Why McDonald's Fries Taste So Different From Other Fast Food Chains'

McDonald's makes french fries that are so popular, the restaurant chain refers to them as World Famous Fries. Like much of the chain's food, its fries have a signature taste that was developed by design. They're different from other fast food fries in one distinct way, with the restaurant using a secret ingredient that makes McDonald's fry oil so flavorful: natural beef flavor.

Natural beef flavor adds umami, a savory taste that's reminiscent of a good burger, making these french fries the ultimate complement to a McDonald's Big Mac or Quarter Pounder. The umami from the beef flavoring adds a unique characteristic to McDonald's french fries that differentiates them from other fast food restaurants. The taste of beef flavoring complements a consistently seasoned fry that includes not just salt, but extra-fine salt, which clings to the potato. The recipe also includes dextrose (corn or wheat sugar), which, according to a story reported by ABC, is added before frying to ensure a golden color. Dextrose can also make the fries slightly sweet. 

All of these ingredients work together to create the iconic flavor of World Famous Fries; yet, the real distinction for lovers of McDonald's fries is the beef flavor. The ingredients in fries from restaurant chains such as Burger King, Wendy's, and Chick-fil-A, among others, contain a different set of ingredients — cooking fries in a similar oil blend as McDonald's, but without adding anything like beef flavoring.

The beef flavoring in McDonald's fries, which contains hydrolyzed wheat and hydrolyzed milk, is added to a neutral frying oil that includes a blend of canola, corn, soybean, and hydrogenated soybean oils. While the beef flavoring is a unique attraction, the french fries McDonald's serves are not quite the same as its original fries, which is why McDonald's french fries don't taste as good as you remember. Early McDonald's fries were cooked in beef tallow, but the restaurant changed the recipe in the early 1990s, mainly because of beef tallow's saturated fats.

Frying them in beef tallow made the fries crispy, cooked them evenly because of tallow's high smoke point, and contributed more desirable umami flavoring than the new recipe. The flavor of fries cooked in beef tallow is considered by some to be more flavorful than fries cooked in vegetable oil. Using it is one way home cooks can make fries that taste just like McDonald's. On Reddit, one individual remembered the taste of the original fries and suggested, "It's not just that they were crisp and slightly sweet, the texture was accented by a slightly beefy taste. Think of smelling a grill cooking steaks and burgers. Now crunch that. Yum!"

To make up for the difference, in addition to adding beef flavor, McDonald's chooses select varieties of potatoes that cook up crispy on the outside and soft inside, and they're partially fried and frozen before reaching the restaurant for crunch and color. Though they're not the same as the original fries cooked in beef tallow, McDonald's fries are still a distinctive french fry in the world of fast food.