Only One McDonald's Breakfast Sandwich Includes A Fresh Egg

If you happen to get to McDonald's before breakfast ends and lunch begins, and you are looking to enjoy a sandwich made with fresh eggs, you actually only have one option. The single McDonald's breakfast item that calls for a fresh egg, cracked and grilled in-house, is the Egg McMuffin. This breakfast item is also topped with either a sausage patty or Canadian bacon and a slice of American cheese. McDonald's employees use round egg rings while cooking the eggs, to get that circular shape that fits perfectly on top of an English muffin.

According to the McDonald's website, all of the fast food chain's breakfast items use real eggs — they're just not always cracked fresh to order, and come in various forms depending on the menu item. Sandwiches like the Bacon, Egg, and Cheese Biscuit and Sausage McGriddle actually feature folded scrambled eggs, which are pre-cooked and flash frozen, then taken out when they are ready to serve. 

McDonald's also serves scrambled eggs that are cooked fresh on the grill from a liquid egg mixture, but these are included on breakfast platters and inside burritos rather than sandwiches. The scrambled eggs found in the sausage burrito, however, are pre-cooked with other fillings and frozen prior to distribution.

McDonald's was far from the first restaurant in America to introduce a breakfast sandwich, but there is no denying the impact that the McMuffin has had on breakfast food, especially where fast food is concerned. McDonald's is no stranger to big changes, and one of the biggest happened in 1971 with the introduction of the Egg McMuffin.

The sandwich was crafted by Herb Peterson, a McDonald's franchise owner in Santa Barbara, California. The Egg McMuffin was inspired by eggs Benedict, a breakfast dish that features an English muffin, Canadian bacon, a poached egg, and Hollandaise sauce. While creating the sandwich version, Peterson swapped out the sauce for American cheese and added a second English muffin to the top to make the breakfast item handheld. The McMuffin innovator also developed the egg ring that McDonald's still uses today for those freshly cracked eggs.

The sandwich became available at McDonald's locations nationwide in 1975, and has been a top competitor in the fast food breakfast market ever since. McDonald's breakfast line expanded soon after to include hotcakes, scrambled eggs, and baked goods. Today, a third of McDonald's total sales comes from breakfast food items, per Yahoo Finance. Considering that the early morning menu only sticks around until 10:30 or 11:00 a.m., it goes to show how popular the chain's breakfast really is.