How These Fast Food Chains Actually Prepare The Eggs On Their Breakfast Sandwiches

For around 10 years, fast food chains have been focusing on their breakfast menus in an effort to maximize sales at what traditionally used to be a quieter time of day. While pancakes, waffles, and other breakfast foods are sold by many fast food chains, breakfast sandwiches have proven to be the dominant item in recent years. Breakfast sandwiches have proved so popular because they are easy for people to eat on the move, making them perfect for the morning commute. They also bear a lot of similarities to the burgers and sandwiches fast food chains serve throughout the rest of the day. As a result, they are an efficient, cost-effective item for these chains to sell.

As a breakfast staple, eggs are a fundamental part of most fast food chain breakfast sandwiches. In fact, many chains serve breakfast sandwiches that just contain egg alone, although it's important to note that the quality of these sandwiches varies from chain-to-chain. Despite many chains offering sandwiches that are filled with fried, scrambled, or folded eggs, the ways in which they actually prepare these eggs greatly differs. Some use proprietary techniques to ensure their freshly cracked eggs are the same every time. Others have fiddled with the eggs themselves, adding a blend of ingredients to exacerbate some of the food's qualities. Each approach to egg preparation has its own positives and negatives as the following article demonstrates.

McDonald's boasts one of the best fast food breakfast menus in the entire United States thanks to big-hitting sandwiches like the McGriddles and McMuffin. In order to maximize the quality of these iconic sandwiches, McDonald's uses several different methods to prepare its eggs.

For the round eggs used in sandwiches including the Egg McMuffin, McDonald's employees crack fresh eggs into egg rings. Rows of these rings sit on a hot plate and, when they are all full, an employee places a lid over them. Water is then poured into the egg cooker, steaming the eggs and ensuring the top of the egg cooks at the same rate as the bottom. This results in a uniformly cooked, soft egg being served every time.

McDonald's other eggs are much simpler to prepare. The scrambled eggs are made by placing liquid eggs — eggs that have been removed from their shell and are sold in a carton or bag – onto a grill and cooking them with butter. The chain's folded eggs, which are used in sandwiches like the chain's take on a bacon, egg, and cheese, are not cooked on-site at all. Instead, they arrive frozen and precooked and are reheated before serving, usually on the grill. The scrambled eggs that are used to stuff McDonald's breakfast burritos are also made off-site. These liquid eggs are cooked alongside a host of other ingredients, including tomatoes and green chilies, giving them a distinctive taste.

Unlike a lot of other fast food chains, Burger King has struggled to make the most of breakfast. Over the years, several of its new breakfast menu items, including the chain's breakfast cheesy melts, have failed to hit the mark. In an effort to improve its breakfast performance, the chain has sought to tackle several challenges that face fast food chains, including how to cook an egg so that it is of uniform size and thickness every time.

Many chains, Burger King included, use molds to ensure uniformity. There are 12 rectangular molds per tray. These molds are filled with a pasteurized, liquid egg mix and then placed in an oven. The resulting baked patties are incredibly uniform with sharp edges and an impressive amount of height.

The egg patties are used to make several breakfast sandwiches including the fully loaded croissan'wich with egg. This sandwich sees the fluffy egg patty being served inside a croissant bun alongside a beef patty, American cheese, chicken strips, and beef bacon. All of these ingredients fit neatly inside the croissant bun, hence the need for the egg patty to be a uniform size. Perhaps the only downside of Burger King's approach is the unnatural appearance of the egg. The precise edges makes the egg seem a whole lot more processed than it actually is.

All of Starbucks' breakfast sandwiches, including the egg, pesto and mozzarella sandwich and the bacon, gouda egg sandwich, are not made in stores. Instead, these products are made off-site and shipped to Starbucks stores before being reheated to order. As a result of producing the sandwiches off-site, Starbucks has the space and time to prepare its eggs in a number of ways that would not be possible were the sandwiches being made in store.

For sandwiches like the double-smoked bacon cheddar and egg sandwich, cage-free eggs are cracked and fried. Other breakfast sandwiches, including the bacon sausage and egg wrap contain scrambled eggs. Although these two preparation methods are common, Starbucks is not afraid of having its eggs stand out from the crowd. It does this by creating a frittata that is used to fill some of its breakfast sandwiches such as the aforementioned egg, pesto and mozzarella sandwich.

The most inventive of all cooking methods is reserved for the chain's famous egg bites. These were added to the menu to provide a healthier, low carb alternative to breakfast sandwiches and are cooked using a sous vide, removing the need for fats like butter or oil to be added. As brand manager Eveline Chao-Rivera explained in a Starbucks press release, this cooking technique also gives the eggs a desirable texture: "Sous-vide cooking offers an unbelievable texture to food unlike anything else. It makes eggs velvety and creamy — almost like you're eating something indulgent."

All of Wendy's egg-containing breakfast sandwiches — apart from the sausage and egg burrito — are made with a freshly cracked egg. These eggs are cooked on the grill and staff purposely break the yolk and flip the egg to ensure it cooks completely and evenly. This style of egg is used in Wendy's most popular breakfast sandwiches, including its breakfast Baconator and its bacon egg and cheese English muffin. Despite this attention to detail, most customers remain unimpressed by Wendy's breakfast offerings and have labelled Wendy's English muffin sandwiches as being far inferior to McDonald's McMuffin.

While Wendy's admits that its sausage and egg burrito is not made with freshly cracked eggs, the chain's breakfast burrito, which it released this summer, does include two fresh eggs. Dissimilarly to the sausage and egg burrito, these fresh eggs are not scrambled and, similarly to the eggs that go into Wendy's other breakfast sandwiches, are cooked on the grill. This would suggest that Wendy's is increasingly turning to freshly cracked and griddled eggs, something just about all of its customers will be pleased about.

Dunkin' offers a range of breakfast sandwiches at its locations across the United States. Many of these, including both the sausage, egg and cheese and the sourdough breakfast sandwich, include an egg patty. This egg patty is not just made from eggs. In fact, one Dunkin' egg patty includes egg whites, yolks, soybean oil, corn starch, salt, natural flavor, xanthan gum, cellulose gum, and citric acid. While this may seem like a lot of additional ingredients, this recipe was actually introduced in 2016 with the aim of reducing the total number of ingredients used.

According to employees, the egg patties are delivered to stores pre-cooked and frozen. One employee even posted a video on TikTok showing how robust the frozen egg patties are by hitting one of them against a work surface. The egg did not appear to be damaged at all by this rough handling. Because they arrive in this frozen state, all employees have to do is thaw and reheat the patties to order, usually using a microwave.

Unlike several other fast food chains that serve fried eggs or egg products that are designed to look like one, Taco Bell's eggs are scrambled. Scrambled eggs have long been a feature at Taco Bell. This style was used to stuff in the chain's waffle taco, one of several discontinued fast food breakfast items that customers still miss to this day. Scrambled eggs remain popular at Taco Bell, featuring across the chain's breakfast menu with its breakfast burritos, quesadillas, and Crunchwraps all containing broken up egg curds. One the benefits of using scrambled eggs is that the pieces of egg are dispersed evenly throughout the wraps.

Despite looking like traditional scrambled eggs, Taco Bell's eggs are something quite different. According to videos posted by Taco Bell employees on TikTok, the chain receives pasteurized liquid eggs in large bags. The bags are then placed in hot water that's kept at around 195 F for 30 minutes. During this time, the water cooks the eggs in a kind of sous vide/poaching technique crossover. Once cooked, the eggs are broken up and then placed in a tray where they are stored until used to make a breakfast item.

Subway offers a number of similar breakfast sandwiches including both a bacon egg and cheese wrap and a steak egg and cheese wrap. Despite these options, Subway doesn't have a stellar reputation when it comes to breakfast with many customers complaining that ingredients in the sandwiches, specifically eggs, are often served while still frozen. As one customer complained on Reddit: "I get the bacon egg and cheese on flatbread toasted and plain, every single time without fail the rest of the sandwich is warm [...] but the egg patty is always without failure frozen."

As Subway uses pre-cooked, frozen egg patties in its breakfast sandwiches, this is a common issue, arising when an employee places a frozen egg patty in a sandwich hoping the toasting process will be sufficient to thaw it. Long serving employees note that a better technique is to thaw the egg first, usually by heating it in the microwave. Only then should it be placed inside the soon-to-be-toasted sandwich.

Of course, another way to address this issue would be for Subway employees to do what many other fast food chain employees do and cook the eggs in-house. However, the company's restaurants are not designed for this and refitting them would be extremely expensive. As such, it seems unlikely that Subway will cease using pre-cooked patties that include many additives including xanthan gum, corn starch, and cellulose gum, in favor of fresh eggs.

Tim Hortons is one of the few fast food chains that is committed to only serving freshly cracked eggs in all of its restaurants. These eggs play a huge role in the chain's breakfast menu, featuring in sandwiches like the egg and cheese muffin and the double bacon and egg muffin stack.

The fast food chain committed to exclusively using freshly cracked eggs in February 2021. At the time, Culinary Lead Tallis Voakes said in a Tim Hortons press release: "Tims is committed to delivering better food quality across the board and that's really exemplified by the move to freshly cracked eggs."

Similarly to McDonald's, these freshly cracked eggs are cooked using a proprietary machine that looks somewhat like a panini press. The eggs are cracked into molds that sit on top of a hot plate. After being enclosed by the lid, the eggs begin to steam. This steam is what cooks the top portion of the eggs, ensuring they are consistently soft and always evenly cooked.

White Castle's anything, anytime commitment means that customers can order whatever they want from the breakfast menu whenever the restaurant is open. This is great news for fans of White Castle who can enjoy breakfast sliders, Belgian waffle sliders, and even breakfast toast sandwiches whenever the mood strikes them. It also means that White Castle remains one of the few fast food chains where customers can order breakfast at any time of the day.

All of the chain's popular breakfast options include a freshly cracked egg which is cooked on the griddle. Using direct heat sources like a griddle pose their own challenges. Namely, if the temperature is too high, one side of the egg might burn before the other is cooked. White Castle gets around this by scrambling its eggs and serving them in a kind of folded omelette. This is a difficult skill to master, but fortunately this chain has its egg cooking down to an art.

Panera Bread is one of very few chains that cooks its eggs in a number of different ways. That being said, the vast majority of breakfast items, including breakfast sandwiches, come with the chain's scrambled eggs. For example, the chain's croissant bacon egg and cheese sandwich comes with a folded patty of scrambled eggs as does its Cinnascramble, a cinnamon roll filled with scrambled egg.

The chain's scrambled egg is made from liquid eggs, but unlike other fast food chains, these liquid eggs are not cooked via a sous vide or poaching method. Instead, the eggs are made in a machine similar to the ones both McDonald's and Tim Hortons use to cook their freshly cracked eggs. A few scoops of liquid egg are placed into a mould before a lid is attached and the egg is simultaneously cooked by a direct heat source and steam.

The chain also serves a garden avo and egg sandwich which sees a fried egg placed inside a bun alongside avocado and tomatoes. This sandwich is only available as part of the chain's egg sandwich feast meal, a deal that forces customers to buy four egg sandwiches.

As with many other fast food chains, Jack in the Box has placed a growing emphasis on breakfast in the past few years, establishing a reputation for serving a few, well-designed breakfast sandwiches. Chief among these is the chain's ultimate breakfast sandwich combo, a sandwich that contains two slices of ham, two slices of bacon, two slices of American cheese, and two freshly cracked eggs.

As with most of its breakfast sandwiches, the eggs included in the ultimate breakfast sandwich combo are fried eggs that are grilled with butter-flavored vegetable oil. This cooking technique gives the egg a visibly striking appearance and easily allows guests to confirm that it, unlike the breakfast sandwiches made by many other fast food chains, was made with freshly cracked eggs.

Jack in the Box also serves the meat lovers burrito combo. Instead of a grilled egg, this breakfast sandwich contains scrambled eggs as they are easier to distribute throughout the entire wrap. As with the fried eggs, the scrambled eggs are cooked on the grill with butter-flavored vegetable oil.

Whataburger features two kinds of eggs in its breakfast menu, standard or scrambled. Due to their extremely uniform shape and soft texture, the standard eggs are most likely cooked in a machine similar to the ones used by McDonald's, Tim Hortons, and Panera Bread. What we do know for certain is that the chain only uses freshly cracked eggs when making this type of egg. We also know that this is the most common type of egg served at Whataburger by far, featuring in a slew of breakfast sandwiches from the chain's aptly named Breakfast on a Bun to its famed breakfast burger. Incidentally, this latter item also makes Whataburger one of the few fast food chains where you can enjoy a full blown burger during breakfast hours.

The chain uses bagged, liquid eggs to make the scrambled eggs that feature in its taquito. These eggs, while most probably pre-cooked, are heated up and mixed with chorizo on a large hot plate prior to serving. This ensures that the egg is imbued with the chorizo's flavorful oil. For this reason, the taquito has got many rave reviews over the years.