I Tried 9 Fast Food Secret Sauces and This Was the Clear Winner

What’s the one thing that almost everyone who orders a Big Mac will tell you makes the bite? The sauce. In fact, it’s so popular that “Mac sauce” is showing up all over social media: copycat recipes for the sauce itself, cheeseburger wraps with the sauce to dip in, you name it. It’s its own phenomenon.

And I get it. There have been times that I have swung around to order chicken and fries simply because I’m craving a sauce and I need a vehicle to deliver it into my mouth (I’m not proud of it, but I’m not ashamed either—at least I’m not eating it with a spoon). A sauce can make or break a meal, fast or otherwise. So naturally, with fast food goliaths everywhere cranking out their own signature or “secret” sauces, some comparison was bound to happen.

What Makes a Great Secret Sauce?

The exact makings of a great secret sauce can be a bit hard to pinpoint. But what goes through my mind is something similar to comeback sauce. The Southern condiment is—typically but not always—a mixture of mayonnaise, chili sauce, ketchup, lemon juice, smoked paprika, Worcestershire, hot sauce, salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and dry mustard. It’s a great all-around sauce: sweet, savory, tangy, creamy, and a little spicy.

Of course, I’m not expecting nor wanting an exact representation of that when I order a place’s secret sauce, but it’s a solid place to start in terms of balance and what it brings to the table. I’m not looking for a reinvention of mayo, a new flavored mustard, or ketchup in a thinly veiled disguise. I want something unique, flavorful, and craveable. If it’s a signature sauce so secret that the name is only that of the restaurant or a word like “good,” make me love it so much that I say out loud, “What is in this?!”

How I Chose and Tested the Sauces

Speaking of chicken and fries, that’s what I ordered to dip into each one. Our recent ranking of ranch did the same thing, and I thought it was a good idea. Some sauces lend themselves better to one or the other or even change dramatically when sampled using different items. The best situation, however, is when the sauce goes well with both, though that wasn’t a requirement for a high placement.

The Best Fast Food Secret Sauces, Ranked

9th Place: Burger King

I knew something would be amiss when I read the first ingredient of the little dipping cup of Zesty Sauce: horseradish. I have nothing against horseradish; in fact, I find it quite wonderful, but throwing it into the mix guarantees that this sauce will be in a whole other lane, and, I was right.

It’s a bright yellow mixture, with the remaining ingredients exactly of what's expected in a secret sauce. There’s a decent heat at the end that's reminiscent of paprika, but the horseradish dominates the conversation. As a dip in general, it is perfectly fine (and quite nice on fries), but I just can’t classify it as a special sauce. It has its place, but just not in this article.

I have ranked it last simply because, in my opinion, it kind of disqualifies itself. But if this ranking were simply personal taste preference with no parameters, I would put it slightly above Chick-fil-A.

8th Place: Shake Shack

I’m just going to say it. You can’t convince me this isn’t just mayo. Sure, it's a light orange color instead of off-white, but that’s it. Piped on-premise into little plastic ramekins instead of in its own pre-packaged and branded package, it’s unclear if this is company-wide or made in-house. If it’s the latter, I might be able to chalk this up to whatever employee was on Shack Sauce duty that day just messed up the proportions of ingredients. Whatever the reason, it tastes like whipped egg and air.

I was tempted to place Shack Sauce in last place out of sheer incredulousness that the Shack could call this a signature sauce, but since BK was so out of left field in this group of nine, the Shack Sauce gets a little pass on the ranking, coming in second to last.

7th Place: KFC

KFC’s KFC sauce is a bit darker and moodier, akin to honey mustard, but with some little brown freckles. And that’s exactly how it tastes—like a gussied-up honey mustard. More accurately, a molasses-like mustard. This sauce should be saved strictly for chicken and not fries, but that makes sense for the home of the bucket.

If you’re a honey mustard chicken person, this is for you. Dip those chicken strips, smear it on a wrap (lettuce and tomato would be pals here), or even drizzle it over a salad. But as a secret sauce dip? Nah.

6th Place: Chick-fil-A

With promising ingredients such as barbecue sauce, mustard, egg yolks, lemon juice, distilled vinegar, and cider vinegar, I expected a much tastier experience. I was surprised, too, considering grocery store shelves even stock large white squeeze bottles of Chick-fil-A's sauces.

Besides a slightly off, bit-too-sweet taste, the texture is just unappetizingly firm, like due to the mustard flour. Though I am told this is popular, I’ve heard that the Polynesian sauce may be even more so. Even my husband, surprised at his similar distaste for the sauce, came to the realization that it was, in fact, the Polynesian sauce he used to get so often. So, I guess…. get that instead.

5th Place: Jack in the Box

The only sauce on this list to come in a packet, Jack In The Box’s Secret Sauce is also the only one that's reddish in color, almost like a pale ketchup. A look at the ingredients list solves the mystery: tomato paste is the first one listed and it really tastes like it. It’s tangy, and a bit weird, but it grows on you the more bites you take. Fries fare better in the sauce and (oddly) cold fries even more so. I’d love this in the late night, perhaps after coming home from the bar and finding cold fries in the fridge. But in my daily life? I’ll politely pass.

4th Place: McDonald's

For many, McDonald's Special Sauce is the OG. It’s in the jingle, after all: two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun.

This is the only one on the list that’s a special order. The menu won’t show it as an option and you have to be direct and decisive with the drive-through attendant. They’ll curiously ask if you’re sure once or twice and check with a manager. That small amount of hoop-jumping will earn you a small plastic ramekin of that sweet, sweet Mac sauce.

Eating this sauce on a chicken nugget conjures two thoughts. One: That’s some nostalgia right there. Two: Oh man, this would be really good on a burger. To put it plainly, this is a burger sauce and it might be best not to disturb its relationship with beef.

That said, it suits fries a bit better than chicken. It’s onion, vinegar, and pickle forward and not my favorite as a stand-alone dipping sauce. After sampling, it’s a lot clearer why the employee was skeptical about my request. 

3rd Place: Jack in the Box

This sauce, one of the two on their chicken wrap, lived up to its name when in a team of ingredients nestled in a little tortilla, so I had high hopes for this experiment. And the Good Good Sauce made good.

The color of yellow mustard, but with a far more complex flavor, this is what you want in a secret sauce: tangy, a little peppery, vinegar forward, sweet and savory. It is a sweeter sauce, but the rest of the flavors hold up to it. Good Good Sauce is an excellent choice, no matter what you decide to pair with it.

2nd Place: Raising Cane’s

I admit I did not understand the hype around Raising Cane’s. Looking into this sauce marked not only the first time I’d had Cane’s Sauce, but also their chicken and fries. And I was into it. Cane’s sauce looks like comeback sauce and tastes similar to it. It’s just delicious. Tangy, mayo-y, a little tomato-forward, well seasoned, and delightful. The mmmm's were so palpable during the taste test that we had to sample it back and forth against the winner just to be sure. Bottom line: I now totally get its popularity.

1st Place: Zaxby’s

No, I did not choose this based on bias. If you’ve read my stuff before, I’ve made no secret of the fact that I have a full-blown relationship with this sauce. Even before I started doing these rankings for Allrecipes, and fast food was in no way a part of my diet, the craving for Zax Sauce would hit hard and fast. I have taken routes on road trips to put me in the vicinity of a Zaxby’s. A lone cup of unopened Zax Sauce was the first thing to be stocked in my fridge the day we moved into our house.

I was a little scared that I would like something else better as I tried sauces for this assignment. But with an open mind that this might not be the end-all-be-all sauce, I am happy to report that my long-term lover and I are still holding strong.

As mentioned, Cane’s Sauce was so good that I did a side-by-side for certainty, but Zax pulled into the lead with its touch of extra seasonings like garlic powder and pepper. The texture is also creamy and dreamy. It's perfect with chicken or with fries—especially on fries. It has everything you want in a secret sauce.