The Best McDonald's Copycat Recipes Ever

Ah, the arches. No, not the landmark Gateway Arch found in St. Louis. We're talking about the golden arches that beckon us off the highway or summon us from home. While menus vary throughout the globe (we are still longing for the poutine available only at Canadian locations), McDonald's is synonymous with food in a timely and affordable manner. Knowledge of the fast food giant has been ingrained in us basically since birth, conjuring up fond family memories and desires for the latest Happy Meal toys (we'll never forget the immortal words: "Do you want boy or girl toy?"). Founded in 1940 by Maurice and Richard McDonald, the pioneering chain, a first of its kind, has since become a global phenomenon.

Their fries are the stuff of legends, and the Big Mac is the epitome of guilty pleasures. While McDonald's is all about the convenience factor with zero effort required on your part, what if we told you that it's possible to whip up some of their best-selling items from the comfort of your own home? When you're not in the mood to contribute to McDonald's multi-billion dollar brand and you desperately want to seek refuge from that borderline creepy clown, here's the list of the best McDonald's copycat recipes ever. Deserve a break today? Don't we all. Bon appetit, our fellow hamburglars. 

The first thing that comes to our minds when discussing fast food flawlessness is the perfectly salted hash browns found at McDonald's. They're always there for us after a night of too much partying or when we want to carb up before a long road trip. A crunchy, golden brown exterior gives way to a soft, yet slightly greasy interior. Pro tip when ordering: If you're looking to add even more of a crunch to the morning staple, you can ask for it well done. Game changer.

When McDonald's rolled out their now infamous full breakfast menu (including the Egg McMuffin), so came the triumphant debut of the hash brown. Flash forward to the 21st century, and the food giant is dominating the fast food game, in part thanks to the roaring success of its most important meal of the day. While it's not difficult to find McDonald's menu items loaded with barely recognizable spellings of flavorings, preservatives, and all things found in some spooky basement laboratory, the hash brown is one of the most basic and simplest options. At 140 calories a pop, their hash browns feature just eight ingredients including seasoning, flour, and potatoes.

We're taking the guesswork out of it for you with our near-perfect imitation recipe. While many McDonald's now serve hash browns as part of their all-day menu, you can now have them 24/7 right from your kitchen.

Sometimes, our tastes are less savory and all about the sweet. Cue the McDonald's McFlurry. Soft serve and your favorite candy come together in perfect harmony to cap off any meal in a sweet bliss or as a stand-alone treat (because you deserve it). We're choosing to ignore that unsavory photo of their ice cream machine because the McFlurry is basically a big cup of joy with an oddly shaped spoon. We could not deny ourselves this simple pleasure.

The UK can keep their Cadbury Creme Egg McFlurry because, in America, our tastes are more vanilla, pun intended. Coming in at a whopping 510 calories and 60 grams of sugar (who is counting anyway?), the Oreo McFlurry is the cream of the crop when it comes to fast food chain dessert menus. It's really no shocker, as we are a nation obsessed with the black-and-white cookie. Did you stress-buy a package of Oreos on a recent shopping jaunt? When the McDonald's McFlurry machine is down (and it always is), you can hand-spin your own Oreo McFlurry recipe right from home with just three ingredients. 

McDonald's Egg McMuffin seems to be the main attraction when it comes to the chain's breakfast offerings. There's even a national holiday devoted to it. Ooey, gooey American cheese comes together with freshly cracked eggs and Canadian bacon to sit atop a toasted English muffin. It somehow keeps you full for a perplexing number of hours while simultaneously not weighing you down. Clocking in at only 310 calories, it is also a stark difference from many other fast food options, like Burger King's Double CROISSAN'WICH with sausage that will set you back over 700 calories. 

When you're looking to kick things up a notch, we think the Sausage McMuffin with Egg is the unsung hero of their morning delights. Canadian bacon is replaced with a flavorful sausage patty, resulting in a breakfast sandwich comprised of just a few simple ingredients. Even if you're on the struggle bus in the a.m., you can easily make this well-known breakfast sandwich recipe at home. We are even going to fill you in on the secret to replicating their perfect egg disc (and it's not as tough as you may think).

Few McDonald's items have sent the internet into a frenzy quite like the McRib. A relatively simple dish with just boneless pork, barbecue sauce, pickles, and onions on a hoagie bun, few sandwiches have garnered such a fiercely loyal and passionate following. The key may be in the hype created by McDonald's near-brilliant-level marketing schemes, but regardless, the flavors hold up, and so we continue to flock to our nearest location whenever it is spotted. It even led one perhaps slightly deranged fan, a self-dubbed McRib activist, to beg her local city council for its return to her area McDonald's. 

Media frenzy aside, the hype is real, friends. McDonald's has peaked at new levels of perfection with this sandwich that somehow tickles your taste buds with all the right things. It's salty, sweet, and sour all at the same time. We're perplexed, too. When the source runs dry, as it often does, we decided to face the challenge head-on and create our own recipe version of the swoon-worthy dish, meat grinder not needed. Not to pat ourselves on the back, but we really nailed this one. With a homemade pork patty and delectable barbecue sauce, you, too, can wow your next dinner party.

Burritos may sound like a Mexican dish, but the breakfast burrito is all American. Open to interpretation, you can pretty much stuff anything inside a flour tortilla, be it eggs, meat, or potatoes, and call it a breakfast burrito. While breakfast burritos didn't rise to popularity until the 1970s, burritos actually became a thing in the U.S. in the 1950s. It should be no surprise that McDonald's eventually hopped on board with the trend, as the frozen variety was invented by the same man who sold frozen burgers to the fast food chain. The more you know, right?

While Mission-style breakfast burritos feature rice and beans, McDonald's version is quite simple. It's actually one of the least expensive items on the menu. No frills here. The simple burrito, stuffed with eggs, cheese, sausage, and veggies, may not win any awards for groundbreaking innovation, but sometimes simplicity is best, and this burrito certainly deserves our attention. If you're all about that fold, baby, try out our copycat version recipe and prepare to be amazed. 

When it comes to this next item, we have no shame in lovin' it. We frequently find ourselves pulling up to the drive-thru for what may be McDonald's greatest creation of all time: the fries. Served in unassuming cardboard sleeves, these addictive pieces of potato are perfectly cooked and coated in just the right amount of salt. Even when consumed lukewarm, they are pretty darn good. Flavored with beef, McDonald's uses real potatoes to create that starchy perfection that truly puts the happy in every meal. The restaurant serves a staggering nine million pounds worldwide every day, giving an entirely new meaning to "Would you like fries with that?" Yes, we certainly would, along with the entire population of mankind as we know it.

Does it seem impossible to skin, wash, and fry potatoes into the familiar shape we all know and love? Hold it right there. These thin-cut beauties can be replicated at home, sans the painstaking dedication and precision required to hand-cut potatoes (trust us, you don't want to go there!). Our full list of recipe ingredients may have a few surprises in there, but trust us when we say these dupes taste just like the real thing and are sure to fool even the most discerning palate. You're going to want to consume these right away, as we found that they tend to quickly turn from fried perfection into a sad pile of potatoes within mere minutes. 

Burger King has the Whopper. Wendy's has beef in the form of the monstrous Baconator. But in the grand scheme of the fast food industry as we know it, few sandwiches could ever hold a candle to McDonald's Big Mac, both in reputation and taste. It will have you singing its list of ingredients, which includes two 100 percent all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, and onions, all sandwiched between the pillowy sesame seed buns. Take a cue from the Mac daddy himself, Donald Gorske, who eats two every day and has gone on to set the Guinness World Record for the most Big Macs consumed. Even with the sandwich weighing in at over 500 calories, he claims he's healthy. We'll eat to that!

While mighty in stature, the Big Mac is actually a lot easier to concoct yourself than you may think. Even their elusive special sauce can be replicated to perfection with the use of not only mayonnaise but Miracle Whip, too. If you want to have that "it's not delivery, it's DiGiorno" moment, trick all of your friends and family with our copycat Big Mac recipe. Box not included.