The Big Mac is a brand of hamburger sold by the international fast food restaurant chain McDonald's. It was introduced by a Greater Pittsburgh area franchisee in 1967 and expanded nationwide in 1968, and is regarded as McDonald's flagship product. The hamburger features a three-slice sesame-seed bun containing two beef patties, one slice of cheese, shredded lettuce, pickles, minced onions, and "special sauce" similar to thousand island dressing. Seasonal and regional variants have been offered, including chicken versions. The Big Mac is known worldwide and often used as a symbol of American capitalism and decadence. The Economist has used it as a reference point for comparing the cost of living in different countries – the Big Mac Index – as it is so widely available and is comparable across markets.
History The Big Mac was created by Jim Delligatti, who stated later he did not invent the Big Mac but merely copied the double deck hamburger marketed by the Big Boy hamburger chain since the 1940s. Delligatti operated several McDonald's restaurants in the Pittsburgh area. It was created in the kitchen of Delligatti's first McDonald's franchise, located on McKnight Road in suburban Ross Township. The Big Mac debuted at the McDonald's owned by Delligatti in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, on April 22, 1967, selling for US$0.45 (equivalent to $4.35 in 2025). It was designed to compete with Big Boy Restaurants' Big Boy hamburger. Eat'n Park was the Pittsburgh area's Big Boy franchisee at the time. The Big Mac proved popular and it was added to the menu of all U.S. McDonald's restaurants in 1968. The Big Mac had two previous names, both of which failed in the marketplace: the Aristocrat and the Blue Ribbon Burger. The third name, Big Mac, was created by Esther Glickstein Rose, a 21-year-old advertising secretary who worked at McDonald's corporate headquarters in Oak Brook, Illinois.
Product The Big Mac is made with two 1.6 oz (45 g) beef patties, a "special sauce" (similar to Thousand Island dressing), shredded iceberg lettuce, one processed American cheese slice, two slices of dill pickle, and minced onions, served on a three slice sesame seed bun. In October 2014, McDonald's released a behind-the-scenes video as part of its "Our Food. Your Questions." transparency campaign, with former MythBusters co-host Grant Imahara touring a Cargill facility to explain how the company's U.S. beef patties are made. On October 1, 2018, McDonald's announced that it would remove all artificial preservatives, flavors, and coloring from the Big Mac.
Sauce In the past, Big Mac Sauce was delivered to McDonald's restaurants in sealed canisters designed by Sealright, from which it was directly dispensed using a calibrated "sauce gun" that would dispense a specified amount with each pull of the trigger. In 2023, McDonald's introduced a new dispenser that uses soft bags of sauce and a plunger to compress the bag with a ratchet system. The new dispenser is also used for McChicken Sauce and tartare sauce. In 2012, McDonald's executive chef Dan Coudreaut released a YouTube video revealing the recipe of the sauce. It consists of store-bought mayonnaise, sweet pickle relish and yellow mustard whisked together with vinegar, garlic powder, onion powder and paprika. In 2018, McDonald's removed potassium sorbate, sodium benzoate, and calcium disodium EDTA from the sauce. The sauce is occasionally available for purchase for a limited time. The first time was in 2015. A 25 ml (0.85 U.S. fl oz) tube was available for purchase but only in restaurants in Australia. It was available again in 2020. A 50 ml (1.7 U.S. fl oz) pot was available for purchase but only in restaurants in the UK and Ireland. In 2023 and early 2024 it was available in Hungary. McDonald's Australia offers a "portion cup" of Big Mac Sauce as part of its regular menu.
Packaging The Big Mac was first served inside a collapsible square cardboard container with a circular piece of cardboard placed around the hamburger to hold it together. The cardboard container that was changed to a "clamshell" style, polystyrene foam container in the late 1970s. Polystyrene foam containers were phased out beginning in 1990, due to environmental concerns.
Advertising
"Two all-beef patties" jingle In 1974 McDonald's commissioned an advertising jingle which popularized the list of ingredients of the Big Mac: "Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame-seed bun." In 2008 McDonald's restaurants in Malaysia revived the slogan. The revival included the original prize of a free Big Mac if the customer was able to recite the slogan in under four seconds. It was released in May, along with the promotional Mega Mac, which had four beef patties instead of two.
McDonaldland character
McDonald's began a television advertising campaign appealing to children in 1971 featuring a fantasy world populated by Ronald McDonald and various mascots promoting McDonald's products. Some characters were also modeled in McDonald's store playground equipment. The Big Mac was represented by Officer Big Mac, a Keystone Cops-style policeman with a giant Big Mac sandwich for a head. The characters were revised after a 1973 plagiarism lawsuit brought by television puppeteers Sid and Marty Krofft because of similarities to their H.R. Pufnstuf characters. A modified Officer Big Mac continued in the commercials until 1985.
Hip-hop product placement In 2005 McDonald's began offering product placement rewards to hip hop artists who namechecked the Big Mac in their music, giving US$5 to the artist for every time a song mentioning the hamburger was played on the radio.
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