5-Ingredient Copycat McDonald's Sausage McMuffin With Egg Recipe

McDonald's Egg McMuffin has been a part of our breakfast repertoire for as long as we can remember. It's packed full of flavor without being too heavy or filling, and it's one of the easiest grab-and-go breakfast sandwiches to eat while driving into the office. We were stoked when McDonald's announced our favorite breakfast treat would be available all day long (and then devastated when we learned the fast-food restaurant might get rid of all-day breakfast).

But the Egg McMuffin isn't the only star of the breakfast show at McDonald's — it's sausage-based sister is pretty delicious, too. Luckily, McDonald's has released the recipe for their iconic Sausage McMuffin with Egg (via Insider). Surprisingly enough, the ingredients list is short and sweet, allowing us to easily create a 5-ingredient copycat McDonald's Sausage McMuffin with Egg recipe. 

How close does it get to the original? Will you have to go out and find a special type of sausage to pull it off? Is it possible to make McDonald's egg discs without specialty equipment? Read on to find out how to make this breakfast sandwich a reality in your home kitchen.

A quick peek at McDonald's website reveals the simplicity of the ingredients used in their Sausage McMuffin with Egg. We didn't even have to try very hard to make this a 5-ingredient recipe! All you need is an English muffin, one egg, a sausage patty, a slice of American cheese, and some butter. We also found that we could easily turn this sausage sandwich into an Egg McMuffin by swapping in a slice of Canadian bacon for the sausage patty.

We were surprised to find that we were able to make it cheaper than McDonald's, too. At the time of this article, a Sausage McMuffin with Egg cost $3 at our local McDonalds (though that's subject to change depending on your location). When we added up the price of the ingredients, we came to $1.61 per sandwich. Of course, we had to buy more items than we needed for a single sandwich (sadly, the grocery store wouldn't sell us one egg). But given how easy this 5-ingredient copycat McDonald's Sausage and Egg McMuffin recipe was to make, we were happy to have the extras around to make several additional servings.

You'll find a full list of the ingredients, including the step-by-step instructions, at the end of this article.

There are no real secret ingredients in this 5-ingredient copycat McDonald's Sausage McMuffin with Egg recipe, but there is a secret method to pulling it off. Unlike some of the other items on McDonald's breakfast menu, the Egg McMuffin is made with a whole egg instead of a scrambled egg. If you open up the sandwich, you'll find that it looks like an over-hard egg, except it's perfectly formed into a circular disc.

This is pretty easy to pull off at home. You can buy an inexpensive silicone egg ring if you like, but we were able to use common household items to create the perfect egg disc. We tried several online hacks — like using an onion ring, a cookie-cutter, or a cleaned tuna fish can — and found that a mason jar ring worked the best. The key to pulling it off is to preheat the pan and the ring so the egg whites don't pool out when you crack the egg. If you've greased the ring before using it, the egg will come out cleanly when you're finished cooking.

Butter is one of the five ingredients listed on McDonald's website for their McDonald's Sausage McMuffin with Egg, so we knew we had to include it in our copycat recipe. According to Business Insider, McDonald's used to use margarine on their breakfast items and made a switch to using real butter in 2015. It was apparently a pretty popular move, driving up sales of the breakfast sandwich by double digits.

We originally thought the butter was used to grease the egg disc, which it is — as confirmed when we found a 2017 demonstration from McDonald's head chef, Jessica Foust (via Business Insider). But we also learned the butter also goes onto the toasted English muffin. Foust shows how McDonald's microwaves the butter until it's not quite melted but smooth enough to pour into a squeeze bottle. After toasting the English muffin, the semi-melted butter is squeezed onto the bottom bun. We weren't able to divine the exact quantity — they make a "circle with a line through it" to ensure the correct portion — but we did a test batch using a teaspoon, and it seemed to do the trick nicely.

So go ahead and toast your English muffin until it's golden brown. Brush the butter onto the bottom bun and top it with the slice of American cheese. You can hold the English muffin in a warm, 200 degree Fahrenheit oven while you assemble the remaining components, if needed.

McDonald's sausage contains pork, water, salt, spices, dextrose, sugar, rosemary extract, and natural flavors. If you want to expand the ingredients list of this 5-ingredient copycat McDonald's Sausage McMuffin with Egg recipe, you could absolutely make your own sausage. But, we wanted to keep things simple, so we went with Jimmy Dean for our test batch. It does not have the same ingredients list — it also contains corn syrup, vinegar, MSG, and vinegar that aren't found on the McDonald's list. That said, we really like the flavor, and we thought it was close enough to the original.

Open the sausage and form it into six round balls that weigh about 2 ounces. Flatten the balls between your palms to form a patty that's roughly three inches around. The patties will be larger than the English muffin, but they will also shrink while they cook. Cook the sausage in a skillet over medium heat for 5 to 6 minutes a side, until it's browned through and reaches an internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit. If you want to cook all six patties at once, bake them in a 400-degree oven for 8 to 10 minutes a side, flipping once, until they're cooked through.

While the sausage is cooking, grease the lid of a canning jar with melted butter or cooking spray. We tried making these eggs two ways: once with just the canning ring and another time with the lid and the ring. The ones made with the ring turned out just fine, but they were more caramelized than the eggs made in the lid. Since the lid eggs were closer to McDonald's eggs, we went with that method for this 5-ingredient copycat McDonald's Sausage and Egg McMuffin recipe.

Place the canning lid into a small saute pan and heat it over medium-high heat. When the pan is preheated, crack the egg into the lid and break the yolk with a fork. Pour about a quarter cup of water into the pan, surrounding the lid but not getting water inside the ring itself. Cover the pan with a lid and cook the egg for three to four minutes, until the yolk and whites are set. Carefully remove the hot ring from the pan and release the egg using a butter knife.

You now have all the components for your McDonald's Sausage McMuffin with Egg. Place the cooked sausage patty on top of the cheese on the English muffin. Top it with the egg, the top bun, and serve the sandwich warm.

If you want to save time and make copycat McDonald's Sausage McMuffin with Eggs for the week, feel free to make multiple sandwiches at once. A 12-ounce sausage roll will make six sausage patties, or the exact number of English muffins that come in a pack. So go ahead and cook all six sausage patties, fire up six eggs, and assemble the sandwiches according to the directions below.

When the sandwiches are complete, wrap each one in parchment paper or aluminum foil. Freeze the wrapped sandwiches flat before packing them into a freezer-safe bag. They should be good for about a month, maybe a little longer, before they start to become a little freezer burned and pick up off-flavors in the freezer. Reheat the sandwiches directly from the freezer by removing the parchment or foil and wrapping the sandwich in a paper towel. Defrost it in the microwave for about a minute, then heat it on high power for 60 seconds, until the sausage and egg are warmed through. It will be a little softer than the original, but no less delicious.

All in all, this recipe was a complete success. The copycat McDonald's Sausage McMuffin with Egg was warm, savory, and filling, and the combination of flavors made us feel like we'd just exited the drive-through. We loved how the American cheese melted just right from the heat of the sausage patty, and we were pretty excited at how spot-on our eggs turned out. They were almost exactly like McDonald's round egg discs, and they weren't complicated to make, either.

The one area where our 5-ingredient copycat McDonald's Sausage McMuffin with Egg recipe departed from the original was the sausage. Our Jimmy Dean sausage was definitely more bold-flavored than McDonald's (mostly likely due to the addition of MSG). If we're nitpicking, our hand-formed patties were thicker than the original, too. But considering that this recipe is so inexpensive to make and it came together so quickly, we think we can overlook the small imperfections. Sorry, McDonald's, but we'll probably skip our regular drive-through routine and make breakfast at home instead.