The Reason Shake Shack's Cheese Sauce Tastes So Good

Restaurant sauces tend to be predictable. The standard fast food special sauce is Thousand Island dressing, and cheese sauces anywhere tend to be just shredded cheddar, milk, and butter. So it's interesting that, to its credit, Shake Shack cooks a decent amount of white wine into the surprisingly decadent cheese sauce that gets drizzled over its crinkle fries.

During spring 2020, when few people were heading out to eat at restaurants, the burger chain posted the full recipe for its cheese sauce in a "cook-along" video hosted by its culinary director, Mark Rosati. From his apartment, Rosati prepared a mixture of American and cheddar cheese with both white wine vinegar and regular white wine (he uses Shake Shack's own white wine since this is a rare fast food chain that serves alcohol). He also tosses in sliced onions, jalapeños, and peppercorns with the wine and cream before eventually straining out the solids and finally adding the cheese. To make the cheese sauce "disco style," Rosati says you can add gravy into the mix.

Our new cooking-along series, Shake Shack at Your Shack, is here! In our first episode, our Culinary Director is teaching you how to make our classic cheese sauce at home. Trust us... you'll want to drizzle this fan favorite on everything! #ShakeShack #AtYourShack pic.twitter.com/yNqmRdXMOI

— SHAKE SHACK (@shakeshack) May 11, 2020

What does that white wine flavor add to Shake Shack's cheese sauce? If you're following Mark Rosati's recipe exactly, the restaurant's in-house Shack White wine is a sauvignon blanc. This type of white wine tends to have a herbal taste and is often dry (crisp and not sweet). It's sharp enough that it's considered a good pairing for equally sharp cheddar cheese, and this holds true even after you melt the cheese into a sauce. American cheese is a processed mixture of cheddar and Colby, and mild Colby cheese pairs well with most wines. The result is more elegant than you might expect with crinkle fry sauce: It's not uncommon to add white wine to cheese fondue.

The white wine (and white wine vinegar) in the cheese sauce won't make you drunk. Cooking with wine evaporates some alcohol, but not all of it; however, the cheese sauce recipe uses only two tablespoons of white wine, so the flavor will remain after cooking, but you're unlikely to feel a buzz. The same applies to white wine vinegar, which has less than 2% alcohol by volume.

It's also worth pointing out that Mark Rosati doesn't add the cheese until the end. Nearly all of the ingredients, except the cheese, are left to steep for about 30 minutes before the cooked onions and peppercorns are strained and the cheese is mixed into the remaining liquid. This helps prevent the cheese from curdling, which can be risky if you overcook it. The cheese must melt slowly, or the proteins will separate from the water and form curds. There shouldn't be any curds or grainy texture in the finished sauce — you've strained everything out so their flavors remain in a creamy, smooth texture.

If you want to go further with your homemade Shake Shack meal, you can also put together a copycat ShackBurger sauce pretty easily. Like most secret sauces, as we said earlier, the base is essentially Thousand Island, or ketchup and mayonnaise. However, Shake Shack also uses garlic and paprika to add stronger flavors to the sauce, although the restaurant claims its full recipe is a closely kept secret. Regardless, you should have enough to make yourself a ShackBurger with cheese fries at home. Milkshake not included.