McDonald’s brings back fried apple pie that fans won’t forget
McDonald’s is bringing back its fan-favorite fried apple pie. See if it still tastes the same as USA TODAY’s Mike Snyder remembered.
What is McDonald’s current popular menu item? Fried apple pie.
Earlier this month, McDonald’s announced that fried apple pie would be back on the menu for a limited time starting Tuesday, June 23rd.
Once a staple on the fast food chain’s menu, fried apple pie was first served at McDonald’s locations in East Tennessee in the 1960s. McDonald’s discontinued fried apple pie in 1992 and replaced it with a healthier baked apple pie.
The original fried apple pie was born from a family recipe. “When Ray Kroc, who built McDonald’s into an international brand, was trying to come up with a dessert for McDonald’s, his grandfather, Lytton Cochran, suggested fried apple pie as a beloved classic,” said Eric Cochran. Like his grandparents, he is the owner and operator of a McDonald’s restaurant in Tennessee.
“My grandmother, Joe Cochran, spent months perfecting the recipe, and it seems only fitting that we bring back fried apple pie for our fans this summer to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary,” Cochran said in a news release.
McDonald’s is bringing back the iconic dessert to select restaurants nationwide for a limited time in celebration of America’s 250th anniversary. The pie will be available all day and will feature McDonald’s signature filling made with 100% American apples, the company said. You can get one pie or two packs.
We got fried apple pie at the drive thru and ate it right away. It was hot, but not uncomfortably so. The pie crust was flaky and there were plenty of apple chunks in the sweet and savory cinnamon filling.
Fans online seemed pretty excited about the fried apple pie. “Yesterday I took my dad to buy it. It was delicious, just like in the old days!” wrote one commenter on social platform X.
“Please make it permanent!” one person wrote on Instagram. However, another Instagram poster was less impressed, writing: “Not the same pie!! They don’t even look alike.”
Nutritional information for McDonald’s fried apple pie
The new limited-time fried apple pie actually has 10 grams fewer calories and 2 grams less fat than the current baked version, according to the restaurant chain.
- calorie: 220 (11% of daily intake for a 2,000 calorie diet)
- Total fat: 9 grams (approximately 14%).
- cholesterol: 0mg
- sodium: 125mg (5%)
- Total carbohydrates: 33g (11%)
- protein: 2g (approx. 3%)
Mike Snyder is a national trends news reporter for USA TODAY. You can follow him on Threads, Bluesky, and X, and email him at: mike snyder & @mikegsnider.bsky.social & @mikesnider & msnider@usatoday.com.
