McDonald's Former Chef Provides Tips For A Tasty Homemade McRib

There's nothing quite like the elusive McRib to get McDonald's customers excited. The barbecue pork sandwich is known to be a limited-time offering, appearing sporadically on McDonald's menus throughout the year. Despite McDonald's claiming 2022 as a farewell tour, the restaurant couldn't resist bringing the sandwich back for fall 2023. Still, customers sometimes wonder if the McRib may have returned for the last time ever. 

Fortunately, if you have a hankering for a McRib when the item isn't on the menu, you can always make a copycat version yourself, and thanks to McDonald's former chef, you can now make your McRib more accurate to the real thing. Taking to TikTok, Chef Mike Haracz pointed to a few pitfalls that you should avoid if you're making the sandwich at home. For one, you probably don't have to go through the hassle of painting on grill marks. According to Haracz, McDonald's version of the sandwich doesn't actually have grill marks. He said, "What you could have done is you get metal skewers and just heat them up 1,000 degrees and burn in the actual kind of grill mark."

Likewise, you should consider letting your patty sit in warm barbecue sauce for close to an hour. This allows the patty to soak in the flavor. 

Those are just a couple of tips to bring your McRib closer to the real thing. However, if you're fixing the McRib at home, you can always one-up McDonald's by improving the quality of the meat used. According to CNBC, McDonald's McRibs are made of ground boneless pork picnic. The meat goes through an industrial grinder, which combines the meat with water, as well as seasonings and preservatives, to form the sandwich's signature patty. 

@chefmikeharacz

#duet with @Meatdad Former #McDonalds corporate chef rates a #McRib made at home. #mcdonaldshacks #mcdonaldssecrets #mcdonaldshack #McDonaldsLife #McDonaldsMenu #mcdonaldsmcrib #mcribisback #mcribszn #mcribs #mcribsandwich #mcribseason #mcribarmy #FastFood #FastFoodSecrets

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If you don't have a grinder at home, then you'll have to get creative. Some opt to remove the rib patties from frozen TV dinners since they have a similar consistency and taste to those used in the McRib sandwich. However, you can always pimp out your McRib by using real ribs instead. Our Pimped-Out McRib recipe calls for St. Louis-style spare ribs, but you can always try out different styles of ribs. For the recipe, you'll season and cover your ribs in barbecue sauce before allowing them to cook in the oven for several hours. A slow cook will make the meat soft and tender, and the bones should practically slide out. Once deboned, it's all a matter of preparing your sandwich. It won't taste exactly like McDonald's — it should taste better. 

Fixing a McRib at home seems to break one of the cardinal tenets of why people love fast food in the first place — convenience and speed. In a perfect world, the McRib would be around all year long. It begs the question that many McDonald's fans have asked at one time or another — why is the McRib so scarce? 

The McRib follows the rules of supply and demand. Since McDonald's uses a large quantity of pork to make its sandwiches, it can't keep the McRib on the menu permanently. It saves money by making the sandwich a seasonal item, avoiding raising the cost of pork in the process. Roger Mandigo, one of the inventors of the sandwich, told the Lincoln Journal Star that McDonald's faces a supply issue when it comes to the sandwich. He said, "If you suddenly start to buy a large amount of that material, the price starts to rise."

This is likely the main reason why the sandwich is seasonal, but the other reason is that absence makes the heart grow fonder. By treating the McRib as a limited-time event, McDonald's can build hype for the product when it returns. As a result, it sells large quantities of the sandwich. So, if you're ever hungry for a McRib in the off-season, you'll have to settle for making one at home.