McDonald's Isn't Actually Putting Hollandaise Sauce On Its Bagel Breakfast Sandwiches

McDonald's breakfast is pretty well known at this point. It's also been thoroughly scrutinized, especially about whether or not you're getting real eggs. Some might even debate whether a certain breakfast sandwich is better with ham, bacon, or sausage. But one thing that's often overlooked is the sauce that goes on McDonald's breakfast bagels. Many people assume it's hollandaise, even going so far as to claim they have proof. However, McDonald's doesn't claim the sauce is hollandaise and that word isn't even used anywhere in the description of the bagel sandwiches.

According to McDonald's website, a breakfast bagel sandwich features a toasted and buttered bagel, topped with eggs, cheese, your protein of choice, and "creamy breakfast sauce." Both the bagel sandwiches and the sauce were introduced in 1999, and currently there are 25 ingredients listed in the breakfast sauce. A typical homemade hollandaise recipe uses about five ingredients, and while a made-from-scratch sauce will require less than a commercial version that uses preservatives and stabilizers, that's still a significant difference. In comparison, Knorr-brand hollandaise from Walmart only has 13 ingredients. The breakfast sauce offered at McDonald's simply has a lot of ingredients that a hollandaise does not.

Reddit discussions show plenty of disagreement over what the condiment could be, with some users calling it hollandaise and others arguing that it's something else. One Redditor found a middle ground and called it a "fast food version of hollandaise." To make matters slightly more complicated, some international locations, like McDonald's in Australia, actually offer real hollandaise sauce. That said, the Egg McMuffin was actually inspired by eggs Benedict, and McDonald's acknowledges that fact. However, hollandaise was replaced with cheese when it was created, and the McMuffin is still served without sauce.

Hollandaise is traditionally an emulsion of butter, egg yolk, and lemon juice or vinegar. Water, salt, Dijon mustard, and cayenne or white pepper are also optional, but not necessary. McDonald's breakfast sauce contains oil (instead of butter), along with egg whites and yolks, vinegar, and lemon. It also includes ingredients such as dehydrated cheddar cheese, yeast extract, natural smoke flavor, hydrolyzed vegetable protein, and buttermilk powder.

Hollandaise is one of the five mother sauces found in French cuisine and is a starting point for numerous other sauces, including Chantilly and mousseline. The most famous daughter sauce is Béarnaise, which is a little closer to the McDonald's breakfast sauce, thanks to the addition of some herbs, though the two sauces are still very different.

Former McDonald's corporate chef Mike Haracz is known to share many McDonald's recipes and tips online, and we previously wrote about his explanation of how to make McDonald's breakfast sauce. The recipe he shared boasts similarities to hollandaise due to its creamy base, Béarnaise because of the herbs, and even Mornay because of the cheese. Ultimately, breakfast sauce is its own condiment, and one that people seem to either love or hate. One Redditor compared it to "rancid ranch dressing." Another commenter said, "I love breakfast sauce. I always ask for extra."

If you're not a fan of McDonald's breakfast sauce, or you simply want to compare it with traditional hollandaise, your best bet is to follow our hollandaise sauce recipe and make your own bagel breakfast sandwich.