Make Your Own Big Mac

Intro: Make Your Own Big Mac

Big Mac is probably the most famous burger on earth. Wherever you go, whatever country you are in, you can always get a Big Mac. But wouldn't it be neat to just make one at home? Well, now you can! Here's a step by step recipe for a perfect Big Mac. It even contains freshly made buns!

Free advice: serve with delicious parsnip fries to impress your guests!

STEP 1: Ingredients

This makes two Big Macs

Buns (makes about 4)
1 cup Water
1 cup Milk
2 tbs Sugar
7g/0,25oz Yeast
300g/10,6oz Flour
1 tsp Salt

1 tbs Milk
1 tbs Water
Sesame seeds

Between the buns
500 grams/1 pound Minced beef
1 Onion
Pickles
Cheddar
Lettuce
Pepper
Salt

Sauce
1 tbs Mayonnaise
1 tbs Ketchup
1 tbs Sandwich spread with herbs
Chili powder

STEP 2: Let's Make Some Buns!

Mix a cup of warm water and a cup of warm milk in a big bowl. Stir in the two tbs of sugar. Add the yeast and stir that as well. Meanwhile, mix the flour with the salt in another bowl. Now it's time to get dirty! Grab a cup and start adding the flour slowly to the milky mixture, while kneading the goo with your other hand! Don't stop until all the flour is gone and you're left with a non-sticky dough. Knead it into a ball and leave it in the bowl. Let is rise for about an hour in a warm envoriment. You can put it near a heater or, like me, put it in an oven at about 40 degrees C(100 degrees F).

After an hour the dough should have doubled in size. Knead it for a few minutes and devide it into 4 balls. Put them on a baking sheet with baking paper. Cover with a teatowel and let it rise a little more for about 15 minutes. Preheat the oven at 190 degrees C(327 degrees F). Mix a tbs of water with a tbs of milk. Smear a little of this on the buns. First remove the towel ofcourse. Cover the buns with sesame seeds and shove 'em in the oven! Let them bake for about 15 to 20 minutes.

STEP 3: Secret Sauce!

The recipe to the Big Mac sauce is secret, but I have found one that tastes almost the same! Your guests won't notice the difference. It's very simple. Mix a tbs of mayonnaise with a tbs of ketchup. Mix in a tbs of sandwich spread with herbs. Add a pinch of chili powder and voila! There's your perfect copy of the secret sauce.

STEP 4: Between the Buns!

Now it's time for the patty. Season the beef mince with some salt and pepper. Make 4 patties out of it. Heat up a little olive oil in a grill pan and bake the hamburgers. You can also use a normal pan or a contact grill. It doesn't matter, as long as you bake the beef! Meanwhile, chop the onion and pickles.

STEP 5: Start Building the Big Mac

Divide a bun in three pieces. On the bottom piece you start with a bit of sauce. Then you add a bit of lettuce. On top of that you put a slice of cheddar. Next you add a patty. Put some onion and pickle on top of that and add the middle bun. On the middle bun you start with another layer of sauce. After that comes the lettuce. Then you add another patty and top that with some onion and pickles. Finish it with the top bun. It's done! It looks like a Big Mac and it also tastes like one. The only difference is that this one tastes a lot fresher and is a bit less greasy. Wonderful!

Serve it with some healthy parsnip fries. Don't know how to make those? Don't worry. I made you this simple Instructable!

Comments

[medic16]

I would like to try to make my own Big Mac burger very soon!!!!

[guy90]

We tried this earlier, tasted goooooood! The meat is juicier, the sauce is tastier and all in all it's a lot less greasy :-)
Thank you for the upload

[Everythingbutfish]

Yummmmmmmmm

[Smokio]

Big Mac 2.0? It has 'honest' meat in it for a start. Good job :)

[Nick_Zouein]

Sorry to tell you that your "Burger Buns" Flour/liquid ratio is not correct. 300g of Flour are not enough for 2 cups of liquid, you'll need nearly double the flour amount.

[anoukkantelberg]

I don't know what kind of flour you used, but I didn't need more than 300g. :) You might need a few grams extra, but double the amount? I can't imagine.

[Jared_Reabow]

Here you go guys :)
big mac sauce ingredients

[jtmax24]

It doesn't look like an official Big Mac. It looks a hellava lot better! I love your recipe so much more, and that you showed how to make homemade buns. Keep up the great work!

[SpringRobin]

Yum! That looks good! Definitely going to add it to my list to try.

[obtunder]

     Many years ago, I served as General Manager for a medium volume McDonald's in Mississippi. I was a graduate of the corporate training facility "Hamburger U".
     Your recipe is very close, but there are several items I'd like to point out, if I may. Yes, the buns are toasted on all sides. This was done in a special 3-platen timed toaster. The meat patties were shipped frozen to us in 35 lb boxes. The standard size pattie for ALL McD's products (except quarter pounders, of course) is the 10:1 pattie, that is, 10 patties per pound before cooking. The patties were cooked (this was a long time ago...) for 30 seconds on each side on a stainless steel grill at 350 degrees. The meat was sprinkled with a salt & pepper mix when turned, and the rehydrated onions were applied. Most people were unaware that this is what gave the McDonald's, and indeed the area around it, that wonderful smell.
     While the meat was cooking, the toasted buns were dressed with a "Squirt" of Big Mac sauce on the heel and club section, 1 -2 ounces of shredded lettuce on each, a slice of yellow American cheese on the heel and two pickle slices on the club. The meat was added fresh from the grill, the crowns applied, and the tray passed forward where the two parts were put together and packaged. The holding time for the completed product was 10 minutes in the heated bin, which was scrupulously enforced.
     As for the Big Mac sauce, the corporation will ALWAYS try to put a little spin on the complexity of the recipe, hence the videos of their executive Head Chef, saying that it contains mayonnaise, sweet pickle relish, yellow mustard, white wine vinegar, garlic powder, onion powder, and paprika. This is all true, though he fails to mention the slight horseradish content, or the fact that the base is essentially the same as thousand island dressing or sandwich spread with horseradish.
     I must say I am terribly impressed with the efforts you have gone to, particularly the fact that you created your own buns. The sugar content of McD's buns was slightly higher than what was commercially available, so that when toasted they would "caramelize" nicely, which would keep the moisture from the liquid ingredients from soaking into the bun and making a soggy mess.
     On the whole, yours was an outstanding effort.

[anoukkantelberg]

That is quite clever; adding more sugar to the bun so it would caramelize. Fortunately, my buns didn't get soggy at all. Maybe I ate it fast enough because I wanted to eat the burger so badly.

[RiverSky]

I don't have all the ingredients as I type and will have to wait and get them to try this recipe. I am soooo frustrated right now! Makes me super hungry!

It looks awesome, I will definitely try that one. Thank you :)

[anoukkantelberg]

Haha, thank you very much!

[wot2rite]

what is sandwich spread?

[anoukkantelberg]

I really don't know how to explain this any other than sandwich spread is sandwich spread. I know you can buy it everywhere in the Netherlands or the UK. I don't know about other countries. If you can't find it, then try thousand islands dressing with an onion chopped through.

[topcat5]

Thanks for the post. It looks very good. Here is some information that might interest you. I wored a summer job in the late 1970s at McDonald's in the USA. The original method for making a Big Mac was like your recipe except it differed in this way.

- The buns were toasted. It was done by placing the buns on a hot flat grill and applying a little pressure until they had turned brown. You can achieve the same result with a flat pan on a stove. Don't use a toaster.

- McDonalds at that time cooked the beef on a flat grill with re-hydrated onions. You can create re-hydrated onions by using minced dried onions soaked in water for a few hours. They taste uniquely different from fresh onions. When cooking the meat, the technique was to put about a 1/2 teaspoon (more or less) on top of each patty once one side was cooked. The cooked patty & onions where then used on the big mac. I don't think they do this now but adds a nice flavor to the Big Mac.

The rest of your recipe looks the same as we did it then.

[anoukkantelberg]

Awesome! I will try this next time I make it. Grilling with onions sounds good. They don't do this anymore. Well, they don't do this in the Netherlands. I worked a summer job McDonalds for a week or two yeaaaars ago (found out it wasn't for me) and the patties were just patties. I Had to grill them under some sort of press. Never grilled onions.

[Hugandkisses]

I make bigmac sauce with 3T of mayo and 1 T ketchup I then add 1 T. of pickle relish. I then add diced onion to taste.

[timzentu]

That sounds good, and looks delicious, but the sauce is not exactly right. According to McDonald's Canada's Head Chef, it contains: mayonnaise, sweet pickle relish, yellow mustard, white wine vinegar, garlic powder, onion powder, and paprika. He didn't say the proportions, and the US variant also has some preservatives, but now people know where to start.

[anoukkantelberg]

I know my sauce is not an exact copy. It's my own take on the sauce and the taste is really close. :)