McDonald’s Tangy BBQ sauce is great with chicken nuggets or used as a topping on its chicken sandwiches (but don’t confuse it with the cult classic McRib sauce). It has a distinct tangy, savory flavor that’s not so easy to recreate. But if you’re searching for a store-bought brand that closely resembles the burger chain’s sauce, a former McDonald’s corporate chef suggests buying Open Pit’s hickory-flavored barbecue sauce.
Chef Mike Haracz took to TikTok to share what makes McDonald’s barbecue sauce so good: the addition of soy sauce. And while it’s not so easy to find store-bought varieties with soy sauce in them, Open Pit has soy proteins in it, which Haracz says mimics that soy sauce flavor. You can buy the sauce on Amazon; it’s sold in a three-pack of 18-ounce bottles. One user commented on Haracz’s TikTok video that Guy Fieri’s Kansas City BBQ sauce tastes “almost identical” if you can’t find the Open Pit brand, and it’s also highly-rated on Amazon.
You can recreate McDonald’s barbecue sauce at home
If you don’t want to order the store-bought stuff online — or maybe you just love to try new recipes — you can also recreate McDonald’s Tangy BBQ sauce at home. According to Reddit, there is at least one highly similar recipe floating around online, though the recipe uses liquid smoke for that savory flavor rather than soy sauce. Some say the sauce is best when put on ribs because it thickens as it cooks, so if you do plan to make the copycat recipe, add less water than the recipe calls for.
Other users claim there’s an even simpler way to recreate the Tangy BBQ sauce that Chowhound ranked in the top half of all McDonald’s sauces — just mix Heinz ketchup with Sweet Baby Ray’s original sauce. It seems the flavor is in the eye of the beholder, as nobody can fully agree on which tricks mimic the McDonald’s sauce exactly, but if it’s one of those condiments you wish you always had on hand, then it could be worth the trial and error.
