Does McDonald's Have High Quality Chicken?

McDonald's reputation precedes it — at this point, it's one of the biggest fast food chain in the world based on revenue, and such a giant cultural force that the mere sight of the yellow "M" arches needs no further explanation. You'd be stretched to find someone who hasn't heard of or laid their hands on a Big Mac. But, when it comes to chicken, how does the franchise fare? Not so amazingly, according to our standards.

In our ranking of the best and worst fast food chicken on the market, McDonald's landed last in the chicken sandwich category, placing behind chains using fresher poultry, a shorter ingredient list, and a more hands-on preparation. The McCrispy may arrive looking like a straightforward fried chicken breast on a potato roll, but its journey to the drive thru is far more processed than its promising name suggests.

McDonald's does begin with chicken breast fillets containing rib meat, so this is not a mystery patty pretending to be poultry. The issue is everything built around that meat. The company's ingredient list also includes water, several flours and starches, multiple oils, sugar, leavening agents, natural flavors, an acidity regulator, and maltodextrin. Those additions may help the fillet hold moisture, maintain its coating and shape, and taste consistent across thousands of restaurants, but they also make it a much more processed product than a piece of chicken that has been seasoned, dredged, and fried in the restaurant.

Preparation widened the quality gap in our assessment. McCrispy fillets are breaded before they reach the restaurant and arrive frozen. Employees then fry them to order. That model may be efficient, but it doesn't allow the kitchen to create the freshly made, crispy, irregular crust associated with hand-breaded chicken. It can also produce a sandwich that varies noticeably in quality by location and order: Crisp and juicy on a good day, dense or dry when timing slips.

This inconsistency further matches our separate ranking of fast-food chicken sandwiches, where McDonald's landed at the bottom due to complaints from customers about the texture and flavor. Quality concerns here do not mean the chicken is fake or unsafe: The chain publishes its full McCrispy ingredient list, identifying chicken — as one hopes — as the first ingredient, and says that its chicken is antibiotic free.

The trouble is, as McDonald's model is set up, its chicken is primed for serviceability rather than the premium crunch. McDonald's will likely never have hand-breaded chicken precisely because it prioritizes speed, uniformity, and repeatability, while raw poultry would require training, equipment, and cross-contamination controls, thus posing further challenges. Outsourcing the breading might make McDonald's life, but it removes the seemingly small elements that can make a big difference in how much diners enjoy their fried bird, be it chopped up into nuggets or tossed in a bun.