For The Best McDonald's Hashbrown Dupe, Head To One Grocery Store

One of the best parts of the McDonald's breakfast menu is the hash brown. Crispy and delicious, it's hard to imitate its exact taste at home for a number of reasons. According to former McDonald's corporate chef Mike Haracz, one grocery store brand comes pretty close. He's been known to spill some insider secrets before, such as the worst time to visit the fast food restaurant. In a recent TikTok video, he shared that Aldi's Season's Choice Hash Brown Patties came the closest to the McDonald's hash brown recipe by sharing the most similar ingredient list.

Sadly, even if the ingredients were the same, the cooking methods would still have each brand of hash browns tasting different from each other. Haracz claimed that McDonald's kitchens use a beef base in their frying oil, so it would be hard to replicate the hash browns at home without an oil-soluble beef base. Air fryers are often the best tool for frozen hash browns, but the chef's recommended way to imitate the McDonald's brand was by deep-frying the Season's Choice patties. To get close to the iconic McDonald's taste, try frying them in vegetable oil and seasoning them with salt and black pepper — ingredients the company has listed on its hash brown fact sheet.

Some Reddit users have claimed that the Season's Choice hash browns fell off in terms of flavor for being too bland or oily, at least when cooked in the air fryer. If the Season's Choice hash browns aren't up to par, other brands have developed similar hash brown patties. One distributor that has been associated with McDonald's potato sourcing is Simplot, a company supplying potato products to Chick-fil-A and other establishments that need food in bulk. Simplot commercially manufactures hash brown patties with a comparable ingredient list to McDonald's that are available to order from Amazon (in case you need over 200 for some reason).

But really, most grocery stores will carry some sort of frozen hash brown patty — Trader Joe's, Kroger, Target, Glacier Gold, and Ore-Ida are just a few brands. What sets Aldi's apart is its (former) McDonald's corporate chef approval, crowning it the winner of the similarity contest. Walmart's Great Value brand lands second place for its recognition as another McDonald's dupe by the internet, and it was noteworthy enough for Mike Haracz to mention it in his TikTok video. The fast food giant may not make you a hash brown breakfast sandwich, but now you can whip one up at home thanks to Aldi.