How Many Ingredients Are In In-N-Out's Infamous Fries (& How Are They Made?)

In-N-Out Burger made a name for itself with a simple, straightforward menu of hamburgers, fries, and drinks. After more than 75 years in business, the fast-food chain still has minimal food offerings and streamlined service, and its burgers have become quite famous. Even culinary celebrities have unabashedly called the quick service restaurant their favorite — TV food icon Julia Child felt strongly about In-N-Out, and the fast food chain is home to Gordon Ramsay's favorite fast food burger. 

Its polarizing fries, however, fall more into the "infamous" category — people seem to either love them or hate them. The chain's website describes the side dish as made with only two ingredients: fresh, hand-cut potatoes and 100% sunflower oil. But anybody who has eaten an In-N-Out fry knows there's more to the spuds than that — some salt comes into play at the very least. (Complaints about the fries range from not salty enough to way too salty — but, certainly, there is salt.)

So, just what is in In-N-Out's french fries? The company itself is certainly not telling. Interestingly, the starchy side's full ingredient list isn't available to the public. Even food investigators have come up short when trying to suss out the full contents of In-N-Out's menu items. How the fries are made is less of a mystery. In-N-Out has stated that the fries are hand-washed, peeled, and cut in-house from whole potatoes, then fried in sunflower oil (via In-N-Out). The restaurant has further declared on social media that microwaves and heat lamps are never used. So, why the secrecy when it comes to ingredients?

There are some things we do know about the contents of the infamous In-N-Out fries. In addition to details about the type of oil used to make its fries, a post on the company's official Instagram page proudly proclaims that no preservatives of any sort are added to the product. Various sources also confirmed that In-N-Out Burger uses Kennebec potatoes to make its french fries, which are a spud variety co-developed by the USDA in 1948. This root vegetable was once the most common spud used for making potato chips at one point in history, though other potato varieties have since outstripped them. Since In-N-Out was founded in 1948 — the same year that Kennebec emerged as a brand-new potato variety — and the restaurant chain is staunchly traditionalist in terms of doing things the old-fashioned way, it makes sense that the franchise would still use those particular potatoes more than seven decades later.

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Customers have also caught glimpses of how the fries are made. Videos on TikTok posted by In-N-Out customers show employees performing the fry-making process. Whole, peeled potatoes are dropped into a hand-operated cutting device, from which the cut fries descend into what appears to be a sink full of water. From there, the potato pieces are placed in another device that seems to spin out the water before entering the fryer. Whether any added ingredients come into play before, during, or after these steps, however, is not shown.