Copycat McDonald's Breakfast Burrito Recipe

There's no denying it; the McDonald's breakfast burrito is pretty darn good. Mickey D's hit the perfect blend of "stuff" to make these little burritos a major hit. With the advent of all-day breakfast, you can pop into a McDonald's drive thru at any time and grab a hundred of these to get you through your day. But it's just as easy to make these as putting the car in reverse and pulling out of the driveway. Is it really that simple? Yep. I'm not trying to bankrupt the Golden Arches but after you make these at home, you may just change your breakfast burrito habit.  

McDonald's introduced the breakfast burrito in 1991, and it took off almost immediately. With a low price point (originally only 99 cents, and not much more today), it's a convenient meal when you want something filling but not overwhelming. But what exactly is in this thing?  

It's a "burrito" — kinda, with eggs and some onions, tomatoes and green chiles, and the oddest looking sausage you've ever seen. The structure of it isn't anything groundbreaking, but it's the layout and presentation that makes it so appealing. It's simple, yet genius; give credit where credit is due — the McDonald's breakfast burrito is worth it.  

McDonald's sausage comes in neat little musket-sized balls that defy all cooking logic. As much as I'm a perfectionist, even this is a bit beyond me. Yes, you can take your standard breakfast sausage and roll tiny less-than-one-ounce balls and cook that up, or just accept the fact that once it's in the burrito shell you won't notice the difference. The other advantage is that with a standard sausage cook, you'll actually get more sausage per bite than a McDonald's burrito; because theirs won't spread out in the burrito like ours will.  

If you were ever to open up a McDonald's breakfast burrito and search around in there, you'd have a hard time actually locating any onion — and a harder time even tasting it. When I finally did find one, it tasted more like sausage than anything related to the onion family. That's because McDonald's uses the same onions they use on the burgers; reconstituted onions. The formula is rather simple to reconstitute them: Take one tablespoon of dehydrated onions to two tablespoons of water, and microwave that at medium power for 30 seconds. Set that aside for 15 minutes and they'll be ready to rock.  

Green chiles feels like a "catch all" term for anything green and hot, and it kinda is. There are quite a few varieties of green chiles, and although they aren't crazy hot, they do pack a punch to a degree. To get this authentic, you want to pick up a small jar of green chiles. We don't need to go from fresh, and you'll see why in a moment.

You can make as little or as many eggs at a time as you'd like; I'm making two at a time. The mix is very simple, one tablespoon of skim milk to one egg. After you get your cracked eggs and milk into a bowl, hit it with a whisk and beat those suckers smooth. You'll notice the eggs have a slight whitish color or tint, which is from the milk.

After the sausage browns, or more accurately grays, add the veggies. Take a tablespoon of tomatoes and green chiles each, along with a half tablespoon of the rehydrated onion and dump it in. Give that a stir and let it cook for two minutes to bring it up to temperature. You can turn that to simmer after two minutes and then go to work on the eggs.  

The basic build isn't too tricky, but there's something to keep in mind. A McDonald's burrito weighs about seven ounces, so be cautious as to not overstuff your burrito; it makes it tricky to eat and trickier to roll. We cooked enough sausage for four burritos, so the easiest way is to quarter the meat in a pan to easily serve it up, and do the same with the eggs.  If you cooked the eggs two at a time, obviously only half it, but the basic formula is that each burrito gets an egg, and ⅛ pound of meat.  

Take a burrito shell and observe. Did you know there are actually two sides to a burrito shell? There's one that has some pretty little brown marks that makes it look like it was cooked, and there's the other side that is pretty much white. You want to build on the white side, so the pretty brown marks will be on the outside of the shell. Take a slice of cheese and fold it in half and lay it vertically — which is up and down in common speak. Place a quartered section of the beef onto the cheese, and a quartered (or halved or however you did it) scrambled egg on that. There's a school of thought that says that the egg and sausage should be mixed together and then put on the burrito, but when I cracked open a McDonald's burrito it looked more like a "layering" than a "mixed up together" system.  

So how does that burrito come to you so piping hot? There must be some kind of magical McDonald's contraption to really bring the perfect steamy goodness. Turns out there is, and it's called a microwave. After you have your burrito folded up, wrap that in parchment paper — and obviously looking at the image it doesn't have to be tightly wrapped — and microwave for 30 seconds. The burrito will magically feel and smell just like the ones you grab in the drive thru.