No order of chicken nuggets, fries, mozzarella sticks, or chicken tenders is complete without dipping sauce. A good sauce helps to elevate your finger food from a simple salty snack to a medley of taste-bud-pleasing serotonin-pumping flavors. It makes fast food more addicting, more satisfying, and, most importantly, more delicious. Every fast food brand seems to understand this, too — because each chain treats its sauces like a sacred part of the menu. A big fast food brand could simply partner with a larger grocery store brand that is revered and has a built-in audience, but they don’t. Instead, they formulate their own sauces and that’s a bigger gamble than it seems. Just like a good sauce can make a meal, a bad sauce can absolutely ruin one.
This got us thinking, who has the best fast food dipping sauce? After much thought, we arrived at the conclusion that there isn’t a specific fast food brand that does sauce better than the competition — just about every brand has hits and misses. So in an effort to separate all of the good stuff from all of the bad, we’ve rounded up all the dipping sauces we could find — sixty two of them! — for an exhaustive blind taste test in search of the very best.
Let’s get dipping.
PART I — Methodology
I knew if I was going to blind taste test sauces, I needed to do so on the perfect canvas — a food that dipping sauces themselves were invented for. That food, my friends, is chicken nuggets. So I hit up McDonald’s and ordered a 40 Piece Chicken Nugget Meal. With 62 different dipping sauces, that means I’d sample multiple sauces on a single nugget (about three per nugg).
Normally when I run a blind taste test, I taste things one by one, but since we collected over 60 sauces… well, that wasn’t going to happen. So instead, I decided to try sauces at random in five waves of 10 (and one wave of 12). This helped me taste sauces faster and spare you from having to scroll through over 120 pictures (one each for the tasting, one each for the ranking).
As I waited in another room, my girlfriend dropped dollops of sauce at random on a piece of parchment paper, called me into the kitchen and I sampled the sauces in six waves. Unfortunately, she forgot to take a picture of the first wave, but don’t hold it against her, she’s not a hardcore professional like me. So you’re just going to have to take my word for it that there were six waves, even though the picture above only shows five. The first wave looked much like the other five waves — like a Bob Ross paint palette on LSD.
Because this was an expansive blind taste test and it took me a while to collect all of these sauces, we choose to skip house-made varieties, like In-N-Out’s Special Sauce or Raising Cane’s Cane’s Sauce. Those sauces aren’t shelf stable and I felt pretty sure testing 62 sauces was going to make me sick anyway, no need to add spoilable ingredients to the mix.
Because we’re running through so many sauces, I’m going to spare you the flowery language (and the list of the contenders) and keep these descriptions short and to the point. Think Hemingway but a lot less talk about war and sex angles to make your penis seem bigger. Point being, these are initial unfiltered snap judgments scored on a 10-point scale. Let’s dive in!
PART II — The Ranking
62. Burger King — Zesty Sauce (Taste 59)
Original Notes:
A straight 0.00!
This is easily the worst sauce I’ve ever tasted. It comes across like a bad mustard — it’s intensely bitter and aside from that has no other perceptible flavor. This is the sort of flavor you usually taste within a larger profile, the sort of bitter kick you get at the end of something like honey mustard. Imagine that kick but it’s the entire flavor of this sauce.
What is this used for?
Rating: 0/10
Bottom Line:
It shouldn’t even exist. I’ve tasted 62 sauces today, you couldn’t pay me to dip my food in this one again.
61. Arby’s — Marinara Sauce (Taste 9)
Original Notes:
I guess this is supposed to be some sort of marinara? There is the faintest hit of tomato here, but mostly this just comes across as sweet. It kind of tastes like Lunchable’s pizza sauce, bland, weak, and cheap.
Rating:
1/10
Bottom Line:
It’s like a pizza paste, a true insult to the very idea of marinara sauce.
60. Popeyes Buttermilk Ranch (Taste 32)
Original Notes:
Is this spoiled? I think this is spoiled. Can shelf-stable ranch become spoiled?
I don’t know, but this tastes straight-up rancid and it has a strange powdery texture to it. Easily the worst ranch sauce I’ve ever tasted.
Rating:
1/10
Bottom Line:
Tastes like ranch that sat out too long in the sun.
59. Jack in The Box — Taco Sauce (Taste 30)
Original Notes:
Why do so many of these taste like Lunchable’s sauces? Imagine the blandest taco sauce you’ve ever tasted but… watered down. It’s like if this brand bought the cheapest “hot sauce” they could find and then cut it with water to save money.
Rating:
1/10
Bottom Line:
It shouldn’t even exist. This doesn’t add flavor to anything, it somehow takes it away.
58. McDonald’s — Hot Mustard (Taste 43)
Original Notes:
No no no no no! Not a fan of whatever the hell this is supposed to be. It’s tangy, dirty, blunt, and bitter. It tastes cheap, like melted-down plastic from the 99-cent store.
Rating:
1/10
Bottom Line:
A bitter and dirty assault on your taste buds.
57. Carl’s Jr —Carl’s Jr. Honey Mustard (Taste 14)
Original Notes:
It doesn’t taste like anything. Are my taste buds fried? Hold on let me drink some lemon water and cleanse my palate… Nope, no flavor here.
There is a hint of bitterness but this is more mouthfeel than anything else. I can’t say I hate it because it doesn’t have enough flavor to latch onto.
Rating: 1/10
Bottom Line:
If you request this sauce with your food, you’ll only be disappointed, unless you’re just looking for something to take away the dryness of your food.
56. Jack in the Box — Creamy Avocado Lime Sauce (Taste 40)
Original Notes:
Why did I take this assignment from my editor?
This shit is fucking bleak… I don’t understand what this sauce is for. It’s strange. There is a prominent citrus note hovering over the whole thing, but yet it’s buttery and a bit savory. It tastes like a bunch of random flavors crashing into each other.
Rating: 1/10
Bottom Line:
There is a lot going on here, but nothing really takes hold. It tastes like someone squeezed lime into mayo.
55. Taco Bell — Fire (Taste 13)
Original Notes:
Bland basic ass hot sauce. Too weak to be considered spicy, to flat to be considered tasty.
Rating: 1.5/10
Bottom Line
It’s fine, it’ll get the job done but I find it hard to believe that whatever you’re eating this with doesn’t have a better flavor. This doesn’t improve anything, it just… changes it.
54. Burger King — Ranch Sauce (Taste 18)
Original Notes:
A ranch with no depth. It doesn’t elevate your food, where normally ranch kicks up a dish, adding a savory dimension this somehow drags flavor down. It’s way too tangy and you can actually taste it disappointing you. I liken it to putting a penny in your mouth when that copper hits your tongue you’d think “Oh this tastes weird” and then immediately, “Why is it in my mouth?”
Rating: 1.5/10
Bottom Line:
You know, like tasting a penny, as one does.
53. Taco Bell — Hot (Taste 21)
Original Notes:
Ugh again with this shit? Who is making this hot sauce? It’s just so, low effort. I get that you can’t put salsa in a packet, but that doesn’t mean you should get away with whatever this is. It’s slightly better than the other bland taco sauces but still lacks flavor. There is a tinge of heat on the backend.
Rating:
2/10
Bottom Line
Barely passable taco sauce.
52. KFC — Honey Mustard (Taste 12)
Original Notes:
Hits you with an initial sweetness that morphs into a tang before landing at a bitter and blunt finish. Nothing special but not horrible.
Rating:
2/10
Bottom Line:
Maybe I’m just not a fan of honey mustard, but this seems to be one of the most overused flavor profiles in all of fast food. And it doesn’t seem like most brands can do it well.
51. Popeyes — Bayou Buffalo (Taste 52)
Original Notes:
Why does it look like acrylic paint?
This one worries me, and flavor-wise, it disappoints. This is buffalo sauce gone wrong. It’s too heavy on the vinegar, and there isn’t enough spice. You can just barely wring out some heat if you strain to taste it.
Rating:
2.5/10
Bottom Line
It’s buffalo sauce if buffalo sauce sucked.
50. Chick-fil-A — Garden Herb Ranch (Taste 33)
Original Notes:
It’s a fine ranch. It’s very tangy and tart not really creamy enough. Aside from the initial tartness, it’s a bit boring and bland though there are some chive and weak parsley notes. It has the flavors it needs to be a good ranch, but there isn’t enough of anything so it just lands kind of bland and flat when it should be rich and savory.
Rating:
2.5/10
Bottom Line
A decent ranch sauce but not as rich as you want it to be.
49.Wendy’s — Honey Mustard (Taste 5)
Original Notes:
Sweet and tangy with a fish sauce-like umami to it. Very savory, well-balanced, and tangy. I’m not totally sold on the bitter finish but it’s a decent sauce.
Rating: 2.5/10
Bottom Line:
Fishy, in a good way, and complex.
48. Burger King Buffalo Sauce (Taste 45)
Original Notes:
A very weak buffalo sauce. There isn’t enough heat here, the primary focus is on the more tangy and sour flavors. It tastes a bit lopsided — there is a lack of balance here which makes it come across as low-effort and cheap. It’s the Jeb Bush of buffalo sauces.
Rating: 3/10
Bottom Line:
A decent but low-effort buffalo sauce.
47. Arby’s — Spicy Buffalo Sauce (Taste 42)
Original Notes:
A buffalo sauce that massively underdelivers on the spicy elements. That seems to be a trend amongst a lot of buffalo sauces. If you can’t bring the heat, just don’t bother. The heat isn’t completely absent but it’s definitely a bit muddled. It tastes like there is too much butter here, the flavor is rich but I’m missing the spice.
Rating: 3/10
Bottom Line:
A buttery well-rounded but weak buffalo sauce.
46. Taco Bell — Mild Sauce (Taste 34)
Original Notes:
The consistency is better but this is yet another bland mildly spicy taco sauce. There is a bit of heat on the backend but ultimately the dominant flavor is akin to chili beans. Like someone took a bowl of chili beans and then watered them down and pumped a bunch of preservatives into them. It’s tame and fit for mass consumption, but who wants that in a taco sauce?
Rating: 3/10
Bottom Line:
A mild and surprisingly earthy taco sauce.
45. Arby’s — Tangy BBQ (Taste 55)
Original Notes:
For BBQ sauce …this isn’t very good. It has that distinct brown sugar and smoke flavor BBQ is known for, with just a hint of tang. It’s nothing special, but at the end of the day, it’s still BBQ sauce. What can I say? Even the most basic of BBQs taste great with chicken.
Rating: 3.5/10
Bottom Line:
You’ve definitely had better BBQ sauce but this gets the job done.
43. Jack in the Box — Jack’s Spicy Good Good Sauce (Taste 60)
Original Notes:
This is an interesting sauce it has a tangy ranch quality to it, a creamy base, and a garlicky finish. It’s good, I just don’t imagine myself reaching for this over something more classic like a BBQ or Buffalo. It tastes like it has the right idea but it just doesn’t stick the landing.
Rating: 3.5/10
Bottom Line:
Savory with a hint of garlic and a small kick of heat. Not quite as good as it sounds.
42. Taco Bell — Diablo Sauce (Taste 7)
Original Notes:
A spicy hot sauce with a black pepper finish. The heat builds up in the back of the throat, it’s pleasing but there is a little too much tomato here. It brings the spice level down on the finish and comes across as a bit too bright for its own good. It sort of tastes like a watery version of Whataburger’s spicy ketchup.
Rating: 4/10
Bottom Line:
A decent hot sauce, but nowhere near as delicious as real salsa.
41. Arby’s — Honey Dijon Mustard (Taste 22)
Original Notes:
Very very interesting. At first, sweetness hits the palate before settling into an earthy flavor that soaks deeply into the tongue. There is a rough-sorta-blunt finish, but it’s not off-putting in any way. It’s on its way to becoming a delicious sauce but it’s missing some key component to balance it out.
Maybe it needs more onion or garlic? Not sure.
Rating: 4/10
Bottom Line:
Complex and interesting, but the flavor hits a wall before and misses the mark of becoming truly good. Still a worthy sauce to dip chicken or fries in.
40. Burger King — Sweet And Sour (Taste 61)
Original Notes:
Okay, this is like a standard sweet-and-sour sauce. A mix of sweetness and some citrus tartness. It’s almost a cheap version of orange chicken sauce with a sour snap at the aftertaste.
Rating: 4/10
Bottom Line
A fine sweet and sour sauce, but I suspect there are better formulations out there.
39. Arby’s Sauce (Taste 41)
Original Notes:
A bit spicy with a bright ketchup flavor and an interesting fruity finish. There is an almost apple-like quality to this. It’s good not great.
Rating: 4/10
Bottom Line:
Interesting, bright, spicy, and a bit fruity. A good sauce.
38. Arby’s — Ranch (Taste 50)
Original Notes:
A great initial flavor, this ranch is buttery and has a nice richness to it, but I’m getting a powdery mouthfeel, like granules of garlic or onion powder. If it weren’t for the weird powdery texture, it would rank much higher.
Rating: 4/10
Bottom Line:
A decent tasting ranch, but it comes across as cheaply made and poorly mixed.
37. Carl’s Jr. Buttermilk Ranch (Taste 46)
Original Notes:
Buttery, savory, and creamy, and a hint of tang on the back end with some onion notes. It has a stale aftertaste that stains the palate in an off-putting way, but it tastes fine overall.
Rating: 4.5/10
Bottom Line:
A very decent ranch sauce. Good enough to get the job done not good enough to truly love.
36. KFC — Buffalo Ranch (Taste 31)
Original Notes:
There is a lot going on here, it’s honey-sweet, with mild hot sauce elements, and a very creamy mouthfeel. A nice amount of heat grows on the aftertaste but it feels a little too unfocused and underdelivers on the heat.
Rating: 5/10
Bottom Line:
Shifting flavors, it’s creamy rich, and savory, with a tinge of heat. If the heat was more pronounced, I’d like this a lot more.
35. Popeyes — Wild Honey Mustard (Taste 48)
Original Notes:
Floral, sweet, and earthy. It tastes almost like a salad dressing, with a weird eggy aftertaste. It tastes too natural for its own good.
Rating: 5/10
Bottom Line:
Good, but I don’t know that you’d want to dip chicken nuggets in it.
34. Arby’s Horsey Sauce (Taste 19)
Original Notes:
Very savory, the consistency is like a thick mayo. There is some nice spice in there, but there is a dirty overtone to the whole thing that makes me like it less the more I have.
Rating: 5.5/10
Bottom Line:
It’s a good sauce but it doesn’t taste like it’s supposed to be paired with chicken. I can see this working with something beefier.
33. McDonald’s — Tangy BBQ (Taste 2)
Original Notes:
A fine BBQ sauce. It’s very generic, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It does what you want BBQ sauce to do, it’s just a bit too sweet for me to really love.
Rating: 5.5/10
Bottom Line:
BBQ sauce for those that like their BBQ sweet rather than smokey.
32. Jack In the Box — Black Belt Teriyaki Sauce (Taste 53)
Original Notes:
Soy sauce and sugar. There is a hint of ginger in there, but ultimately this taste like an overly candied teriyaki. It tastes like teriyaki sauce the way those little cola gummies taste like soda — it’s in the ballpark of what it’s supposed to taste like but has too much sugar for its own good.
Rating: 5.5/10
Bottom Line:
A cheap teriyaki sauce. Very sugary and flat compared to the real thing.
31. KFC — Honey BBQ (Taste 23)
Original Notes:
Another very sweet BBQ sauce but it works a little better than Taste 2. Very sugar forward, but in an earthy way that almost comes across as a bit bitter and rich. Very balanced, I prefer more smoke, but it’s hard to dislike this.
Rating: 6.5/10
Bottom Line:
A very good but very sweet BBQ sauce.
30. Wendy — Sweet and Sour (Taste 51)
Original Notes:
Very sweet and citrusy with a hint of spice on the backend. A little more heat would do a lot to make this sauce better, as it stands it’s just very good.
Rating: 6.5/10
Bottom Line:
Bright and sweet with a hint of spice.
29. Burger King — Marinara Sauce (Taste 35)
Original Notes:
There is a surprising amount of depth here. Marinara sauce is a cooked sauce, a shelf-stable version shouldn’t work, but somehow this does. It actually translates as marinara and that alone is worthy of praise. There is a pronounced sense of brightness, it’s a bit sweeter than you expect marinara to be, but it’s also a lot spicier.
Rating: 6.5/10
Bottom Line:
A shelf-stable cheaply made marinara sauce that actually manages to capture some of the magic of actual marinara. It’s like a cheap but decent grocery store brand.
28. McDonald’s — Ranch (Taste 3)
Original Notes:
Tangy, buttery, rich — a solid ranch sauce. It adds this satisfying savory component to the chicken nugget, truly elevating it to a new space. On its own, it tastes a bit bland, but paired with the saltiness of the chicken nugget, it rounds it out perfectly. It wouldn’t surprise me if this was McDonald’s, it pairs so well with the chicken nugget.
Rating: 6.5/10
Bottom Line:
A good, almost great ranch sauce.
27. Jack in the Box — Yippie Kai Yum BBQ (Taste 47)
Original Notes:
A very dark bbq sauce. It has a bold flavor to it, it’s rich, sweet, and sufficiently smokey but there is just a bit too much ketchup mixed in to make it great.
Rating: 7/10
Bottom Line:
A very good bold BBQ sauce.
26. Chick-fil-a — Barbecue Sauce (Taste 24)
Original Notes:
A little too much ketchup but a great balance between sweet and smokey notes. The finish is too bright for my taste. Although this isn’t what I look for in a BBQ sauce, I can recognize that it has a really great blend of flavors and might be more up your alley if you’re not into bold sauces.
Rating: 7/10
Bottom Line:
A solid well balanced BBQ sauce. It’s sweet and smokey, but not too much of either.
25. Jack in the Box — Jack’s Spicy Good Sauce (Taste 16)
Original Notes:
Whoa, what’s going on here? This is unlike any dipping sauce I’ve ever had, I’m tasting some curry with a very floral body, a lot of depth, and a bit of heat on the backend. It leaves the palate a bit too quickly though, there isn’t enough here to savor and that’s unfortunate because the flavors are amazing.
Rating: 7/10
Bottom Line:
A unique sauce with a lot of flavors. There is no parallel out there in the fast food universe.
24. Arby’s — Bronco Sauce (Taste 25)
Original Notes:
I’m not quite sure who or what this sauce is for but… I like it. It has a very sugary and fruity flavor with notes of apple and cherry. It would work great as a dip for a fried apple pie. It does nothing for the chicken nugget, but I like it so much I’m going to have to rank this high.
Rating: 7/10
Bottom Line:
Pair this sauce with something sweet, not chicken.
23. Chick-Fil-A — Sweet and Spicy Sriracha (Taste 37)
Original Notes:
A sweet and sour style sauce with a spike of mild heat. I’m tasting notes of plum, starting off sweet initially and then hitting you with some tartness on the finish.
Rating: 7.5/10
Bottom Line:
If this was just a bit spicier, it would be an 8, as it stands it’s a pretty solid sweet and-sour-style sauce.
22. Carl’s Jr. — Sweet Bold BBQ (Taste 26)
Original Notes:
A lot smokier than the sweet style BBQ sauces I’ve tried so far, there is an emphasis on the smoke as it hits your palate and it finishes spicy and brown sugar sweet.
Rating: 7.5/10
Bottom Line:
A smokey-style BBQ sauce that still gives you a little kiss of sweetness on the finish.
21. Burger King — Honey Mustard (Taste 62)
Original Notes:
Ooh, a nice Dijon quality to this one. It’s sharp and pungent with a sweet finish. Very savory, and definitely elevated the chicken.
Rating: 8/10
Bottom Line:
Proof that I do in fact like honey mustard — I just needed the right blend to appreciate the flavor. Sharp and pungent, with a sweet aftertaste.
20. KFC — Classic Ranch (Taste 38)
Original Notes:
A very good ranch-style sauce. It’s savory, creamy, and buttery, with a gentle tang on the backend.
Rating:
8/10
Bottom Line:
One of the best ranch sauces you’ll find in all of fast food.
19. McDonald’s — Sweet and Sour (Taste 10)
Original Notes:
A sweet and sour sauce with notes of honey, a round character, and an intensely sweet finish. I’d like a bit more sour flavor, this one leans hard on the sweetness but I can’t really complain here, this is a solid and relatively delicious sauce.
Rating: 8/10
Bottom Line:
A standard sweet and sour that delivers what it should. No more, no less.
18. Chick-fil-A — Honey Mustard (Taste 4)
Original Notes:
Why is it so damn thick? There is a lot of depth of flavor here, I’m getting honey sweetness, savory garlic notes, and an earthy bite on the backend. It’s really quite complex!
Rating: 8/10
Bottom Line:
Very savory and rich with a well-balanced bouquet of flavors that snap the taste buds to attention.
17. McDonald’s — Honey Mustard (Taste 36)
Original Notes:
I can’t anymore with the damn honey mustard! Why are there so many honey mustards in fast food? As it stands, this is one of the better ones, it has a sweet apple vibe to it mingling with floral honey notes, a bit of black pepper, and a lingering tartness to it.
Rating: 8/10
Bottom Line:
A lot of people love Honey Mustard I guess, this is one of the better ones out there thanks to those interesting apple notes.
16. Popeyes — Sweet Heat (Taste 27)
Original Notes:
I’m liking this, I’m getting an equal amount of sweet and heat. There is a fruity mango and citrus component to this sauce and a nice kick of spice at the backend that builds in the throat. It’s as if they were going for a mango habanero-type sauce, but couldn’t find any habanero in season. The spice is a bit bland.
Rating: 8.5/10
Bottom Line:
A beginner’s mango habanero sauce. Would taste great on wings, and pairs excellently with nuggets.
15. Popeyes — Blackened Ranch (Taste 20)
Original Notes:
I’m digging this a lot, it tastes like ranch mixed with some buffalo sauce heat. I’m getting notes of garlic, onion, and herbs. An equal amount of heat and tang to it, with a nice earthy cracked pepper finish.
Rating: 8.5/10
Bottom Line:
One of the more interesting iterations of ranch out there in the fast food universe.
14. Jack in the Box — Sweet and Sour (Taste 58)
Original Notes:
Not a lot of depth of flavor to this sweet and sour style sauce, but here is something that I do like about it — it doesn’t coat your mouth! It’s nicely balanced between sour and sweet flavors and once you’re done eating whatever you dipped in it, the flavor magically goes away. No lingering stale sweetness.
Maybe it’s because I’ve tried 58 different sauces now, but I love the way this one doesn’t stain the palate.
Rating: 8.5/10
Bottom Line:
The best sweet and sour sauce in all of fast food because it doesn’t overstay its welcome.
13. Chick-fil-A — Chick-fil-A Sauce (Taste 28)
Original Notes:
I know this flavor well, it’s Chick-fil-A sauce without a doubt in my mind. It’s savory, with a bit of tang, smoke, and sweetness. I love it. But I think I prefer it on fries.
Rating: 8.5/10
Bottom Line:
An outstanding sauce that works pairs well with Chick-fil-a’s waffle fries.
12. Wendy’s — BBQ Sauce (Taste 39)
Original Notes:
A truly great BBQ sauce! It’s sweet and bright but has a nice smokey finish that pulls it into richer territory on the aftertaste. It tastes really good with the chicken nuggets, but I rather have this on a burger with some bacon to accentuate the smokey notes and some avocado slices to round out and add a buttery component.
Rating: 8.5/10
Bottom Line
A reminder of what makes BBQ such an essential fast food sauce.
11. Jack in the Box — Honey Mustard (Taste 54)
Original Notes:
Sweet, bitter, pungent, floral, complex if I never eat a honey mustard-style sauce again, I’ll be very happy. This is very good, but after 54 tastings I’m just now warming up to the flavor but this is as good as it’s going to get. I think…
Rating: 9/10
Bottom Line
Here it is, this is the best honey mustard in all of fast food. Now get this style of sauce away from me!
10. Various Restaurants — Heinz Ketchup (Taste 8)
Original Notes:
It’s Heinz, obviously. A great ketchup, bright, non-intrusive, a bit sweet, the gold standard of ketchup.
Rating: 9/10
Bottom Line
Is ketchup ranked too highly? On the one hand, it feels boring to give it to the top ten spot, but on the other, it’s f*cking ketchup. Are we going to pretend this shit isn’t good?
9. Carl’s Jr. — Buffalo Sauce (Taste 6)
Original Notes:
This is trying very hard to be Frank’s Red Hot, it’s not, I can tell, but Frank’s is delicious so I’m giving this high marks. It has heat and a buttery body. Absolutely addictive.
Rating: 9/10
Bottom Line:
A fantastic buffalo sauce, you can’t go wrong with this stuff.
8. Wendy’s — Buttermilk Ranch (Taste 15)
Original Notes:
It’s not just ranch, it’s buttermilk, and it makes all the difference in the consistency. It’s very thin and spreads easily with a real depth of flavor, notes of savory and sweet butter, a sharp but nonintrusive tartness, and a nice finish that tastes great paired with just about anything.
Rating: 9/10
Bottom Line:
It’s not blackened, not mixed with buffalo sauce, it’s just plain ranch, and it’s the best iteration of the sauce in all of fast food.
7. Jack in the Box — Frank’s Red Hot (Taste 57)
Original Notes:
It’s Frank’s Red Hot. I can tell, it’s just a solid and delicious hot wing sauce with a strong emphasis on the heat. One of the best straight hot sauces in all of fast food.
Rating: 9/10
Bottom Line:
You can’t go wrong with Frank’s Red Hot, not on chicken, French fries, or pizza. It’s versatile, you should travel with it on you at all times.
6. Popeye’s — Bold BBQ Sauce (Taste 44)
Original Notes:
A round BBQ with a shifting smokey and sweet profile. It begins smokey, moves into a sweet territory, and finishes smokey again. I like the ping-pong effect of this sauce, I’d use it on anything.
Rating: 9/10
Bottom Line
Fast food has a lot of BBQ sauces that are different in subtle ways, this one in particular keeps you on you feet, bouncing between smokey and sweet flavors constantly.
5. Chick-fil-A Zesty Buffalo (Taste 49)
Original Notes:
This is Chick-fil-A right?
I’m almost positive and as far as buffalo sauces go, it’s pretty damn good. It’s a bit sweeter than buffalo sauces tend to be, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Unfortunately, that results in a slightly weaker kick of heat. Normally that would infuriate me, but there is a nice butteriness to this sauce that is really enjoyable with a nice slightly sour aftertaste.
Rating: 9.5/10
Bottom Line
A no non-sense buffalo sauce that leans a bit on the sweet side.
4. Burger King — BBQ Sauce (Taste 29)
Original Notes:
Holy f*ck is this some good BBQ sauce. It has a deep molasses sweetness to it with a bit of brightness that helps to elevate the flavor of the chicken nugget I tasted it on. It ends with some smokey notes spiked with a spicy aftertaste that starts to burn the tongue a bit and make the mouth water.
BBQ sauce this good is hard to find in fast food.
Rating: 9.5/10
Bottom Line
Burger King? Are you f*cking kidding me? As someone who routinely ranks BK at the bottom of my fast food rankings, I couldn’t be more surprised (and happy) to see the King finally break the top five. Good job Burger King, you have fast food’s best BBQ.
3. McDonald’s — Spicy Buffalo (Taste 17)
Original Notes:
A perfect buffalo sauce. It has a subtle sweet tang to it with a strong kick of heat and a buttery finish. It’s good enough to warrant a double dip even though I’m trying to conserve nuggets.
Rating: 9.5/10
Bottom Line
I kind of expect McDonald’s to be middling at everything they do but this is easily the best buffalo sauce in all of fast food — it actually brings the heat.
2. Wendy’s — Ghost Pepper Ranch (Taste 56)
Original Notes:
Wow, whatever this is, fast food needs more of it. Creamy buttermilk notes greet the palate with some hints of black pepper and cayenne bringing some earthy heat to the mix with a fruity sweet top note that pulls it all together. It tastes like a natural pair with chicken nuggets and would be unbeatable on a chicken sandwich.
Rating:10/10
Bottom Line:
On another level compared to what else is out there. It’s sweet, then spicy, then savory, a real winner of a sauce and neck and neck with our number one choice.
1. Chick-fil-A — Polynesian Sauce (Taste 11)
Original Notes:
An initial pepper flavor that takes a left turn into a fruity territory. It’s sweet, but in an earthy floral way, there is a hint of orange in there with a bit of tang that pops in and out. I took a few more dips of this one and each time it presented itself differently, though each time it elevated the chicken nugget. I have no complaints when it comes to this sauce, it’s nearly perfect.
Rating:10/10
Bottom Line:
I feel like giving this sauce the number one choice is going to make a lot of people mad. Going into this tasting I fully expected to rank something like a BBQ or Ranch at the number one spot, to see Polynesian take the crown is a bit of a surprise, even to me. At the end of the day, this sauce just comes across as surprising, a few fast food dipping sauces offer that.
PART III — Conclusion
I. Never. Want. To. Dip. Again.
Seriously, I’m leaving this 62 sauce tasting with my mouth feeling absolutely insane and my stomach aching. I’m so happy to be at the end of this that I could cry, but if I were to cry I’m certain my tears would be drip red with artificial sauce coloring and stick to my face from all the sugar and that sounds… disgusting. Plus, knowing my editor he’d be like “well, how does the sauce taste after it’s filtered through your tear ducts” because he’s a very very sick man. “Try all of the dipping sauces you can find, it’ll be easy,” he said. I don’t know when, I don’t know how, but I will have my revenge!
Anyway, there are a lot of fast food dipping sauces out there and I’m not sure there needs to be. Almost every brand (except Taco Bell) and every type of sauce was able to land somewhere in the top ten, so I’d love it if they’d just simplify and only carry the five best (for instance, there are way too many f*cking honey mustards!).
That’ll never happen though. As they say, “variety is the spice of life.” While you probably won’t agree with all of our picks, if you’re looking for the truly best-tasting sauces in all of fast food, you can’t go wrong with anything in the top ten. Keep them all in your glove box and mix and match with various restaurants!
