I grew up eating McDonald’s Fried Apple Pies in Miami, so you can imagine my sadness when they switched to the inferior baked Apple Pie, which has been on the menu for over 30 years. McDonald’s Fried Apple Pie had a long initial run from its debut in 1968 (the same as the Big Mac) until September 1992.
So what happened in September 1992? Our beloved McDonald’s Fried Apple Pie was permanently removed from the regular menu for “health concerns.”
The delicious fried pies were replaced with the baked scoundrels available today, even though those, too, were recently revamped.
What’s Inside
Originally published on August 26, 2014.
McDonald’s Fried Apple Pie Returns June 23 for a Limited Time
On July 4, 2026, the United States will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, also known as the Semiquincentennial. To celebrate, McDonald’s brought back its legendary Fried Apple Pies on June 23rd.The returning Fried Apple Pies are expected to be available at participating McDonald’s locations nationwide for two week or while supplies last. Well, they’re still available near me, what about you?
The Unforgivable Apple Pie Crime
This was an unforgivable crime. The texture of the original’s crispy exterior and the more flavorful apple insides left an impression on me that I never forgot.
There was a time when you could find the fried apple pie at any McDonald’s Express, but that went away too, like the Tax Relief deal. There were rumors of a McDonald’s in Key Largo in South Florida that sold them.
I drove over an hour to verify the rumor, but unfortunately it wasn’t true. For a short time between 2014 and June 2018, there were McDonald’s franchisees in Tampa and Miami, Florida areas, selling the legendary fried apple pie. Still, McDonald’s corporation put a stop to those great days.
So, is it the end for the time being of our beloved fried apple pie in the contiguous United States?
Does anyone sell the McDonald’s Fried Apple Pie?
Currently, the McDonald’s at 10207 Lakewood Boulevard on Florence Avenue in Downey, California, is the only restaurant selling fried apple pies. And there is a reason for that!
This particular McDonald’s location has more leeway than other U.S. restaurants. It was the third McDonald’s restaurant to open way back on August 18th, 1953; because of that, it has more control over its menu.
All McDonald’s locations in Hawaii sell the legendary McDonald’s Fried Apple Pie. I haven’t given up hope on the fried apple pie, making a return.
One last note, we need to band together in a Facebook group and lobby McDonald’s. Cause Bring Back McDonald’s Fried Apple Pies and Bring Back the Original McDonald’s Fried Apple Pie Facebook groups total eight members between both of them, and that’s not going to cut it.
McDonald’s Gets Sneaky at the Bagels Are Back Launch Party
McDonald’s pulled a great one on me and surprised me with a fried apple pie. During the Bagels Are Back Launch Party (May 1st, 2023), every member of my Burger Beast Burger Club was given a hot & crispy fried apple pie as a parting gift.
The fried apple pie was every bit as good as I remembered. It might be time to put the wheels in motion and make this happen nationwide!
History of McDonald’s Apple Pie Video
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64 Comments
Tried the Popeye’s NO To the Cinnamon & Sugar ~ It;s the Pie Filling I want to taste after that crunch of seemingly Rice Paper Dough ! There’s got to be a Home Recipe & or Frozen Option to get these (I’ll ship them from Iran) I just want them !! I Can Deep Fry …
You can also find the crispy apple pie at McDonald’s overseas in London, Sydney (Australia), Stockholm (Sweden), and Milan (Italy). These are locations I have visited and tasted the yummy deliciousness of it!
Yes!! Just had one today at the McDonald’s in Malta. :)
You lucky duck!
All the McDonalds in Hong Kong have the wonderful fried apple pies along with a variety of fillings depending on the season/holiday. Ate 2-3 a day when we visited 9 years ago. Also, my wife has a cousin who was manager of a McD’s Express in downtown Boston, up until about 6 years ago they still had the fried apple pies and he told us the reason they had been eliminated was space issues, they needed an additional frying machine for the fried ap whereas the baked ones were just being defrosted and reheated in the microwave. Alas, his location underwent a renovation and they no longer sell the fried ones.
Hey Tony,
That’s great to hear that those delicious pies are still available in Hong Kong but that is a very long flight for some dessert.
All the Express locations in South Florida underwent the same “revamp” some years back.
Fried apple pies all over Hawaii.
Will add on my next post update, thank you!
The fried version of McD’s apple pies are available in Mexico too! (Was just there last month!)
Thanks for the update!
I want my fried apple pies back. I drove to key largo when they use to sell them many times and would buy 15 at a time, then they switched to the baked. Then I found out certain McDonalds in Miami carried them until last year I believe when they also switched to the disgusting baked ones!! What a tragedy this was! McDonald’s needs to bring these fried pies back!!! These baked ones are not even remotely tasty.
Or why can’t we at least have the option of baked or fried?
you can find the fried pies in brazil as well, and they got Banana Fried pies also!
In Hawaii McD’s also sells a fried taro pie! If you guys are craving fried apple pies though, Whataburger has the best ones :)
Agreed, Whataburger pies are great!
Looks like I’m headed to Hawaii!
Miss the fried apple pies in McDonald’s please bring them back. They are much better than the baked ones.
Every McDonald’s in Costa Rica sells the fried pie! And they also offer a pineapple fried pie
Fried Apple Pie sold here in Switzerland as well!
The fried pie has nothing to do with being less healthy. We live in a litigious society here in good ‘ole ‘Murica and there is no doubt this change happened following a lawsuit over someone being burned. Mama bear probably bought a pie to shut junior up, but didn’t tell him the filling was lava hot even though the cardboard sleeve was clearly marked CAUTION: HOT. Junior takes a bite and whammo, watch the dollars roll as he screams loud enough to shatter glass and mama has a meltdown on the manager and McD’s HQ.
You are riffing on a famous myth spread by McDonald’s about the woman they burned though negligence.
There was a McD’s that had a coffee maker with a broken thermostat. It served coffee at boiling temperature. It was far too hot to drink. The store ignored numerous customer complaints for a month.
Then a car went through the drive thru. The coffee spilled on the lap of the woman in the passenger seat. The coffee was so hot that it instantly caused third degree burns. The woman required skin grafts and had hospital bills over a hundred thousand dollars.
The woman merely asked that her hospital bills be covered. McD refused. When the jury got all the facts, they found for the burn victim, and were so mad they awarded her millions. The judge immediately set aside the award, and told McD and the victim to reach a settlement. The victim got her bills paid plus a modest amount for pain and suffering, and had to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
McD immediately started to spread rumors about a clumsy woman and out of control juries. So this woman who had third-degree burns was vilified as a gold digger.
The “coffee is hot” and “filling maybe hot” was all public relations to cover up the facts. They weren’t there for any legal reasons
You nailed it!
Was in the Tampa area until a few years ago. The first time I got the third generation ones, it was a sad day. Even the Florida Keys had them until recently. STUPID!
Here in South America We still have fried Apple Pie and fried Banana Pie
I worked next to Boston City Hall about 10 years ago and the McDonalds on Washington st. was baking the baked ones on site. I only know because I had to wait 15 minutes while they were baking. They definitely are not good enough to justify the 15 minute wait; the fried ones were so much better.
The fried pies were vastly superior. The strawberry-cheese version of the baked pie is better than the apple version, but no match for the fried pies. Two other items from McDonalds’ past I’d like back are the steamed apple and cheese danish. They had a better texture and flavor than any of the disgusting breakfast sweets they have now. The only dessert-like items on the current menu that are not sickeningly over-suggared are the ice cream cones, sundaes, and the strawberry-cheese pies.
I’ve never tried the Strawberry-Cheese.
I am from Taiwan, moved to Florida last year. I was surprised when I found out the McDonald’s apple pies in Florida are baked. We still have fried apple pies in every McDonald’s in Taiwan.
I don’t believe the “health concerns” excuse either. The same place that sells us a quarter pounder and Big Mac pulls fried pies because they’re concerned about our health??
McDonald’s didn’t really do it by choice, at the time there was a lot of negative press about the health of McDonald’s and fast food in general. they changed a few items to shut the loudmouths up.
McDonalds the world wants the same fried apple pies you sold years ago such a disappointment with the baked ones you sell other unhealthy foods please bring them back
Unless you’re in Hawaii or Downey, California…you won’t be getting your fried apple pie fix.
Just got back from Japan a couple of weeks ago. They had Fried Apple and Fried Strawberry Mochi pies available. Thailand had Fried pineapple pie years ago when I went there. This is one of the things wrong with America.
Hawaii has them, too, but for some reason, McDonald’s corporate does not want to bring them back nationwide.
Taiwan also still has them. Though the last time I had one was in 2018.
While I’m not a fan of Whataburger, they do have fried pies very reminiscent of the McDonalds fried pies of yesteryear.
The fried apple pie from Krystal are much closer to the McDonald’s fried pies.
Up into the early 1990’s, McDonald’s fried everything in beef tallow (fat). This made everything super crispy and added a slight beef flavor to everything.
But, beef tallow is a super highly saturated fat and is very bad for your heart. A rich McD’s customer who developed heart problems started a campaign to get McD’s to stop using beef tallow and switch to vegetable oil.
Eventually this pressure campaign got results. McD’s switched to vegetable oil. McD’s foods are still high in fat, but just not the saturated fat that will kill you.
McD’s actually adds “natural beef flavor” to its fries so that they still taste like the original fries.
I suspect they moved to baked apple pies because they were trying to minimize the complaints about unhealthy fats.
They should at least give us the option of choosing..I mean why not have both?
I’m in agreement with you!
All Guatemala McDonald’s have fried pies. I believe all 100, which are owned by the same person.
Thanks for the info!
other fast food chains sell the same fried pie as the old 80s version… Checkers/Rally’s has it smothered in cinnamon.
It’s not the same pie, plus Checkers/Rally’s stopped selling them 3 years ago.
China has fried pineapple pie and fried taro pie.
Yeah, there’s a bunch of different fried pies worldwide.
Just got back from Tokyo, Japan and they had the old school fried apple pies. Biting into it was like a time machine
Okay. You’re all drivin’ me nuts. They’re DEEP-fried. Not fried.
And the pies were deep-fried in VEGETABLE shortening. Same as the McChicken and the Filet-o-Fish and the nuggets. Could you imagine fish and chicken fried with beef shortening? Ewww.
The fries and hashbrowns were the only things deep-fried in beef shortening.
You do know they have multiple fryers, right? They don’t fry everything in one vat of oil.
Sitting at a McDonalds in Munich enjoying the glory of the original apple pie right now
:)
Cheers to you!
I’m loving that you are still getting comments on this article so many years later! I got an apple pie from McD’s today and was sorely disappointed when I discovered it was not the same delicious treat I remembered as a kid.
Been visiting Czech Republic and Slovakia this week, and have enjoyed several of the glorious fried apple and cherry pies. Absolutely divine.
Oh, wow, that’s phenomenal!
I see Popeyes uses the beef tallow and fries their pies fyi. I guess I’ll just have order one an see how it is for the greater good haha!
I was in Sunnybeach in Bulgaria and had both the Apple and Cherry pies. Someone mentioned it before.. biting into it is like going back in time! 🥰
#jealous
Burger King now have fried apple pies! Ate one yesterday and it felt like I was reliving 1988.
Yes, they’re pretty good but not as good as the McDonald’s version.
Burger King debuted the hot apple pie in summer 1972, a few years after McDonald’s had them. I was on a summer trip with my parents and we saw the Burger King hot apple pie in Chicago. We were shocked. It was so good, a darker crispier version of the McDonald’s pie.
The manager told us it was being test marketed but sales were going so well he expected it would be everywhere soon. Sure enough, a few months later they were available in Miami. The price was 25 cents, same as McDonald’s.
I’ll never forget when my sister took two bites out of a Burger King hot apple pie and told my dad it was cold. He told her to take it back. I walked back with her to the counter. After she told the story, the employee gave her a new one and took the old one and placed it under the heat lamp. My sister started to say something. I cut her off immediately.
To this day I have always wondered about the customer who was served that twice bitten pie.
Burger King got rid of the hot apple pie about the same time McDonald’s did. Perhaps earlier. I always heard the same rationale, that it was health related since fried foods were being frowned upon.
The new Burger King cinnamon apple pie is similar to the old version, albeit now $1.79. I laughed when I saw that the McDonald’s version is now $2.29.
Thanks for your insight!
Several years back, I was in the Clearwater area, and found a few locations with the fried pie. A manager told me 6 locations had them, and a franchisee located a wholesale factory in the Midwest that did contract work for McDonald’s in the 1970s.
In Miami, we had 20 locations that had them. I don’t think that manager had his facts straight though.
One location in Cali and all of Hawaii sells the pies all the time. It’s all in the franchise agreement what’s allowed.
When are they gonna bring the cherry pies back??????
There isn’t much interest.