Working behind the golden arches isn’t just about flipping burgers and asking if you want fries with that. After diving deep into employee confessions and insider reports from former McDonald’s workers, some fascinating secrets have emerged that the company probably prefers to keep quiet. These revelations come from people who’ve actually worked the fryers, operated the registers, and witnessed the inner workings of one of the world’s largest fast-food chains.
The Fresh Food Hack That Changes Everything
The Reddit user advised ordering meat and fries without salt to ensure they’re made fresh. This is because McDonald’s staff “have to salt and season every piece of beef that crosses the grill and every fry that takes a dunk in the fryer”. By asking for no salt, your order becomes a special request, necessitating freshly cooked food to comply with your needs. This insider tip means you can get piping hot, made-to-order food every single time. As a former employee confirmed, “you could ask for anything you wanted fresh. To anyone reading this – when its late or low-key hours at McDonald’s, order your shit fresh. The max cook time is like 5 or 6 minutes for nuggets, 4 minutes for any beef.” The trade-off is waiting a few extra minutes, something many customers don’t realize they can do. They’re gonna fry them fresh for you if you ask for saltless fries. Don’t do this when you’re in a hurry, you know? If the fries are yellow/brown, the oil hasn’t been changed in a long time. If they come out white/very pale yellow, they’re made in fresh oil.
The Secret Behind McDonald’s Different Egg Types
The round eggs on the McMuffin come from fresh-cracked eggs, Haracz informs us. “The round egg is the freshest, best quality from the consumer standpoint,” he says. Meanwhile, his least favorite is the folded egg, which is stocked as a frozen, fully cooked egg square and heated up before it’s placed on the chain’s biscuit and bagel sandwiches. This means if you’re ordering breakfast, specifically requesting the round egg option will get you actual fresh eggs. Folded eggs are made from a pasteurised egg mixture (which also contains water, xanthan gum and other additives), and they’re shipped to stores already cooked. Round eggs – which are used in McMuffins – are cooked in store; fresh eggs are simply steamed in a ring mould. Sandwiches with round egg use real, cracked eggs. Folded and scrambled come from packaged goods in the freezer or fridge.
The McDonald’s App Glitch That Gave Away Free Food
There is a glitch with the McDonald’s app. There is a ‘deals’ section and it usually has a coupon for a free cookie or free apple pie with any order. Add it to your order and you get the free cookie. Then, the next time you order from the app, just reorder your last meal (you can add/subtract whatever you want) but the free cookie will still be there. The glitch is that you can add another free cookie from the deals section, and now you have two free cookies. Some employees have revealed that using both drive-thru and in-store app codes simultaneously can result in receiving both orders for free, as workers will prepare them together. Former employees discovered various ways to exploit the app’s coding vulnerabilities for legitimate free items. It worked by gaming the quantity of the items on the mobile app by tricking the UI state. eventually you could get it to allow you to submit the order the backend didnt double check because sales/coupons.
The Drive-Thru Speaker Hears Absolutely Everything
While the quality of the speakers at a drive-through window can vary, it’s best to assume employees inside the restaurant can hear everything happening in your car even before you place an order. “The speaker is activated by the metal in the car, so as soon as you drive up, the speaker turns on in our headset,” Andy says. “We can hear everything, and I do mean everything. Loud music, yelling at your kids to shut up, etc.” “The drive-thru speaker hears EVERYTHING.” “The drive-thru speaker hears EVERYTHING.” This means every private conversation, every phone call, and every embarrassing moment in your car is broadcast directly to the employees wearing headsets inside. Workers have heard arguments between couples, personal phone calls, and parents disciplining children.
The Real Reason Ice Cream Machines Are Always “Broken”
The machine that churns out your McFlurries and milkshakes is a complicated piece of equipment that needs to be broken down and cleaned frequently, and only some employees are trained for the task, Haracz explains. Sometimes, that disassembly has to be done during prime hours. According to a 2017 article in the Wall Street Journal, the reason most given is that the McDonald’s ice cream machines take nearly four hours to clean and sanitize, and this process must be done every day. McDonald’s employees usually tell you the same thing. So when the machine is being cleaned during opening hours, ice cream cannot be served. Likewise, during busy times at the restaurant, the staff has no time to do the cleaning. A more controversial reason is that only technicians from the company that produces McFlurry machines, Taylor, are allowed to service them. As Wired explained in a 2021 report, the set-up is “nothing short of a milkshake shakedown: Sell franchisees a complicated and fragile machine. Prevent them from figuring out why it constantly breaks. Take a cut of the distributors’ profit from the repairs.”
The Burger Seasoning Recipe That’s Surprisingly Simple
As it turns out, McDonald’s burger seasoning is super simple to make and doesn’t involve anything fancy. It’s just salt and pepper! But to get it right, you’ll want to nail the 86-14 proportions, Haracz says. To be precise, get out a food scale and weigh out 8.6 grams of salt and 1.4 grams of cracked pepper before smothering it all over your burger. This might surprise you, but our burgers are made of high-quality meat. The only ingredients we add are salt and pepper. This incredibly basic seasoning blend is what gives McDonald’s burgers their distinctive taste. McDonald’s burger seasoning is so easy to make at home. Chef Mike Haracz says it’s just salt and pepper in the right proportions. You’ll need 86 percent salt and 14 percent pepper to match the flavor. If you want to be exact, use a food scale and measure 8.6 grams of salt and 1.4 grams of cracked pepper. Mix them and sprinkle them on your burger. It’s simple, and it’s the same seasoning used in their kitchens.
The Apple Pie Time Bomb Nobody Talks About
There were plenty of instances of users asking what the oldest food in the store was. The answer was always the pies, which can sit in the warmer for hours, even all day in some instances. Since they’re among the least-ordered items on our menu, they can stay on the shelves for a long time. Translation: They might not be as fresh as you think. A few cooks mentioned that a Filet-O-Fish has a 30-minute window before it’s thrown away. This isn’t exactly the freshest fish in the world we’re talking about. This pollack wasn’t swimming this morning. Request a fresh one; you don’t want the 29-minute-old fish. The apple pies can literally sit under heat lamps for most of a business day, making them potentially the oldest item you could order.
