Mexican Fast Food Items You Can't Order In The U.S.

There are plenty of international fast food items you can't find in the U.S. that are available right across the border in Mexico. What do they have that the U.S. doesn't? As you can imagine, you'll find Mexican fast food menu items that are unique to Mexico –- especially ones that feature hot chile peppers and flavors like mango that are more popular south of the border. Some of the items you can find in Mexico have disappeared from U.S. menus, while others are variations on existing or discontinued U.S. menu items.

In Mexico, you'll find different Whopper and Big Mac varieties, pizza flavors you'll wish you could try, and even pulled pork sandwiches. Some menu items that look familiar come with chile peppers, chili pepper flakes, or tangy chilito seasonings on top. Meanwhile, multiple flavors of spicy chicken tenders make U.S. chicken tenders look boring. If you find yourself going to a fast food restaurant in Mexico, you'll have plenty of exciting and spicy choices you won't find in the U.S.

In a country where peppers reign supreme, it's not surprising that Burger King has spiced up its burger menu with them. There are all sorts of Whoppers on the Mexican Burger King menu that would look familiar to visitors from the U.S. The Whopper BBQ and the Whopper Angry, for example, have been on the menu in the U.S. at some point, even if they're not available now. However, one that is unique to Mexico is the Whopper Serrano, which contains chicharrón de chile serrano. A direct translation won't help you with this ingredient. The topping for this burger isn't serrano-flavored pork rinds; it is serrano chiles that have been fried until they're blackened and crispy.

Whoppers are big burgers in the first place, so you'd better bring your appetite if you order a Whopper Serrano because it comes with two beef patties. The toppings include crispy fried serrano chile peppers, crispy fried onions, bacon, and lettuce. Unlike a regular Whopper, the Whopper Serrano comes with Swiss cheese. With crispy fried serrano peppers inspired by authentic Mexican cuisine, this burger has had a lot of appeal in Mexico. Unfortunately for those who have embraced it, the Whopper Serrano is supposed to be on the menu for only a limited time starting March 13, 2023.

When it comes to breakfast and Burger King in the U.S., the main choices are Croissan'Wiches and biscuit sandwiches. However, there are a few alternatives, like the pancake platter and pancake and sausage platter. The platters in the U.S. aren't all that exciting. However, if you go for breakfast at a Burger King in Mexico, you can get a full breakfast platter that looks more like what you'd find in a slow-food restaurant.

Your first choice is the Desayuno Meat Lovers (meat lovers' breakfast), which includes scrambled eggs, four slices of ham, one piece of sausage, three long strips of bacon, and two pancakes with syrup and butter. Your second choice is Desayuno Del Rey (King's breakfast). Burger King Mexico says that this one is a customer favorite. It comes with scrambled eggs, hash brown rounds, ham slices, and three pancakes with syrup and butter. Finally comes the Desayuno Premium (premium breakfast). This one has more flair with Mexican-style scrambled eggs and two English muffins covered in cheese and peppers. It also contains a piece of sausage and two pancakes with syrup and butter.

When we saw a Chicken Big Mac on the Mexican McDonald's menu, we had to do a double take. Chicken on a Big Mac? Yes, it's true. If you remember the Big Mac jingle that originated in the 1970s, you can almost guess what comes on the Chicken Big Mac. It contains two fried chicken patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, and no onions on a sesame seed bun. They'll need a slightly different jingle for that.

Apparently, McDonald's in Mexico isn't the only place in the world that has had them. They've actually been around for a while. The first mention we can find of Chicken Big Macs in Mexico is back in 2012. It arrived in 2017 in Australia, where the chain is known as Macca's, but the sandwich hasn't managed to stay on the menu there. McDonald's tested it out in select Miami locations in August 2022, with the promise of bringing it to the masses if it went well. Unfortunately, it has bypassed the U.S. so far. In early 2022, Chicken Big Macs made their way to the U.K., albeit briefly. They were so insanely popular that the sandwich sold out in almost every U.K. McDonald's between February 2 and February 11 that year. In March 2023, Canada got them for a limited time. They arrived in Mexico again around the same time. Like everywhere else, the Chicken Big Macs in Mexico are available for only a limited time.

When Big Macs first came on the scene, they seemed obscenely large with their two pieces of meat and an extra bun in the middle. But if you look at the McDonald's menu now, the 590-calorie Big Mac pales in comparison to the 740-calorie Double Quarter Pounder with cheese. Still, it was possible to make a Big Mac even bigger if you added two pieces of meat to each sandwich level, for a total of four meat patties. The resulting 762-calorie monster-sized Big Mac Doble you can get in Mexico seems impossible for a human mouth to envelop.

In March 2020, McDonald's experimented with adding a Little Mac and double Big Mac to menus in the U.S. They didn't stick around for long in the U.S. However, you can still find the double Big Mac on the menu in Canada as well as in Mexico. With so many unhealthy burgers on competing fast food menus, we don't think anyone could be missing it that much in the U.S.

Ranch dressing isn't an extremely popular condiment for burgers in the U.S. However, McDonald's tried it on two burgers in 2013 when it first introduced its BBQ Ranch Burger and the Bacon Habanero Ranch Burger. Mixing ranch with another flavor certainly added to the calorie content, but it also added to the flavor profile. For a while after the Bacon Habanero Ranch Burger disappeared from the menu in the U.S., you could still get habanero ranch dipping sauce for your fries or McNuggets.

The Habanero Ranch Burger you can get in Mexico is just like the one that you could once get in the U.S. Being a culture that features peppers in its cuisine more than we do in the U.S., it's not surprising that the Habanero Ranch Burger didn't get edged out by other burgers in the menu in Mexico and ended up staying. It comes on a sesame seed bun with two pieces of meat, bacon, cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, and onions. Of course, it also comes topped with spicy habanero ranch sauce, which sets it apart from other burgers like the Quarter Pounder with cheese. All that habanero ranch sauce adds to the calorie count, too, making this an 808-calorie burger.

KFC in the U.S. has had several chicken tender flavors along the way, like Nashville hot chicken tenders in 2016, along with hot honey BBQ and Smoky Mountain BBQ tenders in 2018. However, as of 2023, the only flavor on the menu is the original, plain chicken type. The Nashville hot chicken sauce left KFC in 2023 along with other beloved items, in the chain's attempt to simplify the menu and get the drive-through lane moving faster. However, this is not the case in Mexico, where you can still find multiple chicken tender flavors (Ke Tiras) on the menu.

Of course, you can still get plain Ke Tiras at KFC in Mexico. However, the real fun comes in trying multiple flavors. There are even some menu options that allow you to buy multiple flavors at once. KFC Mexico told us the locations there have four other flavors besides the original plain and crispy Ke Tiras: secreta (a spicy secret sauce with peppers), jalapeño, BBQ, and 11 chiles sauces.

Cheesy fries are nothing new. However, KFC in the U.S. doesn't serve hot cheesy fries like what you can find in Mexican KFCs. The closest we have in U.S. fast food to hot cheesy fries is at Sonic, where you can add chili, onions, and jalapeños as extras, and at Wendy's, where you can order ghost pepper fries. However, it's just not the same.

When you order hot cheesy fries at KFC in Mexico, they come covered in gooey, hot queso and sprinkled with chili pepper flakes from 11 different types of chile peppers. Forget the chile flakes you put on your pizza at Pizza Hut; this is the real deal from the land of the chile peppers. When KFC in the U.S. tried loaded fries in 2013, they only came with cheese or cheese and bacon, not hot pepper flakes. A generous sprinkling of hot pepper flakes doesn't really turn them into loaded fries, but it certainly gives them plenty of Mexican personality.

In July 2019, Wendy's celebrated its Baconfest event by not only adding several bacon items but also some bacon jalapeño menu items to its lineup. You could get a bacon jalapeño cheeseburger or double cheeseburger as well as jalapeño bacon cheese fries. Lovers of Mexican-style spicy hamburgers rejoiced at getting a jalapeño burger on the menu. Sadly, they were available for only a limited time. However, in Mexico, you can still find a modified version of them called a Bacon Jalapeño Melt since jalapeños are a fact of life there.

The U.S. version contained a beef patty, smoked applewood bacon, jalapeños, and crispy fried onions. Plus, it was topped with smoky jalapeño sauce, a gooey cheese sauce, and American cheese. The Mexican version is slightly different. Like the U.S. version, it has a beef patty, bacon, and jalapeños. The cheese selection is cheddar cheese rather than American. It's also missing the crispy fried onions and smoky jalapeño sauce.

Cheesy bites pizzas have shown up on summer Pizza Hut menus in the U.S. since 2006. However, in Mexico, they're known as cheesy pops pizzas instead. These pizzas contain a ring of cheesy pop appetizers along their outer edges instead of a normal outer crust. So, it's like eating bonus cheesy appetizers with your pizza. BBQ cheesy pops look more like a monstrosity you would find on a Pizza Hut menu in the U.S. However, to order this beast, you'll have to go to Mexico.

Sweet Honey BBQ Cheesy Pops pizzas first appeared on menus in Mexico in April 2023. They come with red onions, bacon, and beef, along with cheese and sweet honey BBQ sauce. As you pull the cheesy pops off of the outer edges of the pizza, you can dip them into sweet honey BBQ sauce. We're intrigued with the idea of a pizza dipping sauce that's not marinara sauce or ranch.

One pizza you won't find on the Pizza Hut menu in the U.S. is the Mexicana pizza. While it's not uncommon to find Mexican pizzas in pizza parlors, nothing beats an authentic Mexican pizza in Mexico that's not Tex-Mex style.

The ingredients for the Pizza Hut Mexicana are brilliant. It comes with pico de gallo sauce, chorizo sausage, jalapeños, bacon, and cheese. We certainly wish the U.S. Pizza Hut would add chorizo to its meat options. Pizza Hut in the U.S. had a taco pizza in the 1970s, and it briefly had a fiesta taco pizza in 2004 that featured fresh ingredients like lettuce and tomatoes on the top. Oddly enough, the closest we've seen to Pizza Hut Mexico's Mexicana pizza elsewhere is when Pizza Hut South Africa introduced a Mexicana pizza in 2020. However, it also contained bell peppers and a drizzle of hot sauce over the top.

Pork belly isn't as popular in the U.S. as it is in some other countries. However, with more people becoming acquainted with it in places like ramen noodle houses and food trucks, Arby's decided to try to give it a try as a sandwich in 2016. The Smokehouse Pork Belly sandwich did well enough that the chain brought it back again in 2017. Unfortunately for pork-belly lovers, Arby's has never put it on the permanent menu in the U.S. However, if you visit Arby's in Mexico, you can find a similar menu item called a Pork Belly Stack.

Arby's Pork Belly Stack starts with an onion bread bun with a stack of ingredients inside that include crispy pork belly, cheddar cheese, red onion, and lettuce. It also has two sauces: barbecue sauce and mayonnaise. The Mexican version is slightly different than the U.S. version since the U.S. version had smoked cheddar cheese and smoked meat rather than plain. The U.S. version also had crispy fried onions instead of fresh red onions and came on an onionless bun. We can't help but imagine how to combine the two versions to make the perfect sandwich.

In 2023, Arby's in the U.S. launched a limited-time-only menu featuring various barbecue items. The menu contained sliders and sandwiches with fillings like country-style barbecue ribs, bourbon barbecue chicken, and bourbon barbecue roast beef. However, nowhere on the menu in the U.S. was a barbecue favorite -– barbecue pulled pork. To get pulled pork on a sandwich at Arby's, you have to cross the border and eat at a Mexican Arby's, where they sell a Pulled Pork Stack sandwich.

The Pulled Pork Stack sandwich in Mexico comes on sweet brioche bread and is stacked with barbecue-flavored pulled pork, crispy fried onions, cheese, tomato, and lettuce. The sandwich has mayonnaise as a condiment, but all the barbecue sauce on the sandwich is already on the meat. We'd be all over a pulled pork sandwich at Arby's in the U.S. But, alas, it hasn't happened yet. If it does, we hope it comes with a brioche bun instead of an ordinary bun like Arby's barbecue sandwiches have traditionally had.

If you love mangoes or Mexican cheese pies, you're going to be jealous to hear that you can get a Mango Pay De Queso (mango cheese pie) Blizzard at Dairy Queen in Mexico. Mexican cheese pies are similar to cheesecakes. However, the crust is made from ground packaged sugar cookies like Goya brand, and the pie filling is softer and smoother than cheesecake. Cheese pie does contain cream cheese, but it also has other dairy products like evaporated milk, condensed milk, and queso fresco. So, if you're imagining a mango cheesecake Blizzard, you don't have exactly the right idea, but it's close.

Something you may find interesting about Dairy Queens in Mexico is that they only have a DQ frozen dairy treat menu without having other foods like hamburgers and chicken fingers. So, the dessert menu is more expansive than what you see in the U.S. Mango also features in other menu items, like the Mango Malt and Mango Chilito Slush. And, since the syrup is already available, they could even add it to a sundae.

Misty slushes are a favorite cold beverage you can find at any U.S. Dairy Queen. The U.S. slushies come in a variety of flavors. However, the Misty slushes in the U.S. are missing a key ingredient that the DQ slushes have sprinkled on top in Mexico –- a tangy chili powder topping called "chilito." If you've ever tried Tajín seasoning, you get the idea of the chilito flavor.

U.S. Misty slushes come in flavors like blue raspberry, cherry, and strawberry kiwi. There's even a lemon-lime one for citrus lovers. The only slush flavor that you'll find in both U.S. and Mexico is mango. All the rest are different. The other Mexican chilito slush flavors include strawberry, lemon, berry, and chamoy. Chamoy is a sour and spicy condiment made from chile peppers and sour ingredients like ume plums, green mangoes, and tamarind. You'd certainly never find a chamoy slush with chilito sprinkled on top in U.S. Dairy Queens, but it definitely belongs in Mexican ones.

While Starbucks is known for its many coffee drinks, plenty of people order food items there as well. You'll find a few sandwiches and wraps on the U.S. Starbucks breakfast and lunch menus. However, you won't find anything like an Envuelto Poblano in the U.S. The Envuelto Poblano is an enclosed sandwich kind of like a Hot Pocket but with Mexican poblano peppers as its star ingredient. Mexicans call lots of items "enveueltos," from tamales and enchiladas to modern-day wraps. Basically, if the ingredients come wrapped, you could call it an envuelto. 

The outside pastry portion of the Starbucks Envuelto Poblano is made from a wheat dough that is covered in melted Parmesan cheese and paprika. The inside poblano filling contains ingredients like cream cheese, red poblano peppers, onions, corn kernels, and chicken. It sounds truly delicious. We'd love to convince the U.S. Starbucks to make something like it.