McDonald's fan sparks debate after sharing drive-thru hack

The McDonald’s drive thru is a weirdly joyful experience. There’s something about the convenience, the fact it’s in your own space, and the simple, efficient process that can make that bag of munch all the tastier.

But for those of us who like to pick up at the drive thru and then eat our orders at home – and it applies to people who get it dropped off by a delivery app too – things can be a little lower than their ideal temperature.

The fries in particular can lose their heat pretty quickly, and the phenomenon prompted one Redditor to share their hack for getting them back up to their crispy best.

The stove method ended up being on one side of a lively debate (kozz_2080/Reddit)

“I've been reheating my fries on the stove after every drive thru for a long time,” said the original post. “Just wondering if I am the only one that does this to freshly bought fries? I prep the food, warm up the fries till nice and serve. This turns their cold, soggy, pale fries into a real treat. Any thoughts?”

It turns out they’re very much not alone, but the ideal method stirred up a clear divide between stove users and air fryer acolytes.

“Haven’t done this before but the air fryer is *thumbs up*,” said one user who inadvertently sparked the debate.

“For me it's the stove,” the original poster replied. “I get to toast each fry perfectly plus cleaning the air fryer vs pan the pan wins.”

Someone attempted to derail the conversation with some otherwise-noteworthy advice: “Day old McNuggets reheated in the air fryer are better than getting them fresh.” We’ll have to explore that one further.

(yaoinlove/Getty Images)

“Y’all crazy for cooking the food for them,” said one comment, who presumably takes their cold chips back to McDonald’s to have them reheated.

“I’ve accepted the fact that if I don’t eat it in the parking lot everything will be ice cold,” admitted another. “The nice thing about McDonald’s is that it’s still tasty even when it cold.” Hard disagree there, pal.

“Air fryer is a must,” urged another. “90% of the time the fries are cold and or undercooked. They don’t care about their quality anymore.”

The legions of air fryer fans were very much active in the thread (Ali Majdfar/Getty Images)

Taking aim at a potential flaw in the air frying process, a final comment sought to settle the conversation: “Air fryer tends to dry them up too much for me, stove is the slow but sure way to get them crispy and not too dry. So 10 out of 10.”

What nobody in this thread remembered to mention is that an air fryer will blow all the salt off! So, if you fall on the air fryer side of the debate, don’t forget to re-season those fries when they’re back up to piping hotness.