REVIEW: McDonald’s Jalapeño Double

McDonald's Jalapeno Double

If you’re looking for a hot, cheap date, I recommend sitting under a phoenix dactylifera during an African summer. But if you’re looking for a hot, cheap burger, I’d recommend McDonald’s Jalapeno Double.

For two dollars, you get two beef patties, a slice of white cheddar cheese, pickled jalapeno slices, jalapeno crisps, buttermilk ranch sauce, a regular bun, a paper bag, and napkins. Although, through my experience, there’s a 10 percent chance you won’t get napkins.

My McDonald’s Jalapeno Double was topped with seven pickled jalapeno slices. I took that as a sign that I was going to get lucky and taste something good or Ray Kroc was smiling down at me…hoping I burn my mouth for all the negative McDonald’s reviews I’ve written.

Fortunately for me, it was the former.

While my burger had a nacho’s worth of pickled jalapenos, I can’t say there were a lot of jalapeno crisps. What are jalapeno crisps? That’s a good question. You should be a journalist. Looking at their appearance and ingredients (jalapeno peppers, enriched flour, sunflower oil and/or safflower oil and/or canola oil, and salt), which I didn’t include to increase this review’s word count, I assume they’re jalapeno bits that have been coated with flour and then deep fried to near oblivion.

McDonald's Jalapeno Double Topless

The jalapeno crisps provide very little jalapeno flavor. I think they’re really there to give the burger a bit of crunchiness, which they also don’t go a good job of because there’s so few of them. However, the pickled jalapeno slices completely make up for jalapeño crisps’ lack of flavor and crunch.

As for the burger’s heat, the pickled peppers made my burger hole warm, but not uncomfortably so. Or, if you want to use a scale of heat that uses McDonald’s products as references, then it’s spicier than their Hot Mustard Sauce, but not as hot as their habanero sauces.

Perhaps the reason why, with seven jalapeño slices, the burger isn’t burning my mouth is the buttermilk ranch sauce. It has that familiar ranch salad dressing flavor many of us use to make vegetables tolerable, but the flavor goes in and out like a radio signal through a series of tunnels. I found that weird because there’s enough ranch sauce on the burger to make a McNugget jealous.

Speaking of the McNugget’s Creamy Ranch Sauce, it’s not the same sauce on this burger. To prove it and to definitely inflate this review’s word count, I’ve listed the ingredients below.

The McNugget’s Creamy Ranch Sauce is made up of soybean oil, water, cultured lowfat buttermilk, distilled vinegar, sugar, egg yolks, sea salt, garlic juice, xanthan gum, salt, lactic acid, spices, modified guar gum, onion powder, natural flavor, potassium sorbate, autolyzed torula yeast extract, parsley, and calcium disodium EDTA.

The burger’s buttermilk ranch sauce has soybean oil, cultured buttermilk, water, sour cream, egg yolks, distilled vinegar, maltodextrin, salt, dextrose, modified food starch, soy sauce, dried onion, garlic powder, lactic acid, natural and artificial flavors, shallots, sodium benzoate, potassium sorbate, calcium disodium EDTA, xanthan gum, spice, phosphoric acid, sodium acid sulfate, propylene glycol alginate, and autolyzed yeast extract.

Like the ranch sauce, the cheese shows itself every so often and seems to help temper the jalapeños. I wish McDonald’s offered a pepper jack cheese, because that would’ve been a nice addition here.

McDonald's Jalapeno Double Wrapper

The McDonald’s Jalapeno Double tastes like a McDouble with jalapenos, and that’s fine and disappointing at the same time. It’s fine because it’s a tasty combination and it’s only two bucks. It’s disappointing because they added ranch sauce and jalapeño crisps to make it more than just a McDouble with jalapeños, but those ingredients don’t do a good job at it. They seem unnecessary, like listing the ingredients for the jalapeño crisps and the two ranch sauces in this review.

(Nutrition Facts – 430 calories, 23 grams of fat, 9 grams of saturated fat, 1 gram of trans fat, 80 milligrams of cholesterol, 1030 milligrams of sodium, 35 grams of carbohydrates, 6 grams of sugar, 2 grams of fiber, and 22 grams of protein.)

Item: McDonald’s Jalapeño Double
Purchased Price: $2.00
Size: N/A
Purchased at: McDonald’s
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: A spicy McDouble. Worth the two dollars. Strong jalapeño flavor with a warm heat. Crunchy jalapeño slices. Cheese is a great glue that keeps the beef patties together.
Cons: Listing ingredients to add to a review’s word count. Ranch sauce doesn’t stick out. Jalapeño crisps didn’t add much flavor or crunch. Ray Kroc haunting me.

21 thoughts to “REVIEW: McDonald’s Jalapeño Double”

  1. Jalapeño crisps are like fried onions, only with jalapeños. A rival chain does an excellent job with them.

    If I were stuck at a McDonald’s (which happens due to proximity to laundromat), I would try this… but I keep a jar of jalapeño slices at the office, so I’m very into the things.

  2. I love jalapenos & whenever I would order a burger from McDonald’s, I would always come home and add my own on. I was excited when I heard they were selling this jalapeno burger. I tried it tonight, and I thought it was delicious. I love that they weren’t skimpy with the jalapenos and actually put quite a bit on. I also really liked the jalapeno chips. My burger also had a good bit of those, and even though they don’t do much taste wise, I love the crunch they provide. It makes for a good texture. There wasn’t much ranch sauce on my burger, but it was enough to compliment the spicy flavor. I will definitely be ordering this burger again.

  3. I did’t taste any sauce on my jalapeno burger. It was really dry. Maybe it would taste better if it had the sauce they use on the big macs

  4. I really liked mine – in fact, I ordered two for lunch to make sure I was full. I seemed to have more crispy jalepenos than Marvo got. All in all I thought it was a very tasty burger and great value. And I hardly ever get McDonald’s burgers, but I am a sucker for spicy food.

  5. I love this new jalapeno burger from McDonalds! Just the perfect combination that finally offers a very tasty burger. I never ate anything from Mc Donalds that tasted so good to me other than the breakfast items. I’m sold. Just wish there were allot more crispys! I’m a very particular good coom and would rather prepare something at home then to eat fast food anytime. I’ve had this sandwich three times this week. Someone needs to send me some good coupons for it! Ha! I have told allot of people about it. It’s a keeper!

  6. The new jalapeño burger from McDonald’s is by far the absolutely best burger i have ever eaten in the 51 years i have been living on this earth. Other burger chains have tried in the past and i must say have all failed in the past on trying to put together a hot spicy awesome burger like McDonald’s finally achieved in my opinion.

  7. I just tried the double jalapeño burger. At first, I wasn’t happy because it only had a small dollop of ranch in the middle and I thought it was going to be dry, but it was actually very good. Plenty of jalapeños, but I wish it had more crunchy jalapeños on it. The regular jalapeños added just as much crunch as the crunchy ones, so I don’t think that was a factor in the texture. In fact, I didn’t even notice the crunchy ones were missing when I only had a bite with regular jalapeños. Just enough spice without being too spicy for me. All in all, I thought it was good and would definitely get it again and just ask for extra crunchy jalapeños.

  8. This is the best burger McDonald’s has offered in years. The only weak spot is the ‘white cheddar’ cheese. It tastes like processed white American plastic cheese, like Subway uses – kind of metallic. If it had ‘true’ white cheddar, I wouldn’t mind paying the $2.19 my local stores charge. As is, it’s worth $1.59 or so.

  9. Someone treated me to lunch and bought me the McDonalds Jalapeno Double. I looked up reviews of the McDonalds Jalapeno Double right before I sat down to eat it because I had never heard of it. I thought this review was so funny and well written! I read the entire thing while enjoying my Jalapeno Double! It was delicious. Its strange for me to have enjoyed it so much since I don’t like ranch & I usually don’t like Jalapenos. But I must admit, I will definitely buy it again!! Yumm! Hope you all enjoy it just as much as I did!!

  10. Damn did they put enough sodium in that burger? 40% why not go 60% and call it a hot saltburger

    I mean really Mickey D cut the salt

  11. What a joke. This was the worst burger I’ve had since the last time I went to McDonalds three years ago. Nothing but two dry, brown discs (meat??) with some white cheese-like product on a dry, white bun. They threw on a handful of pickled jalapenos. Seriously? No mustard, no ketchup, no lettuce, no tomatoes, no onions, no sauce, no seasoning, no NOTHING. Completely devoid of taste. I could have been eating colored sawdust for all I know. One of the great mysteries of life is how on earth this company has sustained itself and opened businesses worldwide. It HAS to be because of their relentless, megabucks advertising to children, who don’t know any better, because it certainly isn’t because of the taste or quality of their food. All you MBA students out there take note! Buy up all the TV spots, billboards, newspaper & magazine ads and throw in a toy or two, and you can sell absolute crap to ANYONE. It’s very clear that McD’s days are numbered and their empire is just about to crumble. It’s time.

    1. Dude shut. You sound like a stuck up prick who eats beef wellingtons with a caviar side salad for dinner every night

      1. Dude, I don’t just eat beef wellington, I make it. However, I would never put caviar in a salad when there are so many better ways to enjoy it. None of that has anything to do with this lousy burger. If it suits you, fine. No one has to agree with you. You can stuff your face with whatever you want and let everyone else do the same.

  12. Best sandwich I have ever eaten! As advertised,hot & spicy, just love it!, will be eating plenty more! Don’t make short runs out of this wonderful sandwich!………THANK YOU…….Don

  13. BEST BURGER McDonald’s has ever had. Just wish it had a few more of the crispy jalapeños on it and hope they never quit selling it!

  14. You can add jalapenos to any burger/entree now at McDonald’s…. so I do it double quarter pounder no cheese + jalapenos

    only 30 cents.

  15. Do these still exist?

    Mountain View, CA has gone into wuss mode and they’re gone.

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