We're eggstatic the fast-food chain came to its senses
Here’s Why McDonald’s Almost Didn’t Add the Egg McMuffin to Its Menu
Updated on Feb. 25, 2025
Imagine a world without the Egg McMuffin. Blasphemy, we know. But when the first McDonald’s location popped up in San Bernardino, California, back in 1940, breakfast wasn’t on the menu. In fact, the restaurant was originally crafted as a barbecue joint. (Guess the McRib was our destiny.)
Fast-forward to 1970, and franchisees were itching to offer breakfast items on McDonald’s menu. After all, with burgers and fries selling like hotcakes, shouldn’t they offer … actual hotcakes? And this is when the path to the Egg McMuffin began.
Keep reading to learn the surprising history of the once-overlooked menu item and its path to becoming a beloved favorite.
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Who originally created the Egg McMuffin?
The Egg McMuffin was created in 1971 by Herb Peterson, the owner/operator of a McDonald’s franchise in Santa Barbara, California. To launch a breakfast menu at his location, he felt the company needed a really special item to make it stand out. He landed on eggs Benedict.
The problem: Manufactured hollandaise sauce (a key component of eggs Benny) is pretty gloppy, making his initial vision unappetizing. Undeterred, Peterson reimagined the dish. He put a fried egg atop an English muffin, added a slice of Canadian bacon and finished it off with a slice of American cheese. Voila! The Egg McMuffin was born.
But Peterson didn’t stop there. He went on to craft Teflon rings, which helped him cook eggs perfectly sized for an English muffin.
Why was American cheese the right choice for this breakfast sandwich?
When you’re considering a substitute for hollandaise, a concoction of mainly egg yolks and butter, American cheese isn’t an obvious first choice. Peterson never explained why he chose that particular topping, though it likely had something to do with availability. Remember, American cheese was already on hand for burgers.
But here’s what else makes American cheese work: its meltability. The food product was developed to melt evenly, making it a creamy, almost saucelike add-on. It’s the perfect binder between the egg and muffin.
Why wasn’t McDonald’s on board right away?
Call it fear of the unknown—or hesitancy about it, at the very least. Peterson’s version of eggs Benedict didn’t exactly look like traditional eggs Benedict, and it wasn’t yet the convenient sandwich we gobble up today.
Peterson didn’t think McDonald’s owner Ray Kroc would go for the idea, so he presented it as a mystery of sorts. While Kroc was on a business trip in California, Peterson invited him to visit the Santa Barbara McDonald’s location, promising something special. But he was very elusive about it.
“He didn’t want me to reject it out of hand, which I might have done, because it was a crazy idea—a breakfast sandwich,” Kroc wrote in his book, Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald’s. “It consisted of an egg that had been formed in a Teflon circle, with the yolk broken, and was dressed with a slice of cheese and a slice of grilled Canadian bacon. This was served open-faced on a toasted and buttered English muffin. I boggled a bit at the presentation. But then I tasted it, and I was sold.”
How has the Egg McMuffin changed over the years?
The sandwich components have largely remained the same: fresh-cracked eggs, Canadian bacon, American cheese and an English muffin. But the presentation is very different.
Initially, because Peterson wanted to mimic eggs Benedict, he served the Egg McMuffin open-faced with a serving of either honey or jam. But by 1975, when it was finally available nationally, it had become an easy-to-carry sandwich.
Of course, the biggest change in the Egg McMuffin from its inception is the price. The original breakfast sandwich was sold for just 63 cents. In 2025, it costs $5.45. That’s an 88% increase in price. Even adjusting for inflation, the Egg McMuffin has seen an almost 12% rise in price.
Just how popular is the Egg McMuffin today?
McDonald’s plays coy about how many Egg McMuffins it sells yearly. (The company didn’t respond to a request for data.) Here’s a McDonald’s fact we do know: In 2015, it was reported that the fast-food chain purchases 2 billion eggs each year. Of course, that doesn’t mean it sells that many Egg McMuffins annually. The breakfast menu has expanded over the years, and nine different offerings now come with eggs. Still, McDonald’s annual purchase alone equates to roughly 5% of the eggs produced in the United States.
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Sources:
- McDonald’s: “A brief and delicious history of the Egg McMuffin”
- Tasting Table: “The Cheese That’s in McDonald’s Egg McMuffin and Why It Works So Well”
- McDonald’s India: “20 Years: Breakfast Eggstacies”
- Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald’s
- McDonald’s: “Does McDonald’s Use Freshly Cracked Eggs?”
- Time: “McDonald’s to Switch to Cage-Free Eggs”
