A Thin Burger Patty Is Key For Copycat Big Macs That Taste Like McDonald's

Do you know how to make a Big Mac? Sure, who doesn't? All you need, as per the old jingle, is "two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, [and] onions on a sesame seed bun." If you really want to get into the technicalities, though, it takes a bit more digging to come up with a formula for an accurate recreation of McDonald's half-century-old specialty.

Mashed recipe recreator Jake Vigliotti began his research into making a Big Mac copycat right at the source — he deconstructed a Big Mac, weighed the patties, and found each one to be slightly less than an ounce. As he points out, "That's a pretty tiny patty." Still, that's how McDonald's does it, so if you want an accurate Big Mac, you'll only need about ⅛ pound of beef. Well, maybe a tiny bit more, since ground beef does lose some of its weight as it cooks. "That means," says Vigliotti, "we need to start with a patty somewhere around 1.2 ounces." Double that to make two patties and that means you're going to need about 2 ½ ounces of meat for your burger. Still, what the Big Mac lacks in meat, it makes up for with all of its other toppings.

The lettuce, cheese, and pickles are pretty straightforward: shredded iceberg, American cheese singles, and dill pickle slices from a jar. With the onions, you catch a lucky break — no peeling, no chopping, no crying. Just mix the dehydrated kind with some water, nuke it for half a minute, and you're good to go. The copycat Big Mac sauce, however, is a little more "special" (read: "complicated"), as it requires both mayonnaise and Miracle Whip as well as sweet and dill pickle relishes, French dressing, ketchup, white vinegar, sugar, and minced onions. Unfortunately, you will need to feel some pain here as Vigliotti says, "I used a regular white onion ... the more minced, the better."

Vigliotti also admits that the three-piece bun necessary to build a Big Mac isn't that easy to come by, but his advice is to "Just use the bottom part of another bun" for the middle. He does offer another option that helps reduce food waste — that being to "cut off a little less than half of the top bun and use that as the middle portion." As a bonus, this will reduce the overall calorie and carb count by half a bun's worth. Whichever method you choose, though, you'll still need to toast all three bun halves. While Vigliotti says, "Your standard home [toaster] will do just fine," if the buns won't fit in your model then you may need to use a toaster oven, instead.