McDonald's McRib Review

Today, we review the 2024 release of McDonald’s McRib. The McRib is a restructured boneless pork patty sandwich shaped like a small rack of ribs. It made its debut in 1981 as a regular offering on the McDonald’s menu. The McRib came about because of a shortage of chicken that McDonald’s had encountered when trying to satisfy demand for its popular Chicken McNuggets. After a limited run in the Kansas City region, the McRib went national in 1982.

Eventually, poor sales led to McRib’s discontinuation in 1985. Although the McRib was discontinued, it had developed a dedicated cult following. In 1989, McDonald’s started bringing back McRib on a limited basis. Since 2006, it has been an annual limited-run release (mostly late in the year). It is worth noting that McRib remains a permanent part of the McDonald’s menu in Germany and Luxembourg.

Today’s review is for the 2024 release of McDonald’s McRib. The sandwich has used the same ingredients since its beginning. Officially, the nationwide launch is slated for December 3rd, but the McRib has been showing up just before Thanksgiving. This year, McDonald’s is also offering an opportunity to buy a jug of the McRib barbecue sauce.

The Construction

The following are the specifications that make up a McRib:

Boneless Restructured Pork Patty
Barbecue Sauce
Raw Slivered Onions
Pickle Slices
Lightly Toasted Bun
Dimensions: 6.5″ (Length)
Weight: 6.5 Ounces
Location Purchased: Stallings, NC
Amount Purchased: 3
Purchase Price: $5.19

Just before the release of the McRib in 2024, slivered onions on McDonald’s Quarter Pounder sandwiches were linked to an E. coli outbreak. McDonald’s took action on October 22, 2024 to remove slivered onions at select restaurants. By the first half of November, Quarter Pounder sales resumed with onions from a new supplier. The 2024 McRib did come with onion, but there is a note from McDonald’s saying the onion may not be available at some restaurants. It’s unclear if that was due to the E. coli breakout in October.

The Experience

We used the similar scoring as we did for Chicken Big Mac series for this assessment.

Pork Patty: 4 points
Bread: 2 points
Condiments (including sauce): 2 points
Intangibles: 2 points

Pork

As many know, the McRib uses restructured boneless pork. The U.S. Army developed restructured meat to deliver low-cost meat to the troops. The McRib is a patty made from ground pork flakes shaped to resemble a rack of ribs.

Whatever you think of restructured pork, the sandwich is tasty. The pork had a slightly smoky quality that didn’t come from the sauce. The restructured pork is also tender. I’m not trying to compare this to a premium pork shoulder, but I found it worked for what McRib is—a fast-food sandwich.

Score: 2.25 out of 4.00 points

Bread

The McRib bun is what I term “dusted.” We see this a lot on hoagie rolls—particularly on the bottom, but in this case, it’s on the top. Usually, this is a flour and corn meal combination, and the homestyle bun of the McRib lists both of these ingredients.

This is an enjoyable bun. It’s a little softer than I prefer, but it works for me. The fact that it’s lightly toasted also helps here.

Score: 1.25 out of 2 points

Condiments

First up, the sauce. There seemed a bit less on the 2024 edition than I’ve found on previous McRib releases, but there still was enough. This sauce has both smoky and tangy qualities. It’s delicious.

The pickles are your standard dill pickles. They are also delicious. The onions, usually the show’s star, were not. I cannot draw any conclusions about whether this was affected by a change in supplier, but these onions were pungent and lacked natural sweetness I’ve noted in the past. There aren’t a lot of onion slivers on this year’s McRib (eight to ten give or take).

Despite the onion, the pickle and barbecue sauce do enough to give the condiments a satisfactory score.

Score: 1.0 of out of 2 points

Intangibles

The formula for the McRib works. You put the components together, and it delivers a satisfying experience. If there are two differentiating factors with this year’s McRib are the quantity of the sauce and the quality of the onions.

First, as I mentioned above, there appears to be less sauce. When I look at a sandwich’s intangibles, I look at the “messy” factor. The sauce would ooze from the McRib in previous years – but not for 2024. The amount of sauce was just right, enhancing the dish.

As mentioned, the onions had pungency – something I don’t recall in previous years. I advocated for more onion in previous years, but not this year. The onion did throw off the overall flavor profile a bit, but the sauce and pickle helped mitigate this.

Score: 1.25 out of 2 points

OVERALL ASSESSMENT

To compare McRib to a traditional barbecue pork sandwich is not fair. This is not a slow cooked shredded pork sandwich, it is reconstructed for ground pork. Compared to a traditional fast food sandwich; this is something that is tasty and something I look forward to each year. Compared to conventional fast food, I also think it’s slightly above average. Not everyone will get past the reconstructed part, but that’s almost like fighting a religious war. Onions aside, I will still return to the McRib sandwich in 2025.