How To Make Copycat McDonald's McRibs That Look Like The Real Thing
The McDonald's McRib is a triumph of marketing – the whole "now you see it, now you don't" manufactured scarcity has created a huge demand for a menu item that essentially isn't too much different from similar synthetic ribs that you might find as a budget frozen dinner. If TV dinners aren't your thing, though, there's another way to beat the McDonald's marketers at their own game and that is to make your own McRib. Sure, there's a fair amount of effort involved, but if you're up for a fun kitchen project with an edible outcome, Mashed recipe recreator Lindsay D. Mattison spells out the steps for you. Although she admits that the McDonald's McRib copycat "seems like something that would be close to impossible," upon completion she says she was "pretty amazed at the results."
The most labor-intensive part of this McKnockoff, and one you could easily skip if you wanted a – dare we say it? – better sandwich, involved grinding up an innocent pork chop to make a patty. Mattison does say, though, that "You could also start with pre-ground pork" as a shortcut. The pork, once deconstructed, is then mixed with water, salt, and sugar. While Mickey D's uses dextrose in place of the last ingredient, Mattison tells us she "swapped in regular granulated sugar because it's easier to find." This porky mush is then shaped into patties, formed into faux ribs, and frozen because that's what Mickey D's does.
All that's left to do is cook it, bun it, top it, and eat it
While the copycat McRib sauce may be a complicated concoction involving 11 different ingredients (ketchup, molasses, Worcestershire sauce, brown sugar, cider vinegar, salt, onion powder, garlic powder, cumin, chili powder, and coriander), it requires mere seconds to stir it together. Frying the pork patties, too, only takes a few minutes on each side.
Once the pork patties are cooked, all you need to do is dip them into the sauce, then shake it off, as a certain T. Swift would say. (Fakers gonna fake; copycatters gonna copycat.) Plop that pork patty on a buttered bun (Mattison lays out in her recipe the exact kind you'll need to pick), then top it with pickles and onions.
If you're disappointed that the aesthetics of your MockRib may be a bit off, Mattison admits that this is par for the course. "The faux rib formations didn't quite hold up on the griddle," she explains, and also says that the bun she used "looked a little plainer than the original." As for the flavor, though, she feels that she "really really nailed it," so you can expect your sandwich to taste, well, like a McRib, which was the entire point of this exercise.