The McDonald's Sauce You Should Avoid Dipping Nuggets In

McDonald's McNuggets are pretty good in terms of fast food nugget metrics. You know it's about to be a treat when they're freshly cooked and have that salty crunch about them. But foods like wings, nuggets, tenders, and sometimes even cheap pizza, are nothing without the proper dipping sauce — and dare we say that ranch is an elite option? That is, of course, unless we're talking about McDonald's own creamy ranch sauce.

Chowhound writer Alex Springer took the reins on ranking every McDonald's sauce, and he found that out of all the options, the ranch was rather disappointing. It's not downright awful, but just not doing anything special the way the other sauces did. He described this ranch as "a watery coat of sour dairy." Springer confirmed that McDonald's honey mustard is the superior dipping sauce, with sweet and sour and tangy barbeque close behind. He took into account the individual flavor, complimentary flavor, texture, and consistency of each one to give a well-rounded analysis. We take dipping sauces seriously around these parts.

There are two ways to go about making ranch  — as a sauce or a dressing. These differences matter because ranch dressing is going to be thinner, acidic, and sour. The dressing is meant for cold vegetables and salads. It seems like McDonald's made the classic blunder of taking this approach to their ranch recipe. Their dipping sauce creators should realize there's an art to developing a dipping sauce for nuggets, tenders, and fries.

Ranch to be used for dipping purposes should be thick, creamy, and served cold. It's all about balance. Cold, slightly sweet, and herbal ranch creates harmony with hot, crunchy, and salty food. The best restaurants know this and will make their recipe from scratch, which is why a lot of pizza and wing joints have an incredible ranch sauce. McDonald's ranch is pre-packaged in a room-temperature container designed to be thrown into a to-go bag. For shelf-life and food safety reasons, this is a sensible choice because ranch is a dairy product.

However, we have to tell it like it is. You're better off using ketchup, tangy barbecue, or honey mustard for your McNuggets and fries. If you're serious about still having ranch for your Happy Meals, then consider making some from scratch or buying then refrigerating a quality ranch from the store. But the real secret dipping "sauce"? Dunk your chicken nuggets in a milkshake and thank us later.