McDonald’s is bringing chicken to the Big Mac

The chain on Thursday is rolling out a Chicken Big Mac at U.S. restaurants, one of its biggest riffs on the decades-old burger. McDonald’s said that the essence of the Big Mac will remain unchanged, just with two tempura-battered chicken patties instead of beef, and no onions.

“This one is really about when we heard from our fans and the consumer research," said Wayne Kuhl, a senior manager working on the chain’s U.S. menu, about the Chicken Big Mac.

The move is part of a broader shift in the restaurant industry to put more chicken on menus. Per-capita consumption in the U.S. has skyrocketed over the past 60 years, while beef consumption has slowly decreased, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

A crispy chicken sandwich-focused menu has helped build Chick-fil-A into the third-largest fast-food chain by sales in the country. Chicken-focused rivals like Popeyes as well as burger chains, including McDonald’s and Shake Shack, have pushed to expand chicken sandwich options in recent years. McDonald’s sells more chicken as a brand than beef, said Joe Erlinger, the company’s U.S. president, at The Wall Street Journal’s Global Food Forum in June.

The Chicken Big Mac isn’t replacing the original and the chain said the new option will be on menus for a limited time at participating locations. Prices will vary by location, the company said.

Restaurants won’t need new equipment associated with the Chicken Big Mac, company officials said. Patties for the sandwich use the same tempura batter breading and the same type of white meat as Chicken McNuggets. Consumers prefer more Big Mac sauce on sandwiches, Kuhl said, so the Chicken Big Mac will feature 1 ounce of sauce as opposed to the two-thirds of an ounce typically used on standard Big Macs.

Twists on popular menu items aren’t unusual for fast-food chains. Burger King routinely launches Whopper spinoffs, with plans to debut its signature sandwich with purple buns as part of an “Addams Family"-themed Halloween promotion.

But McDonald’s hasn’t deviated much from its original sandwich. The first Big Mac, a double burger sandwich, made its debut in Uniontown, Pa., in April 1967, according to the company. The item was added to its U.S. national menu in 1968.

It has unveiled the Big Mac Bacon, Little Mac and Double Big Mac in the past few years. It started selling Big Mac sauce last year in dip cups.

McDonald’s previously tested the Chicken Big Mac in the U.K., Canada and Australia. It was also tested in about 50 stores in Miami in 2022. Last weekend, the company collaborated on a pop-up in Los Angeles where it served a version of the Chicken Big Mac.

Earlier this year, the chain’s chief executive, Chris Kempczinski, posted an Instagram video comparing the Chicken Big Mac with the original beef product.

“You get a crunch with this Chicken Big Mac that you don’t get with the regular Big Mac," he said.

Heather Haddon contributed to this article.

Write to Roshan Fernandez at roshan.fernandez@wsj.com