The Best-Selling Food Items In McDonald's History

Yahoo

17-02-2025

Love it or loathe it, there's no denying that McDonald's is fast food royalty. For decades now, it's fed millions of customers every single day with its iconic lineup of burgers and superbly salty fries. While Ronald McDonald's empire today stretches as far as China, Brazil, South Africa, and Saudi Arabia, the U.S. remains its biggest market, with over 85% of American households dropping by McDonald's at least once per year. But what are we actually eating when we visit the golden arches?
The McDonald's menu has changed a fair amount over the years. For one thing, the inaugural McDonald's sold barbecue for nearly a decade before it underwent a refresh and became the burger joint that brought businessman Ray Croc into the fold. New items have come and gone since, with its best-sellers becoming some of the most famous dishes in the fast food game.
It's easy to assume that the likes of the Big Mac and french fries are the most popular food items at McDonald's, given the fact that they've become almost synonymous with the business. McDonald's doesn't release the exact sales data for each individual menu item, but we've dug into the facts and statistics available to figure out which items have racked up the highest numbers over the years. From Happy Meals to the McRib and every tasty, carbohydrate-laden morsel in between, here are some of the best-selling food items in McDonald's history.
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Was there ever any doubt whether fries would appear in a list of McDonald's best-selling items? What's slightly more shocking is the fact that its World Famous Fries didn't actually appear on the original McDonald's menu. Founders Dick and Mac McDonald first introduced them in 1949 after deciding to axe potato chips from the menu. In retrospect, this switch was a bonafide stroke of genius. McDonald's now sells more fries than any other item on its menu, as per a 2022 MyMcDonald's Rewards report. In fact, fries ranked as the best-selling item in every single state that same year and were also the most-ordered item with McFlurries, suggesting that we're all equally keen on the unorthodox sweet-and-salty combo.
The fries we eat today aren't exactly the same as those introduced in 1949. For one thing, McDonald's switched to cooking its fries in cholesterol-free vegetable oil, not beef tallow, in the 1990s. It also made all of its fries in the U.S. and Canada trans fat-free in 2008, now cooking them in its canola-blend oil. These changes haven't made a dent in their popularity. It's thought that McDonald's sells over 9 million pounds of french fries on a daily basis. That means we're collectively working our way through a whopping 3.3 billion pounds every year. Whether these sales hold up in the long run, however, is up for debate. In October 2024, it was reported that Lamb Weston -- McDonald's largest fry supplier -- was shuttering a factory in Washington as demand softened.
We'll never turn up our nose at the humble McDonald's cheeseburger. While we may have technically placed it last in our ranking of every McDonald's burger, the truth is that its straightforward stack of beef, American cheese, pickles, diced onions, ketchup, and mustard still makes for a solid snack. Judging by the numbers, we're not alone in this line of thought. In 2022, it was the second-most-ordered menu item in the U.S. by MyMcDonald's Rewards members. That means it fell slightly short of the dizzying heights reached by the fries but still outperformed other iconic items like the Big Mac and the McChicken, technically making it the most popular burger on the entire menu.
The chain has never disclosed the exact statistics of how many cheeseburgers its customers consume per day. According to Investing.com, McDonald's sells 6.5 million burgers every day, with 5.4 million of these sold in the U.S. alone. If the cheeseburger is still the second-most ordered item on the McDonald's menu -- and, by default, the most-ordered burger -- that's a pretty hefty number. It helps that it's also generally one of the most affordable burgers on the menu (even if the average cheeseburger price did jump by 55% between 2021 and 2024, per Restaurant Business Online).
The McChicken is a McDonald's staple today but was at one point dispensable enough to be cut from the menu entirely. In 1996, McDonald's scrapped the sandwich to make way for its Deluxe line (a questionable move when you remember that this was infamously one of McDonald's biggest failures ever). We can only imagine that the same decision would be met with nationwide outrage today, considering that the McChicken is now one of the best-selling items on the entire menu.
As of 2022, the McChicken was the third-most-ordered item in the U.S. With a revered spot on the McValue Menu -- which means customers can buy one and add another to their lunch or dinner order for just $1 -- its price point likely also helps to boost numbers. Its simple yet effective combo of a breaded chicken patty, mayonnaise, and lettuce sandwiched between a sesame bread bun has even proven popular enough to inspire its own line of spinoff items, such as the Spicy McChicken and the limited-time Jalapeño McChicken. It's only grown more popular in recent years. In 2024, McDonald's confirmed that its chicken market had grown to an extent that it was on par with beef. While this may have been primarily driven by the launch of the McCrispy, there's no denying the solid foundation set by the McChicken -- which McDonald's referred to as one of its "core equities" -- in the decades prior (via Seeking Alpha).
Fast food chains can only dream of inventing a menu item as legendary as the Big Mac. That being said, McDonald's itself can't take all the credit for coming up with the burger. The man often credited as its inventor was Pittsburgh-based franchisee Michael James Delligatti, better known as Jim. Determined to compete with Burger King's Whopper, he was inspired to create a double-decker burger similar to those made by rival chain Bob's Big Boy. The idea may not have been original, but it was definitely profitable. The Big Mac was first introduced in 1967, featuring its now-trademark stack of beef, pickles, onions, lettuce, cheese, and Big Mac sauce. By 1969, it made up 19% of all sales at McDonald's restaurants, with sales remaining equally impressive over five decades later.
According to Dashmote, approximately 900 million Big Macs are sold worldwide every single year as of 2024. While McDonald's hasn't confirmed those numbers, that equates to an impressive 2.4 million Big Macs every 24 hours if they are accurate. Research by Illinoisbet.com also found that it was the most popular menu item in 31 states in 2023 (via NBC 5 Chicago). This level of popularity also tracks with older data shared by McDonald's. In 2007, McDonald's claimed that 560 million Big Macs were sold in the U.S. alone each year. Customers may have complained about it seemingly dwindling in size in the years since, but it seems like our appetite for the iconic burger is still as strong as ever.
Burgers and fries are already a solid combo in the eyes of an 8-year-old, but throw in a gaudy plastic toy that will provide approximately one hour of enjoyment, and you've got yourself a winner. McDonald's first started selling Happy Meals in 1979 and the concept is still going strong today, even if its menu has undergone a few tweaks in that time. Despite the fact that it scrapped soda from Happy Meals in 2013 and doubled down on improving each meal's nutritional profile, its offerings are still going strong with the youth (and the youthful at heart) of today.
Between 2018 and 2022, McDonald's sold over 5.7 billion Happy Meals in 20 major markets that contained menu items from the most recommended food groups (fruit, vegetables, low-fat dairy, whole grain, lean protein, or water). In 2021 alone, MyMcDonald's Rewards members redeemed nearly 2 million free Happy Meals. The golden arches have also found success with a brand-new concept: Adult Happy Meals. Tapping into the nostalgia of the generation that grew up begging for a Happy Meal on the drive home from school, it introduced its first range -- Cactus Plant Flea Market x McDonald's -- in 2022, which sold out of all 12 million units in just 10 days. McDonald's later claimed the meals had, in part, supported an increase in sales from October to December of that year, and has since launched additional grownup-focused collections. Such is the power of the Happy Meal.
The Chicken McNuggets are so integral to the McDonald's brand that it's hard to believe there was ever a time pre-nuggets. In reality, the McNuggets only made their menu debut in 1979 when they were conceived by the chain's former executive chef, René Arend, while he was trying to nail the recipe for onion nuggets. They proved so popular that there initially wasn't enough chicken to keep up with the demand of its franchisees, forcing McDonald's to get creative with other products (such as the McRib) to satisfy the masses in the meantime.
Luckily, McDonald's has its chicken supply chain down pat today, meaning it's more than equipped to handle the nation's McNugget cravings. These nuggets are a little different than those of the 20th century. Artificial ingredients were stripped from the recipe (which, let's be clear, also does not include pink slime of any kind) in 2016, while the chicken itself switched to white meat in the 2000s.
In 2021, McDonald's claimed that Chicken McNuggets were one of three core menu items that made up almost 60% of total restaurant sales. Whether that's still true today remains to be seen. However, with the Chicken McNuggets also ranking high in Illinoisbet.com's breakdown of the favorite McDonald's dish by state, and the chain's McNuggets category -- which also includes Spicy McNuggets -- bringing in over $10 billion per year, we're willing to bet that they're still up there with the most popular (via NBC 5 Chicago).
Few fast food items have managed to carve out a space in the industry quite like the McRib. First sold in 1981 to fill the void as McDonald's struggled to keep up with the demand for its recently-introduced Chicken McNuggets, the barbecue-pork sandwich is another brainchild of former executive chef, René Arend. While the McRib is now lauded in fast food circles, it was actually originally scrapped due to poor sales -- a trend that couldn't be further from the truth today.
Having disappeared and reappeared from the McDonald's menu multiple times over the years, it's arguably the scarcity mindset that has played the biggest role in the McRib's sustained hype. The boomerang of fast food sold a whopping 30 million sandwiches during its third (but not last) Farewell Tour in 2007. It seems the years haven't dampened our appetite, as the McRib's limited run at the end of 2022 was cited by McDonald's as a vital factor in a 10.3% sales boost.
McRib fans are still a passionate bunch to this day. When McDonald's brought the McRib back for yet another limited run in 2024, it also sold half-gallon jugs of A Whole Lotta McRib Sauce -- AKA the same barbecue sauce used for the sandwich itself -- for $19.99. These jugs sold out within seconds and, as is the way of the internet, quickly popped up on eBay, where they sold for an average of $126.37 apiece, according to Cllct.
The breakfast menu is a huge money-maker for McDonald's. The Motley Fool reported that breakfast make up a quarter of the chain's sales in 2021. Meanwhile, Yahoo! Finance claimed that McDonald's attracted 35.4% of all breakfast-time fast food visits in 2023. The Egg McMuffin is the menu's powerhouse, stacking McDonald's iconic griddle-fried egg with a slice of American cheese and Canadian bacon on an English muffin. First launched in 1972, not everything about the McMuffin was a total winner straight out the gate -- for example, it was originally served with jam and honey, a detail that's been scrubbed from the menu in the years since -- but it's since established itself as one of the biggest items on the McDonald's menu.
Questionable condiments aside, the Egg McMuffin proved popular enough to help breakfast make up 18% of all McDonald's sales by the early 1980s. America's Egg McMuffin cravings have only got stronger over the decades. In 2015, Time reported that McDonald's buys over 2 billion eggs (roughly 5% of all eggs produced in the U.S.) each year. As of February 2024, all of the eggs purchased by McDonald's are cage-free, with the chain confirming that its annual egg purchases still sat somewhere around 2 billion. Exactly how many of those eggs end up as Egg McMuffins is a question mark, but considering its popularity, we're going to make the educated guess of "a lot."
Not to be dramatic, but we firmly believe that the McGriddle is one of the greatest gifts bestowed upon us by the golden arches. It seems like we're not alone in that opinion, as it ranks up there among McDonald's most popular items. Available in multiple varieties, every kind of McGriddle sandwiches some kind of flavorful meat (and sometimes egg) between a soft, hot griddle cake. It's sweet, it's savory, and -- unsurprisingly -- it brings in the big bucks.
According to research by Illinoisbet.com, the McGriddle is one of the top three McDonald's items in six states, ranking as the second most popular item in both Arizona and Mississippi and the third most popular in Alabama, California, Georgia, and Louisiana. Just imagine how much more popular it could be if McDonald's brought back the all-day breakfast menu. (Us? Bitter? Never).
The McGriddle doesn't just do numbers stateside, either. The breakfast sandwich's reputation is so strong that when McDonald's conducted a trial period for the McGriddle in its Hong Kong restaurants in 2024, it sold an eye-watering 1 million units in just three days and was forced to end the test early. McDonald's fans in other markets such as the U.K. and Australia have also set up petitions to bring the McGriddle to their local menus, too.
In 2023, McDonald's made a big announcement: the Crispy Chicken Sandwich was no more. (At least, in name). Instead, the sandwich -- which was initially launched in 2021 as McDonald's attempt at competing against rivals such as Chick-fil-A and Popeyes in the chicken sandwich wars -- was renamed the McCrispy, a name it already held in several international markets. Just like before, the sandwich took a crispy chicken fillet with pickles and encased it in a toasted, buttered potato bun. That's still the case today, with the sandwich having ballooned into a mini chicken empire that now officially rivals that of McDonald's beef.
As the chain confirmed in 2023, its chicken offerings are now on par with beef when it comes to sales. The McCrispy gave these sales a serious boost, having become its own $1 billion brand in the wake of its renaming. Its immediate impact was clear to see in-store, with the first quarter after said renaming leading to a sales increase of 12.6%. Never one to turn down an opportunity for more best-sellers, McDonald's has since gone on to introduce the likes of the Bacon Cajun Ranch McCrispy off the back of the McCrispy's success. It's also opened the door for more chicken menu items, such as the long-awaited Chicken Big Mac in 2024.
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