McDonald’s is constantly changing up its menu, giving customers new items and bringing back fan-favourites.
For instance, the chain recently launched a brand new Minecraft Movie Meal, that’s essentially like an adult Happy Meal – it even comes with a special collectible.
But it seems there’s one item that many people would love to tuck into once more, even though it’s been more than 40 years since it was last sold in the UK.
Before the iconic Chicken McNuggets launched in 1984, there was a different product available in nugget form and it’s fair to say that it proved somewhat controversial.
Onion Nuggets were sold at McDonald’s from 1976 onwards, and were available in the US as well. These quite literally were chunks of onions, deep fried in a golden batter.
They were intended as a vegetarian option, for those who didn’t want to order a burger, but they weren’t a very successful product, as people preferred onion rings. Ultimately they were axed from the menu a few years later.
The chicken version that we all know and love was actually inspired by the lost Onion Nugget product.
McDonald’s former development chef, René Arend, who joined the chain in the late 1970s, started working on chicken nuggets in 1979, when Chairman Fred Turner suggested the idea, but they didn’t launch in restaurants until the 80s.
Despite being deemed ‘unsuccessful’ the Onion Nuggets have a strong fan base online, with many on Reddit demanding Maccies ‘bring them back’.
u/cool_weed_dad said: ‘I would f***ing destroy a 20 piece of these, they should bring them back. It’s just onion rings in nugget form.’ And u/Banjo-oz agreed, saying: ‘I think they souns pretty delicious, although they seem like the laziest onion rings ever. “Rings? Nah, just hack em into chunks and batter em!”’
While u/nando82 wrote: ‘From what I hear, these were quite good. Here’s hoping Mcdonald’s bring these onions back one day.’
However, not everyone was quite so keen with a few thinking the Onion Nuggets sounded ‘cursed’, ‘disgusting’, and ‘made them want to gag’.
This comes after McDonald’s celebrated its 50th birthday in the UK in 2024 and shared a look at a timeline of its changes over the years.
The very first McDonald’s in the UK launched on November 13, 1974 in Woolwich, and back then a Big Mac cost just 45p and a cheeseburger was 21p.
The chain also reminded people of another forgotten menu item, this one from the 90s: McPizza.
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Yep, in the mid-1990s, McDonald’s trialled personal pizzas in the UK, which were an 8-inch pizza split into four slices. These came in three different flavours: Cheese, Cheese & Pepperoni, and the Deluxe (cheese, green pepper, onion, pepperoni, and more).
These were launched ahead of 1994, when the chain launched the power/breakfast/working lunch which allowed city workers to order food to their desks. Orders were placed by fax or telephone and menu options included the personal pizzas.
According to McDonald’s website, the pizzas were sold for a ‘limited period in some restaurants’ in the mid-1990s as part of a ‘sales and product test’.
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This article was originally published on November 15, 2024.
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