, smoky sausage.

I paid extra for cheese on the McDonald's sandwich, but when placed side by side with the Chick-fil-A sandwich, which came with cheese, I'm not sure the additional cost (which was $0.50 at my local restaurant) was warranted. After all, we're talking about two equivalent slices of American cheese. Still, the sandwich needs the cheese, even though it wasn't exactly the gooey, melty cheese I might enjoy at home, but rather a bit dry and cold. It did add a needed soft, moist component and actually helped work as a sort of glue that keeps that egg from simply disintegrating with each bite.

The cheese on the Chick-fil-A sandwich wasn't different, but because the sandwich arrived hotter than the Mickey D's version, the cheese was still softly melted. It even left that sought-after excess melted cheese on the wrapper when I removed the sandwich; I wound up scraping it off the paper with my fingers to get more. Together with the egg, it created a hearty bite.

While each restaurant's sandwich had individual elements that were quite good, the big question is this: When all elements are put together, which sandwich makes the best breakfast? I really enjoyed McDonald's biscuit, which, although crumbly, has a good flavor and moistness. I also liked the sausage, which has a good chew and a touch of sweetness that I like in a breakfast sausage. Meanwhile, Chick-fil-A offers that thick, real egg, as well as hot, melty cheese and a smoky, hearty sausage patty.

In the end, though, the sandwich that came out on top was Chick-fil-A's Sausage, Egg & Cheese Biscuit. First, the way food looks has been scientifically proven to be an important factor in gauging taste, and in this case, the Chick-fil-A sandwich simply looked more appetizing. Maybe I fell for the "fresh-off-the-grill" marks on the sausage or the authentic appearance and bite of that thick egg patty, but the whole package, when viewed next to the McDonald's sandwich, simply looks fresher and more homemade.

And it isn't just appearances that win the day. The quality of the sandwich, from the snap of the egg and naturally appealing gooey cheese to the thick, buttery biscuit and smoky sausage, ensures every bite is perfectly balanced in flavor and texture. Although the biscuit's crust was a bit too crunchy, the hard edges in some spots were overshadowed by the sheer moisture and flavor of the sandwich's contents, as well as the soft insides of the biscuit itself.

Surprisingly, the sandwich I preferred was also less expensive. The Chick-fil-A Sausage, Egg & Cheese Biscuit was $4.29 plus tax at my local restaurant in Sparks, Nevada. Meanwhile, the McDonald's Sausage Biscuit with Egg, on its own, was $5.79; with the additional $0.50 for cheese, the total came to $6.29 before tax. So in terms of both quality and value for the money, Chick-fil-A is the clear winner.

Nutritionally, McDonald's Sausage Biscuit with Egg (without cheese) has a bit of an edge at 530 calories. It contains 35 grams of fat, 15 grams of which are saturated fat. The Chick-fil-A Sausage, Egg & Cheese Biscuit has 620 calories and 42 grams of fat, with 18 grams of saturated fat. Both sandwiches contain 2 grams of dietary fiber and 38 grams of carbohydrates. The Chick-fil-A sandwich also contains more protein: 22 grams compared to the 17 grams in McDonald's sandwich. Of course, with added cheese, the McDonald's figures look a bit different.

It's also worth noting that McDonald's offers a plain Sausage Biscuit — with the two ingredients that I enjoyed most on my sandwich — that is just 460 calories and, at my local store at the time of this writing, $4.49. Without that folded egg or the added cost of extra cheese, this is a breakfast sandwich worth stopping for — but it still costs more than the full Chick-fil-A sandwich I enjoyed more.

With just two sandwiches to try and a free Saturday morning, I ordered both sandwiches from their respective restaurants. I evaluated the sandwiches based on their initial presentation — did they look appetizing? Were the sizes roughly equal? — as well as scent and, of course, flavor.

In addition to evaluating the sandwiches in full bites, I tasted the individual ingredients of each on their own, breaking off bits of biscuit, sausage, egg, and cheese to ensure each could stand on its own flavor-wise. In the end, I selected the winning sandwich based on flavor, appearance, authenticity of ingredients, and value for the money.