I Tried All Seven of McDonald's Dipping Sauces—And My Favorite One Surprised Me

It is my personal belief that a chicken nugget is only as good as the sauce you dip it into. It might exist on the side, but a good dipping sauce is vital to the experience of enjoying a chicken nugget. Some might even argue it is the flavor.

Now, even though I make my own chicken nuggets and sauces, I have to say that my go-to sauce is honey mustard, and that has everything to do with having eaten Chicken McNuggets in McDonald’s Happy Meals when I was a kid. Which got me thinking: What other great sauces were lurking at my local Golden Arches? Were any of them as memorable as honey mustard? It was time to put the dipping sauces of McDonald’s to the test. 

How I Tested McDonald’s Dipping Sauces

I turned to the fast food giant’s current dipping sauce lineup–over the years, McDonald's has offered a range of flavors, some for a limited time while others were discontinued (miss you, sweet chili sauce). The sauce list now stood at seven varieties. I went to my local McDonald’s and ordered a big bag of McNuggets with all the sauces. The game was on.  

To determine which sauce pairs best with McNuggets, I considered factors like flavor, typicity, and consistency. The sauce not only had to taste good on the nugget, it also needed to align with what one expected it to taste like. Read on to see the results from my grand McDonald's dipping sauce tasting, ranked from seventh place to first.

7. Sweet 'N Sour

A sweet and sour sauce needs to be two things: sweet and sour. It's right there in the name. So why did this dipping sauce taste like a close cousin of apple sauce? Well, according to the ingredient list, it's made with "apricot puree concentrate and/or peach puree concentrate" and "2% or less" or soy sauce. That explains why it was sweet and fruity, without any sour or acid to balance it out. Not only was the Sweet 'N Sour Sauce not what it was supposed to taste like, it was downright unpleasant on a McNugget.

6. Honey

When I asked the cashier at McDonald's to add one of every dipping sauce to my bag, I wasn't expecting honey to be one of them. I'll give McDonald's credit: This was the only single-ingredient dipping sauce ("pure honey") in the mix. I wanted to like the McNugget and honey combination more, but unfortunately it just tasted like a meal masquerading as dessert. This dipping sauce combo wanted to be chicken and waffles, but it wasn’t.

5. Hot Mustard

Again, here was a dipping sauce that said it was one thing but showed up to the party dressed as something else. Shouldn't hot mustard be…hot? This one tasted like any ole regular mustard. According to the ingredient list, the spiciest things in the mix were turmeric and paprika. The flavor wasn't bad, but it also wasn't great. I recommend renaming this one "Spiced Mustard."

4. Creamy Ranch

There are a lot of ranch haters out there, but I am not one of them. So I was surprised when McDonald's Creamy Ranch Sauce didn't do much for me. It was on the sweeter side and not very herby. If you want a creamy sauce to dip McNuggets into, this is your best option at McDonald's, but you're better off with a squirt from a bottle of salad dressing from your fridge door.

3. Tangy BBQ

Finally, a sauce that tastes like what it's supposed to! A good barbecue sauce should be sweet, tangy, and a little bit smoky. However, McDonald's is stretching with the "tangy" descriptor in the name of this dipping sauce. It's closer to sweet than tangy, but this one definitely delivers on the barbecue sauce front—if that's what you're looking for.

2. Honey Mustard

Honey mustard with chicken has always been a winning combo, and McDonald's version of the classic dipping sauce confirms that's still the case. It's sweet, mustardy, tangy, savory, and actually accentuates the flavor of the McNugget. Unlike other sauces that are merely tolerable, this one is enjoyable. No wonder I liked it as a kid.

1. Spicy Buffalo

I'm not usually one to go for Buffalo sauce on an order of chicken wings. But when it comes to McDonald's Spicy Buffalo Sauce, I was pleasantly surprised. This sauce packet delivered exactly what I was expecting it to: zingy spice, vibrant color, and a consistent sauciness. While it's a subtler, tamer version of a classic spicy sauce, it's a clear winner—and the dipping sauce I'll be ordering with my McNuggets from now on.