8 Canadian McDonald's Menu Items To Try And 9 To Skip

When it comes to fast food places, I don't frequent McDonald's much (my son, on the other hand, is a fan of cheeseburger Happy Meals). As a vegetarian, I'm simply not as drawn to the humdrum burgers and fries, and McDonald's has been so slow to adopt a vegetarian burger to its menu (more on that later).

As one of Tasting Table's Canadian writers, though, I noticed that McDonald's Canada differed in many ways from its American sibling. Perhaps it's because the United States has so many more fast food places to visit, but the American McDonald's menu offered different items than the chain up north. As such, I took it upon myself to sample items that are available on Canadian McDonald's menus at the time of writing. I determined which Canadian McDonald's menu items are worth buying and which ones you should probably skip, based on strength of flavor, quality of texture, and overall enjoyability. Some tasters in my family helped judge the chicken items in this list.

Cold foam seems to be everywhere these days (another Tasting Table writer ranked 13 flavors of Starbucks cold foam), and McDonald's wasn't shy about dipping its toe into these foamy waters with its line of Cloud Iced Coffees. Unfortunately, this French Vanilla Cloud Iced Coffee wasn't a success.

To begin, it tasted watery, with not much sweetness or vanilla flavor. I had to double-check the label on the side to make sure I hadn't received the wrong order. Unless the sticker deceived me, what I was tasting was purported to be French vanilla –– I just couldn't detect any of it. This tasted like a plain iced coffee, and coming off my newfound love for Tim Hortons Iced Vanilla Latte when I ranked that chain's cold drinks, I couldn't help but compare the two. Even once well-stirred, this wasn't as good and lacked the creaminess I expect in a cold foam drink. With no vanilla in sight, either, this was an easy drink to skip.

Perhaps this isn't as vibrantly rainbow-sprinkled as I expected, but that's probably because these sprinkles use natural dyes like annatto, paprika extract, spirulina, and turmeric, so I can't fault McDonald's for eschewing artificial colors, especially in a treat that's designed to appeal to kids.

This soft-baked cookie was properly baked, maintaining a nice pliability. The combination of white confectionery chips and rainbow sprinkles could have been too sweet, but I tasted a nice bit of salt towards the end, which kept things balanced. Plus, this cookie smelled good! It reminded me of a box of Funfetti cake mix –– some much better than others according to a previous ranking –– and I enjoyed the nostalgia that it evoked. The white confectionery chips were nicely caramelized, and the ratio between chocolate and sprinkles was good.

You can absolutely get better bakery-style cookies elsewhere, but if you're craving something sweet that's easy to eat while driving (and is appealing to kids), this cookie is worth the buy.

McDonald's is never going to have a reputation as a health food restaurant, but you can almost feel healthy ordering this Blueberry Pomegranate Smoothie. McDonald's claims it has real fruit in it, with fruit purees and water. However, a look at the ingredients shows that it has more to it than that. While there are blueberry, strawberry, and raspberry purees and pomegranate juice, there's also a bunch of other juices from concentrate (pineapple, apple, peach, pear) as well as stabilizers like xanthan gum and pectin. McDonald's gives the option to order the smoothie with yogurt, but I stuck to the menu default without it.

This is a slightly thinner smoothie (yogurt would've thickened it up, I imagine), and it was more tart than sweet, despite my small size containing 48 grams of sugar. The thing is, I regularly make smoothies and didn't find the McDonald's version worth spending money on. This is maybe worth trying if you are on the run, craving something fresh, and have nowhere else to go, but otherwise I suggest you skip it.

McDonald's has been late to the party when it comes to catering to vegetarians (there are other fast food chains for those who don't eat meat), but it did a decent job when it created the McVeggie. This sandwich stars a breaded veggie patty made with carrots, green beans, soybeans, peas, zucchini, broccoli, and corn, and you can actually see and taste them. That's important when you consider the only other toppings here are lettuce and mayonnaise.

This sandwich has a great texture, with a crisp that doesn't get soggy under the mayonnaise, and lettuce that doesn't wilt. The patty itself isn't dry, either, with all those veggies acting as moist-makers. If I were to change anything on the McVeggie, I'd add some pickles. A briny element would give some tang and lift to keep this vegetarian offering from feeling too one-note, but I can safely say that this is definitely a buy.

In the spirit of full disclosure, dear reader, I ordered crispy chicken for every wrap. I worried that choosing grilled chicken would do a disservice to McDonald's, and thought I'd give them a fighting chance by choosing crispy chicken instead. Alas, even that leg-up didn't help this Sweet Chili Chicken McWrap.

Despite having "sweet chili" in the name, this wrap was bland. While McDonald's says there's supposed to be mayo, I didn't receive it, and the result was a much drier bite. I also didn't get any cucumbers, which meant that this wrap was only breaded chicken, lettuce (which was wet), sweet chili sauce, and a tortilla. What little sweet chili sauce was on it was nice with a gentle heat, but there wasn't enough to balance out the bready elements. If I had tried this wrap with all its components, would I suggest buying it? Perhaps, but you can't judge what you can't taste, and based on what was received, this wrap is a firm skip.

After the poor showing of the French Vanilla Cloud Iced Coffee, I set my expectations lower for the salted caramel version. Fortunately, even from the first whiff through the plastic lid, I knew I would be getting something better.

Unlike the French Vanilla, the Salted Caramel Cloud Iced Coffee did, in fact, taste like caramel. The cold foam did its job, too, lending a lovely creaminess to every sip that didn't feel too rich or overpowering. While the "salt" of the "salted caramel" was debatable, it was still much more delicious than the previous version. As someone who normally opts for vanilla flavoring in my iced coffee, I was pleasantly surprised that caramel won me over here. I suggest giving this coffee a try if you like a sweet, refreshing iced coffee with just a bit of richness.

I've spoken about the superior status of Canadian Smarties to American M&M's before in a previous article about candies you'll only find on Canadian shelves. Our version of the candy-coated chocolate discs is (in my opinion) better in many ways, but unfortunately, mixed into a McDonald's McFlurry is not one of them.

The vanilla soft serve within my McFlurry was nicely milky and creamy (although I'm partial to Dairy Queen Blizzards when comparing the two), and there was enough crunch from the Smarties. However, the advantages of Smarties –– specifically, the quality of chocolate they contain –– don't shine here. The cold temperature of the McFlurry makes the Smarties candies more textural than flavorful, which is why I believe M&M's would be the better choice here. Their thinner shells allow for a more even distribution and incorporation throughout the soft serve. Instead, the Smarties in this McFlurry largely sank to the bottom and congealed into a hard, chocolatey mass. I can't in good conscience recommend trying this version and think it's one to be skipped.

Americans are probably unfamiliar with the Junior Chicken Sandwich, which is a staple on the McDonald's Canada Value Menu. It's a breaded chicken patty topped with lettuce and mayonnaise on a bun. For the purposes of this article, I chose the Sweet Chili Junior Chicken, which also adds sweet chili sauce.

It seems the sweet chili sauce that was missing from the Sweet Chili Chicken McWrap was put on this sandwich instead, because it was dripping with the stuff. However, it was delicious combined with the mayonnaise. The sweet chili sauce leaned more sweet than heat, but the heat it had was nicely cooled by the mayo. The chicken patty was moist but could be crispier, likely due to the sauce overkill.

However, the taster who is a big fan of the OG Junior Chicken loved this sandwich and finished the entire thing. If you're a Canadian fan of the same sandwich, you will absolutely love the sweet chili version, which adds a little extra oomph.

If you advertise something as being s'mores-flavored, I expect three components: marshmallow, chocolate, and graham cracker. McDonald's didn't deliver on two of the three elements of s'mores, which is why this cookie earned itself a "skip" status.

The cookie itself was underdone with a blonder bottom, but it was also verging on stale, giving it an unpleasant chewiness that couldn't be mistaken for fresh-baked. While marshmallow was visible and detectable in bites, it wasn't evenly distributed throughout the cookie. And where was the graham cracker? The McDonald's website mentions "graham-style pieces," but they were nowhere to be seen or tasted. In a recent Tasting Table ranking of s'mores-flavored treats and candies, items ranked low if they didn't meet the criteria of tasting like s'mores, and the same goes for this cookie. 

My fellow tasters and I agreed that the Cloud Iced Coffee was better than the French Vanilla. I found that the Original Cloud Iced Coffee was the creamiest of the three, with a richer mouthfeel. I also think that I enjoyed this original flavor more because it wasn't promising a flavor it didn't deliver. While the Salted Caramel Cloud Iced Coffee was definitely caramel-forward (though lacking in salt), the French Vanilla had nothing to it at all. 

The Original, as vague as its name may be, implied a generic sweet creaminess. The cold foam in this drink was doing the heavy lifting, but I think that made it better. If you're going to advertise a drink as starring cold foam, make sure the cold foam is the feature player. The Original Cloud Iced Coffee does that, and it's a buy for that reason.

I know a thing or two about donuts, having made thousands in my life and, more recently, a ranking of Tim Hortons donuts. Suffice it to say, I know when a donut is good and when one is bad. Much to my chagrin, the Berry McPop –– McDonald's version of a small, filled donut –– is pretty bad.

While it looks cute enough, with a pink color thanks to beet juice, both the flavor and texture were misses. There was a decent amount of filling, although it verged on synthetic. I expected to taste some berry flavor in the donut shell as well, but there was nothing. The shell itself tasted overworked and tough, like too much kneading had gone into the dough, likely to evenly disperse the beet juice for a homogenous pink hue. The shell of this McPop –– the biggest part of the entire bite –– was therefore a letdown, with a chewy, mochi-like texture and zero flavor. Even the powdered sugar on top didn't add much beyond a need to wipe my hands afterwards.

While the Smarties McFlurry failed, the Skor McFlurry triumphed. The buttery, chocolatey, toffee-like bar with almonds did an excellent job of infusing its flavor throughout the entire McFlurry.

While I'm not that partial to Skor bars, finding the toffee to be more of the tooth-sticking variety, it was unanimous that the McFlurry brings out the best of Skor bars. The shards of Skor are tiny, which means there's a mouthful in every bite. Each spoonful had a nice crunch as well as delicious flavor, which is more than I can say for the Smarties version. The nuttiness of the almonds was present too, giving this McFlurry a sense of sophistication. I've been a longtime Oreo McFlurry girl (ideally with a swirl of caramel sauce added), but this taste test might have just convinced me to pick up a Skor McFlurry the next time I have a craving.

When I placed my order on the McDonald's app, I ordered the three McPop flavors: berry, white chocolate, and hazelnut & cocoa. My store didn't give me the hazelnut & cocoa McPop, and so I could only rank the berry and white chocolate options. Unfortunately, the white chocolate also didn't fare well, which leads me to think the whole McPop line is a McFlop.

There was hardly any filling in this donut, and I wonder if what little there was soaked into the donut shell, because the dough itself tasted better than the berry version. The filling I did get tasted merely of melted white chocolate chips. I don't know if I expected a white chocolate custard or some sort of cream, but the white chocolate was gluey and stuck to the roof of my mouth. This donut was a miss, and I'd skip it, despite costing just a dollar.

When fast food chains label something as "spicy," I'm expecting some real heat. As it turned out, McDonald's wasn't joking when it named this sandwich the Spicy McVeggie, because there was definitely some spice here.

One taster said the sandwich –– which is the same as the original McVeggie with the addition of a creamy habanero sauce –– was quite spicy and lingered on the tongue. I thought the sauce provided flavor as well as spice without blowing out my palate. The veggies within the sandwich's patty took a bit of a backseat to the sauce, but that wasn't a bad thing. Another taster said that adding a slice of cheese to this sandwich would raise it to elite levels, offering some creaminess to offset the heat without making the breaded veggie patty soggy. This is a definite buy for vegetarians who can handle the spice, and is hearty enough for even meat-eaters to enjoy.

One thing this wrap wasn't skimping on was the chicken. The substantial amount of breaded chicken was close to being overwhelming, but that's mostly because the other elements in this wrap didn't pull their own weight. This wrap was advertised as having chicken and bacon, but the bacon was hardly there. With no crisp bacon, slimy lettuce, and breaded chicken, there wasn't much textural difference in this wrap.

This McWrap also contained tomatoes, which were hardly noticeable, and cucumbers, which were nice, but felt a bit out of place. There was a mayo-type sauce, but not enough of it, which made it dry. While the chicken was well-cooked, it wasn't enough to save this wrap from tasting bland. This wrap is a skip.

All the meat-eaters on my tasting team agreed that this Creamy Chipotle Crispy Chicken McWrap was the best wrap sampled. The tortilla strips inside maintained their crunch, which underscores how badly the bacon in the previous wrap needed to be crispy to give some textural differentiation.

The chipotle sauce in this wrap was nice and smoky, and there was enough of it, unlike the Sweet Chili Chicken Crispy McWrap. The spice level was manageable and worked well as a flavor enhancer combined with the smokiness.  provided some freshness that felt well-matched with the other fried elements, and the end result was more cohesive than the previous wraps.

It pains me to put poutine, one of Canada's greatest dishes, as one of the items to skip at McDonald's Canada. Fortunately, as a Canadian, there are many other places I can get my poutine fix, and I would go to all of them before relying on McDonald's.

I do appreciate that this fast food poutine uses cheese curds, rather than shredded cheese, even if the curds aren't of the highest quality. McDonald's fries are famous, but they simply don't hold up well to poutine. The exterior of McDonald's fries is too thin, which makes them soggy under the gravy. Crispier fries are needed to hold up the weight of cheese and gravy. The gravy itself is fine, but there wasn't enough of it, as you can see from this picture. This was a lackluster poutine and one to skip.

For this ranking, I sampled a variety of McDonald's Canada items across the menu, excluding breakfast products. I relied on other tasters in my family to give me a more well-rounded review, but ultimately relied on myself to make the final decision as to whether an item was worth purchasing. 

I considered each item to determine whether it was flavorful and if the texture was enjoyable (crispiness, freshness, and creaminess were all factors). Bland, soggy, or one-note items inevitably were relegated to skip status. Price was a consideration, and, if an item was fine but not deemed worth the money (like the smoothie), I decided to skip it. All items were ordered as-is, without any modifications to have the most unbiased perspective.