These 6 Fast Food Chains Make Breakfasts With Real Whole Eggs

Starting off the day with fast food might not be everyone's idea of a good breakfast, but if the craving hits it sure can be a delicious one. To get the most home-cooked taste, or just avoid hidden ingredients, opting for chains that use real whole eggs can make all the difference between an average fast-food start to the day and a great one.

The good news is that you have a few choices. Tim Hortons now uses freshly cracked eggs for 99% of its breakfast sandwiches and wraps (the one exception being the Swiss egg white wrap). The chain made a committment to using whole, freshly cracked eggs in 2021, previous to which they had used pre-made egg patties. In 2025, the restaurant also rolled out scrambled egg options made from fresh-cracked eggs.

It might surprise you to know that all Wendy's breakfast options use fresh cracked eggs – including muffins, biscuits, burritos, and croissants. The chain has previously promised to source only cage-free eggs as of 2020, but a rise in breakfast sales means that cage-free eggs now only account for 19% of their supplies. White Castle offers a much smaller selection to start the day, but order any breakfast slider or sandwich and it will come with a real, whole egg.

Other chains do use fresh eggs, but on selected products only. A notable example being the round egg featured on McDonald's McMuffins. The biscuits, griddles and bagels all use pre-made folded eggs, but you can request a round egg on these options to upgrade your McDonald's breakfast with a fresh egg. Jack in the Box and Whataburger use fresh cracked eggs on croissants and sandwiches, but not for the scrambled eggs featured in breakfast wraps, burritos, or bowls.

So if a chain isn't cracking eggs for cooking, what exactly goes on your breakfast sandwich? Depending on which chain you visit (and how cynical you are) the answer could be better or worse than what you expected.

In some cases, you are still getting whole eggs, but they're just not freshly cracked. This is the case with McDonald's scrambled eggs, as served on their Big Breakfast, which uses liquid eggs cooked to order. Its folded eggs, however, are produced off-site and shipped frozen to be reheated in store. These contain milk, food starch, salt, and citric acid along with whole eggs.

Chick-fil-A employees have stated on Reddit that the breakfast eggs are made to order using liquid eggs with nothing added. The chain's site doesn't mention how they are made, but the egg ingredients list includes water, salt, butter flavoring, xanthan gum, citric acid, coloring, and four types of oil. Those extra ingredients don't seem to hurt the taste though, as they rank highly on our favorite fast food breakfast list.

A lot of the same ingredients show up in Dunkin's eggs, which perhaps makes sense for the scrambled variety, but is somewhat disconcerting for the egg patties. These are not in fact whole eggs, but separate whites and yolks with additional ingredients, shaped to look like a single fried egg.

Taco Bell only offers scrambled eggs on its breakfast burritos and quesadillas, but how they prepare them has startled some diners. Rather than liquid eggs cooked to order, large bags of the mix are cooked sous vide style, then emptied into a tray and scooped out as needed. The mix itself is in line with what other chains use, with whole eggs, oil, salt, pepper, citric acid, guar gum, and xanthan gum.