This Is Why McDonald's Hash Browns (and Fries) Taste So Good

If you've ever eaten a McDonald's breakfast, we're guessing one of the sides stands out in your mind. There's no denying there's something extra special about McDonald's hash browns. Somehow, these shredded-potato patties manage to be both crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, with that perfect golden-brown color we can never seem to achieve at home.

It's no surprise that the McDonald's corporate office once revealed customers' top request was for breakfast all day long. McDonald's refers to its hash browns as "breakfast royalty." We won't argue with that honorific.

So what's the secret behind the restaurant's incredible hash browns? Credit an ingredient added to the oil used to fry the hash browns—and those famous french fries—partway before freezing them and shipping them to restaurants.

In the restaurant's early days, McDonald's relied on a mixture of cottonseed oil and beef tallow for frying; this blend was still in use when breakfast items were added to the menu in the 1970s. Although the combination was delicious, it was also unhealthy—beef tallow is a form of rendered fat, which gave the fries and hash browns a high amount of saturated fat.

To make their fried menu items healthier, McDonald's began cooking potato sides with vegetable oil in 1990. But the fast-food joint wasn't willing to sacrifice that signature flavor: McDonald's added natural beef flavoring to the oil to preserve the taste customers had come to love. (You can find it on the list of ingredients for both their hash browns and fries.) This change is why you might've noticed that McDonald's hash browns and fries started tasting a little different in the 90s and why some people remember McDonald's french fries tasting better when they were children.

What is Natural Beef Flavoring?

This question is a little tricky because it involves complicated food chemistry. According to the McDonald's menu, their natural beef flavoring uses hydrolyzed wheat and hydrolyzed milk as starting ingredients.

To create natural beef flavoring without beef, food scientists singled out the amino acids that give beef its flavor. Since it would be way too expensive (and wasteful) to extract the amino acids from beef without actually using any meat, scientists figured out a way to recreate the same flavors with more common ingredients like wheat and milk. (Are McDonald's hash browns vegetarian, then? Perhaps, since this flavoring is inspired by meat, not extracted from it. But vegan? No.)

How McDonald's Hash Browns Are Made

Of course, more than just beef flavoring goes into making McDonald's hash browns. It starts with fresh potatoes, which are inspected to make sure they meet McDonald's standards. Then they're washed and peeled before being rechecked for blemishes or imperfections. The approved potatoes are then sent through a mechanical cutter, which slices the potatoes into strips.

Next, those strips are blanched in hot water for a few minutes, then dried and cut into the hash brown-sized pieces that make up the restaurant's signature patties. The pieces are mixed with salt, pepper, cornflour, and potato flour, formed into McDonald's oval shape, and partially fried in vegetable oil and beef flavoring before being frozen and shipped to restaurants.

You'll still get fresh-fried McDonald's hash browns each time you order them. When an order for hash browns comes in, the cook will finish frying them so they arrive to you hot, crispy, and fresh. So are hash browns good for you? Not particularly, as nothing fried qualifies as healthy. But they're undoubtedly delicious—and a worthwhile indulgence every now and then.

Biting into these crispy potato patties, you'd never guess there's so much effort and history behind McDonald's hash browns or fries. Now, the next time you're skimming the menu at the drive-thru, you'll have a new level of appreciation for those ultra-addictive hash browns and fries.