Every Burger On The McDonald’s Menu, Ranked

When you think of the McDonald’s menu, generally, you’re probably veering in one of two categories. Either you’re the chicken type of person or would you prefer beef. While I enjoy selections from both sides of the menu, I must admit that I am more of a burger fan when it comes to McDonald’s options. I tend to find that even the new Chicken Big Mac tastes something like chicken nugget patties with condiments and just can’t quite beat the original Big Mac.

My order hasn’t changed much over the years, but I must admit, I’ve not tried a very wide selection of the burger menu. So, when the opportunity arose to sample as many options as I could from McDonald’s burger selections, I was excited for the wide tasting selection. These opportunities always teach me something about myself and the food in which I sample, and here, I discovered that my go-to burger is good, but there are better options on the menu. I even learned of a whole category of the burger menu I didn’t even realize existed.

Of course, everyone’s burger preferences are pretty specific, and what my favorite burger ended up being differs from my husband’s preferences, who joined me in trying these burgers. You know you best, so please take my recommendations with a grain of salt. If you tend to like burgers that have a nice mixture of fresh and typical burger toppings, we’ll probably be pretty close in agreement on which burger reigns supreme.

Trust me, I’m just as surprised as you are that the Cheeseburger was my least favorite of the burgers. This is the most basic of all sandwiches you can get at McDonald’s, aside from the original Hamburger. The contents are pretty simple with a bun, beef patty with McDonald’s iconic seasonings, American cheese, ketchup and mustard, and pickles. The chopped onions are added right into the beef on the grill, which is one of the ways’ McDonald’s made improvements to its new burgers. Other burgers that get slivered onions which are added like a condiment after the cooking process has ended. Depending on your flavor and texture preferences, this will be either a positive or negative note. I tend to prefer the slivered onions because they feel more real than the chopped pieces that look a little fake.

At the end of the day, the reason the Cheeseburger ranked so low was that it just tasted too much like bread, with not enough of the other parts. The balance felt super off, and the patty was so small that it did nothing to overcome or even match the bread that it’s sitting on. There’s a lot that could have been done to the Cheeseburger to dress it up, but as ordered off the menu, I mostly felt like I was eating a hamburger bun. In fact, when I first unwrapped it, I was barely even able to see much past the bun.

It would be inappropriate to discuss the original Hamburger without also discussing McDonald’s beginnings. You may imagine that Ray Kroc is the founder of McDonald’s, especially because Kroc created and peddled that narrative; however, the original founders were brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald. Ray Kroc eventually bought out the McDonald’s for a couple million, before it grew into the colossal empire it is today. In McDonald’s earliest days, it actually sold barbecue, but when the hamburger sales outpaced the barbecue, the McDonald’s Brothers made the pivot no more of a burger joint. The classic McDonald’s Hamburger is a beef patty on a bun with chopped onions, a pickle, ketchup, and mustard.

Typically, I am quite the cheese fan, but in the case of the original Cheeseburger versus the Hamburger, I found that the Hamburger was actually better. The balance of flavors was just a little bit better overall, and it was a little dry like the Cheeseburger, but everything surprisingly seemed to match just a little bit better with the subtraction of the cheese.

Something I always love about McDonald’s is the way that it is committed to creating items with special names to them. Even if they don’t very clearly describe exactly what is on a sandwich, it’s endearing to say the least.

Before this tasting, I had never tried a McDouble before, and wasn’t entirely sure what was even on it. In addition to all the items on a typical Cheeseburger, the McDouble gets an additional burger patty. The burgers themselves are prepared the same way, and appear to be the same dimensions and weight, and there’s not a whole lot of difference between this one and a Double Cheeseburger, but if you like your cheese to be more on the minimal side, this is going to be your preference. Rather than having the cheese slice closer to the bun, the McDouble’s slice sits between the two patties.

Similar to the Cheeseburger and Hamburger, the patty was really thin and had that extra dry quality, though this might be because my patties were sitting around for a minute before they were prepared. It had the feel of something like a smash burger, but the overall dryness kept it from being higher in my ranking.

I am a ’90s kid. As a result, I watched plenty of Nickelodeon, specifically, “All That” and, of course, the “Good Burger” movie celebrating Kel Mitchell’s iconic sketch. In the movie, Ed (Mitchell) shares his special sauce, and while I longed to try this sauce when the movie came out, McDonald’s has long had its own version of a special sauce. While I struggle to imagine it being as good as Ed’s sauce, I must admit that the Big Mac sauce isn’t half bad.

The Big Mac, McDonald’s iconic burger, features its famous special sauce, forever reminding me of Ed’s sauce. This burger has three buns: on the bottom, top, and middle. In addition to the buns and sauce, The Big Mac also has beef with chopped onions, cheese, lettuce, and pickles.

With the small burger patties and the bread, the Big Mac sauce did a whole lot of the heavy lifting in terms of taste. Big Mac sauce was hard to pin down but it tasted like a combination of tartar sauce and barbecue or ketchup. With more flavor balance and perhaps some larger burger patties, the Big Mac would be much better. It’s these missing elements that put the Big Mac rather low on my list of McDonald’s burgers.

Even though I didn’t expect to be a big fan of the smaller burger patties, with several combined together, they were surprisingly enjoyable. All on its own, in a single burger or cheeseburger, there simply wasn’t enough substance. Raising the bar, the McDouble was a good starting point, but the Double Cheeseburger was even better. The difference between a Double Cheeseburger and a McDouble was quite small: a slice of cheese.

I enjoyed the additional cheese on this burger, and it provided a better balance of flavors. With the McDouble, I got just enough cheese flavor to hint that it is there, but with the Double Cheeseburger, I got an actual cheese flavored burger. It reminded me of all the times I’ve been told to add cheese on top of a casserole and the direction was something piddly like a half of a cup. That’s far too little. Extra cheese makes everything better, right?

As the name suggests, the Quarter Pounder with Cheese has slightly bigger beef patties than the regular Cheeseburgers, hamburgers, McDoubles, and Double Cheeseburgers. The one has a quarter pound patty on each one. You’ll also get a slice of cheese on top and below the burger patty with onions, pickles, ketchup, and mustard. The bun has sesame seeds on it, like the Big Mac bun.

If you’re feeling concerned for my health following McDonald’s link to a multistate E. Coli outbreak, never fear; the Quarter Pounder has returned to the menu. I found the Quarter Pounder with Cheese had the balance of flavors that was enjoyable, but it did have to overly rely on condiments. The solo patty, even though it is bigger than other burgers on the menu, still doesn’t feel like quite enough to compensate for the bun, which I found to be a little bit too firm. Although I’m always going to be a fan of sauces and condiments on a sandwich, if the bun is too firm, it just feels like I’m eating something close to Styrofoam. With more items on this burger, it would have been more enjoyable and placed higher on my ranking. There were improvements to be made, but it wasn’t a bad burger.

I found that the Quarter Pounder with bacon on it had a better balance of flavors than the regular Quarter Pounder with cheese, but the addition of the bacon wasn’t my favorite flavor choice. I enjoyed it more than Quarter Pounder with cheese, but with the bacon, it took on a little too much of a smoky flavor, which is something I don’t typically enjoy.

Predictably, the only addition to a Bacon Quarter Pounder with Cheese over a regular Quarter Pounder with Cheese is a couple pieces of bacon. I was impressed with the quality of the bacon, and it was cooked to a tenderness that I would certainly be happy with if I enjoyed bacon on my sandwiches, but I ended up peeling it off and giving it to my husband instead of enjoying it on the sandwich. With more fresh ingredients on top, the bacon would be more enjoyable, but without tomato and lettuce, the burger feels too meaty.

Full disclosure: This burger wasn’t originally on my to try list. It was only after trying the Double Cheeseburger that my husband and I both wanted to try the triple. We knew that the additional patties would likely make the burger better, and they certainly did.

The Triple Cheeseburger includes all the items that the double does but with one additional beef patty. Although the only difference between a McDouble and a Double Cheeseburger is a slice of cheese on the double, going up to a triple will not give you three slices of cheese. You could certainly ask for it, but I didn’t think it needed it. While my husband was happy with the balance of flavor, I felt that the triple would benefit with lettuce and tomatoes. I’ve learned through this tasting that the burgers in the deluxe line are definitely more my bag.

For many years now, my standing McDonald’s order has been a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese. This burger came with two patties that are a quarter pound (that amounted to a half pound of burger in total), two slices of cheese, slivered onions, and the condiments of ketchup and mustard.

I’ve always found it to be an enjoyable burger, but since trying the deluxe options, I see what I’ve been missing. Where the smaller burgers felt more like smash burgers, these Double Quarter Pounders feel more like McDonald’s burgers than others. They benefit from the thicker burger and additional cheese. While the name of the Big Mac makes it feel like it’s the big important burger on campus, the Quarter Pounder is really the star. If you’re looking for a beefy burger, this is your guy. And while I enjoyed this one as much as I always have, the deluxe burgers are better, and that’s why they’re my top two favorites.

In the world of deluxe McDonald’s burgers, the Quarter Pounder with Cheese Deluxe was my first entry, and it was absolutely loaded down. With a single quarter beef patty, two slices of American cheese sandwiching the burger patty, slices of tomatoes, lettuce, onions, pickles, mayo, ketchup, and mustard, this burger is dressed to the nines.

Sometimes, you need a burger that will work well on the go, and if you want an even split of a burger that is all dressed and one that you can take on the move, the Quarter Pounder with Cheese Deluxe is the pick. The only reason it isn’t in the number one spot is because I like the mix better with the Double Quarter Pounder.

After trying this deluxe burger, I got curious about the other deluxe burger on the menu, most notably the double, which would be the deluxe version of the Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese I’ve enjoyed many times before. Though the Quarter Pounder was good, the Double Quarter Pounder was even better.

A word of warning about the Double Quarter Pounder — order it with napkins. This was a very messy burger. It includes everything the Quarter Pounder includes and then one beef patty more. When I was originally planning out my burgers for this piece, I wasn’t planning on getting a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese Deluxe because I didn’t even realize it was an item on the menu. In fact, after doing a little digging, I discovered, according to one person on Reddit, this burger isn’t even an option in some markets. And I only discovered that I can purchase it at my local McDonald’s by visiting McDonald’s and seeing it on the self-serve or the order boards where I usually place my order. 

To order your own Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese Deluxe, if it doesn’t appear on the menu at your own location, you could always request an extra beef patty with the smaller version of the burger.

The extra beef patty added some sliding to the burger that just isn’t there with the single patty version. The ingredients slid around a lot, and though it is messier, I loved the mix here. It wasn’t the sandwich you’ll want to eat on the go or in times where your shirt needs to remain pristine, but in most instances, this will be my new go to. It reminded me of Dave’s Double from Wendy’s, my favorite fast food burger because of all the fresh ingredients. Prior to trying the deluxe options, I didn’t realize that McDonald’s could do fresh tasting burgers too. This is certainly my failing as a menu reader, but it was a nice discovery in any case.

McDonald’s sells as astounding number of burgers in a day, but I set my sights on ranking which ones were the best. So, my family and I enjoyed McDonald’s for lunch over the course of a week to complete a thorough tasting of the assembled burgers. When planning the burger sampling, I ensured that I included every burger on the base McDonald’s burger menu as it appears online (at the time of writing), but when I visited the actual McDonald’s location, I realized that there were a couple burgers not listed on the website. It’s not quite the same as a secret menu, but feels more like a few burgers that are more popular in certain markets. 

With this discovery, I decided to add a couple of more burgers to the assembled group to get that really in-depth look into what the chain offers. It may be that some burgers, like the Triple Cheeseburger or Double Quarter Pounder Deluxe with Cheese are not available in all markets, so you may wish to take that into account if you are trying any of these on your own.

For the ranking, I considered the overall flavor of the sandwich and the meat to condiment to bun balance. I originally intended to consider packaging as well, but that didn’t play as big of a part as I originally thought it might. For flavor, I looked for burgers that had a meat taste to them that wasn’t overwhelming beside the other traditional burger flavors. A balance of the various ingredients meant that no one single part overpowered the rest.