The One Thing McDonald's Does Better Than In-N-Out Every Time

As a native Californian who takes her fair share of short-to-moderate road trips, In-N-Out is a staple road trip lunch. While it's still fast food, it feels slightly healthier than other chains, especially because I always order a protein style Double-Double, which is one of the most nutritious burgers you can order at In-N-Out. However, the lack of bun — you replace the bun with lettuce for the protein style hack — does leave me craving carbs in the form of french fries. But sadly, no matter how much love I have for the California-centric burger chain, the fries at In-N-Out are vastly inferior to the fries at the world's biggest fast food burger chain — McDonald's. This is a constant point of contention for In-N-Out fans, discussed frequently on Reddit and elsewhere throughout social media.

Even if you order your fries at In-N-Out well-done, they still leave much to be desired in terms of texture. The only way to make In-N-Out's fries palatable is to order them animal-style, where the fries are so smothered in melted cheese, caramelized onions, and the restaurant's "spread," which is a sauce similar to thousand island. By then, of course, the fries are unrecognizable and merely a vehicle for their toppings. McDonald's fries are almost universally beloved, and for good reason. The fast food giant's french fries are crispy on the outside, fluffy and tender on the inside, and generously salted. 

So, why are the McD's fries so much tastier than the In-N-Out's counterpart? McDonald's fries are made with starchy potatoes like Shepody and Russet Burbank, which are just two of the four potato varieties McDonald's uses for its fries. The potato strips are fried in a blend of vegetable oils like canola, corn, and soybean (as well as hydrogenated soybean oil). Contrastingly, In-N-Out fries their potatoes in 100% sunflower oil, using fresh potatoes that are cut into strips right in the stores. While this method may sound more wholesome and in theory should lead to a better, fresher fry, it's actually one of the worst ways to cook french fries. 

McDonald's, on the other hand, uses potatoes that are blanched, patted dry, par-fried, then immediately frozen before they even reach the restaurant. When the potatoes are fried the first time, they are fried in an oil blend that has beef flavoring, which compensates for the switch away from using beef tallow as the restaurant's frying oil in the 1990s. It's possible that the added beef flavoring also contributes to the wow factor with McDonald's fries. 

The frozen, partially-fried potato strips are then fried again on-site, giving McDonald's fries their perfectly crispy exterior and fluffy interior. When making french fries, usually the best method for doing so is par-cooking the potatoes at a lower temperature first, then frying them a second time at a higher temperature. By only cooking the fries once — unfortunately for In-N-Out — you just don't get that desired texture when cooking french fries in a single go.