Photo: McDonald'sMcDouble
The value-menu workhorse, and the best deal McDonald’s has run for years. Two small patties, one slice of cheese between them, pickles, onions, ketchup and mustard. It is a Double Cheeseburger with one slice of cheese taken out, and that slice is the whole price difference. Order two and you have out-eaten a Big Mac for less money.
The story
McDonald’s spent the mid-2000s selling a double cheeseburger for a dollar, and by 2008 franchisees were telling head office that rising beef prices made every one of them a loss. The compromise was the McDouble: same two patties, one slice of cheese instead of two, same dollar. The double cheeseburger stayed on the menu at a higher price. It is one of the clearest examples of how the Dollar Menu shaped the food itself — a burger that exists because of a number rather than a recipe.
What’s inside
Make it at home
There is no copycat of the McDouble yet. Until there is, these recipes on the site come closest to it, judged by what goes into the bun.
- Shares beef and cheese
TOP 2McDonald's Quarter Pounder with Cheese (Copycat) - Shares beef, cheese and a double stack
Whopper (Copycat) - Shares beef and cheese
McLewis Burger - Shares beef and cheese
McDonald's Cheeseburger (Copycat)
The McDouble on YouTube
Everyone who has cooked, copied or taste-tested it on camera.
Similar burgers at other chains
Built around the same things as the McDouble.- Pickl · beef, cheese and a double stack
SignatureThe Original Cheeseburger - Wendy's · beef, cheese and a double stack
Double Stack - MEATliquor · beef, cheese and a double stack
Cheese - Vkusno i Tochka · beef, cheese and a double stack
Double Grand
More from McDonald's
About McDonald's
Nobody sells more burgers. McDonald’s began as a single drive-in run by Richard and Maurice McDonald in San Bernardino, California, and became a burger machine in 1948, when the brothers threw out most of the menu and rebuilt the kitchen like a production line. Ray Kroc, a salesman who sold them milkshake mixers, started franchising it in 1955 and later bought the brothers out.
More than 40,000 restaurants in over 100 countries.
Not affiliated with McDonald's. Trademarks belong to their owners. The photo is credited under it and is used to illustrate this menu item; it comes down on request.