Which McDonald’s sandwich was the first major menu item designed for breakfast?

The Egg McMuffin was McDonald’s first major breakfast menu item and helped establish breakfast as a core part of the brand.

Herb Peterson, a McDonald’s franchise owner in California, created the sandwich in the early 1970s. It combined a toasted English muffin, egg, Canadian bacon, and cheese in a form inspired partly by eggs Benedict.

McDonald’s introduced the Egg McMuffin nationally in 1975 after testing it in selected restaurants. The product changed customer expectations about when McDonald’s restaurants could be used and gave the company a distinctive morning identity.

The Egg McMuffin is sometimes grouped with later breakfast products such as hotcakes and breakfast burritos. Those items expanded the menu, but the Egg McMuffin was the breakthrough sandwich that launched McDonald’s national breakfast business.