Big Mac Calories & Nutrition Facts

530 calories

Protein: 24g
Carbs: 47g
Fat: 27g
Sodium: 960mg

The Big Mac is McDonald's signature burger and, thanks to The Economist, an accidental unit of international economics. Here is what one actually costs you nutritionally, how it compares to the burgers it competes with, and where it came from.

Every published Big Mac version

Version	Serving	Calories	Fat (g)	Carbs (g)	Protein (g)	Sodium (mg)
Big Mac	7.4 oz (211 g)	530	27	47	24	960

How it compares

Published figures from each chain's own nutrition data.

McDonald's Big Mac 530 calories

Burger King Whopper (w/o Cheese) 670 calories Wendy's Dave's Single Cheeseburger 570 calories In-N-Out Double-Double w/ Onion 610 calories

Where the Big Mac came from

Introduced 1967

The Big Mac was created by Jim Delligatti, a McDonald's franchisee in the Greater Pittsburgh area, and went on sale at his Uniontown, Pennsylvania restaurant on 22 April 1967. It reached every US McDonald's the following year. The name came from Esther Glickstein Rose, a 21-year-old advertising secretary at head office in Oak Brook, Illinois.

The Economist built the Big Mac Index around it, using the burger's price to compare the cost of living between countries — precisely because it is so widely available and so consistent from market to market.
In 2007 a McDonald's spokeswoman put US sales at 560 million a year. That is roughly seventeen Big Macs every second.
The 1974 jingle that listed the build — "two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame-seed bun" — is still how most people can recite the recipe.

Making one at home

McDonald's executive chef made the sauce public in 2012, so this one is unusually well documented. The sauce is mayonnaise, sweet pickle relish and yellow mustard whisked together with vinegar, garlic powder, onion powder and paprika. The build is two thin beef patties (about 1.6 oz each), shredded iceberg lettuce, one slice of American cheese, two dill pickle slices and minced onion, on a three-piece sesame seed bun — the middle slice is what makes it a Big Mac rather than a double cheeseburger.

A homemade version will not match the figures above — those are McDonald's' own published numbers for the restaurant item.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many calories are in a Big Mac?

A Big Mac has 530 calories, with 24g of protein, 27g of fat and 47g of carbohydrates.

Is a Big Mac or a Whopper higher in calories?

The Whopper is higher. A Whopper without cheese is 670 calories against the Big Mac's 530 — a difference of 140 calories, largely because the Whopper's patty is 4 oz against the Big Mac's two 1.6 oz patties.

How much protein is in a Big Mac?

24 grams.

What is in Big Mac sauce?

McDonald's disclosed the recipe in 2012: mayonnaise, sweet pickle relish and yellow mustard, whisked with vinegar, garlic powder, onion powder and paprika.

Build a full meal

Add a Big Mac to a whole order and see the running total on the McDonald's calculator, or see every McDonald's item.

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CalorieLookup.com is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by McDonald's. Nutrition figures on this page are McDonald's' own published data (McDonald's USA official nutrition facts (complete menu export). Live scraping of mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/product/* consistently timed out during this update, so figures are drawn from a McDonald's-sourced full-menu nutrition dataset (covering every published category and serving size) cross-checked against McDonald's own per-item pages where reachable.), last verified 2026-08-19. Historical details are drawn from public reference sources. Menu items and recipes change over time and vary by location — confirm with the restaurant before making dietary decisions.