The Egg McMuffin was McDonald’s first national breakfast sandwich and became central to the company’s breakfast branding.
Herb Peterson, a McDonald’s franchisee in Santa Barbara, California, created the sandwich in the early 1970s. It used an English muffin, a round egg, Canadian bacon, and cheese, giving McDonald’s a portable breakfast item with a format distinct from its traditional hamburger menu.
The sandwich was introduced nationally in 1971 and helped McDonald’s build a dedicated breakfast business. Its name also established a flexible naming pattern that McDonald’s later used for other breakfast products, including the Sausage McMuffin.
The Egg McMuffin is sometimes confused with the McGriddle because both are signature breakfast sandwiches. The McGriddle arrived decades later and uses griddle cakes rather than the English-muffin format associated with the original breakfast expansion.