Restaurants

McDonald's Adds the McChicken to Its Breakfast Menu

You'll never have to wait until 12 p.m. to eat your fave chicken sandwich ever again.

By Cheyenne Buckingham

January 28, 2020

mcchicken breakfast menu — Courtesy of McDonald's

Starting today, your go-to lunch order at McDonald's will be available during breakfast hours. Say hello to the Chicken McGriddle and McChicken Biscuit.

Now on those mornings where you wake up ravenous, you can head to McDonald's as early as 6 a.m. and pick up a satiating sandwich to quell those incessant hunger pangs. After a night of fasting, you're even more in the mood to smash a sweet and salty breakfast sandwich like the McGriddle or a doubly savory, Southern-style chicken and biscuit sandwich.

And to think that up until today, you'd have to wait until lunch to get your hands on the McChicken. Tomorrow, you roll up to the drive-thru and you can order one of two McChicken breakfast items on your way to work. The nutrition of these new breakfast sandwiches is relatively comparable to that of the tried-and-true lunch order.

Here's a quick nutritional rundown of each.

chicken mcgriddle — Courtesy of McDonald's

Per sandwich: 390 calories, 14 g fat (4.5 g saturated fat, 0 g trans fat), 980 mg sodium, 51 g carbs (2 g fiber, 14 g sugar), 14 g protein

If you've ever had a McGriddle before, you know the bun isn't your typical English muffin. The plush griddle cakes are filled with brown sugar which lends that unexpected sweetness, bite after bite. A tender, breaded chicken patty sits right in between them, making for a zestful morning pick-me-up.

Nutritionally speaking this sandwich could be healthier, with nearly 1,000 milligrams of sodium packed into a less-than-400-calorie sandwich is a bit much, especially considering the McChicken only contains about half of that amount at 560 milligrams. Also, because the sandwich is inherently sweeter, it contains about three times the sugar of its lunchtime counterpart.

chicken mcbiscuit — Courtesy of McDonald's

Per sandwich: 420 calories, 20 g fat (9 g saturated fat, 0 g trans fat), 1,040 mg sodium, 46 g carbs (2 g fiber, 2 g sugar), 14 g protein

This sandwich packs virtually no sugar, however, it does pack about twice the amount of saturated fat, and almost half of your day's worth for that matter. That's likely from the buttermilk biscuit which contains palm oil in addition to buttermilk. It too boasts a lot of excess sodium.

In short, both of these sandwiches are fun to have in moderation, which is why their launch deserves to be celebrated.

Cheyenne Buckingham

Cheyenne Buckingham is the news editor of Eat This, Not That!, specializing in food and drink coverage, and breaking down the science behind the latest health studies and information. Read more