The Genius Egg McMuffin Ordering Trick That Makes McDonald's Breakfast 10X Better

The Egg McMuffin is the heart of McDonald's breakfast menu. The chain uses around 2 billion eggs per year, and it's a safe bet most are served in these breakfast sandwiches. Egg McMuffins were introduced nationally in 1975. Originally available with cheese and Canadian bacon, the beloved menu item is now offered in variations that include bacon, sausage, and chicken. Most of these versions are tasty on their own, but there's one simple hack that can give any Egg McMuffin a flavor boost. Try ordering one with a sprinkle of grill seasoning.

This breakfast hack is recommended by former McDonald's corporate chef Mike Haracz on TikTok. Grill seasoning is what McDonald's calls the salt and pepper mix that it adds to hamburgers. However, this seasoning is not normally added to Egg McMuffins. The saltiness in McDonald's breakfast sandwiches generally comes from the cheese and meat. At home, you probably salt and pepper your eggs without thinking about it, so you may not notice their absence in an Egg McMuffin. But once you have one with the grill seasoning included, you won't want to go back.

It may not seem like much, but there's a reason that salt and pepper are the baseline seasonings for almost every savory dish. There are many things to learn about salt but the most important one is that it doesn't just add saltiness, it enhances flavors. On the other hand, pepper was once so valuable it was used as currency and rounds out any dish with a subtle heat and zip. Together, they elevate any kind of Egg McMuffin with a deeper, more balanced flavor. 

It might not be something you've thought about, but many restaurants, from diners to fast food chains, don't salt and pepper eggs for customers. It's left to the customer to salt and pepper to their taste. After all, some people avoid added salt for personal or health reasons, while others don't enjoy pepper. Some diners might like a little, some might like a lot. It's easier for restaurants to not season at all and leave eggs as a blank canvas to be seasoned later.

Because an Egg McMuffin is served wrapped up and ready to go, seasoning is easy to overlook. It's not as though the breakfast sandwich is overly bland with the other toppings included, either. But it could be so much better. Adding grill seasoning makes every part of it, from the English muffin and the egg to the cheese and meat, more satisfying.

You can also combine this addition with the hack of replacing your English muffin with hash browns to not only improve the flavor but the texture of your Egg McMuffin. If you want to give the pepper a boost for more heat and McDonald's Spicy Pepper sauce isn't available, another simple hack is to ask for some Spicy Buffalo sauce. You could also make the sandwich taste fresher by ordering a Bacon and Egg McMuffin and adding tomatoes to make a B.E.T. (bacon, egg, tomato) McMuffin; the salt and pepper bring out the vibrance of the tomato, so the freshness and acidity elevate every bite.