16 Limited-Time Fast Food Sauces We Still Dream About

Fast food signature sauces aren't always something we think too much about. More often than not, they're mere additions to our favorite French fries or a little something extra to spice up an order of crispy chicken nuggets. From time to time, these sauces — like some menu items — disappear entirely with little fanfare or recognition. But there are some that are, in fact, remembered. Some of these sauce disappearances caused such uproar that copycat recipes are still made and unopened packages are sold to the highest bidder.

While not every sauce demands this kind of loyalty, the ones that do make a mark on our memory, even years after they've been discontinued. Want to know more about some of the fast food sauces that still take up space in our brains even though they're not served anymore? Join us in exploring 16 limited-time fast food sauces we still dream about (and hope to get brought back just one more time).

The infamous McDonald's Szechuan sauce was first released all the way back in 1998 for a promotion involving the Disney film "Mulan." But what really is Szechuan sauce? Like many other fast food chains, McDonald's has never officially released the recipe, nor is it likely they will. Many copycat recipes include ingredients like garlic, soy sauce, and Szechuan peppercorns, giving the final result a distinct Asian-inspired flavor.

The sauce has gained a cult following since its debut, inspiring McDonald's to bring it back a whopping total of four times. One such time was for a "Rick and Morty" themed tie-in that saw the titular characters time-travel back to the '90s to order the sauce. Despite all the social media buzz, however, McDonald's still hasn't brought Szechuan sauce back in a full-time capacity, leading to people stockpiling packages just in case another decade or two passes without new production.

Taco Bell is known for having a lot of sauces. Going through the Taco Bell drive-thru you can expect handfuls of the stuff tossed into the bag with flavors ranging from mild to hot. But, back in the '90s, there was the Volcano Taco, and with it came lava sauce. The Volcano Taco (as part of the Volcano menu) was first introduced in 1995 and, as with McDonald's Szechuan sauce, has made a few reappearances since then. What makes the Lava sauce so spectacular, in particular, is the addition it made to the spice factor without being overbearing.

The sauce was well-loved enough to be brought back most recently in 2023 for fans to slather on their tacos and nachos. There's no telling why fast food joints bring back sauces only to stow them away in the vault again and again, but as of 2025, lava sauce is not available at your local Taco Bell. Worry not, it probably will be released again in the next few years to try for a limited time, so look out if you missed it the first few times.

In 2025, Taco Bell joined in partnership with Mike's Hot Honey to release a spicy limited Diablo remix for the chain's crispy chicken nuggets. The sauce blended the signature smoky heat you'd expect from Taco Bell with the sticky sweetness that every taste of Mike's Hot Honey gives. Fans noted that the sauce was best on the chicken nuggets it was designed for (although not so good on a taco). With some fans on Reddit calling it the best sauce ever, it was a surprise when the limited-time condiment met its end.

One interesting part about the Taco Bell/Mike's partnership? The dipping cups that held the sauce are recyclable through TerraCycle, making it both a delicious choice and one customers could feel good about, too. As with all of these sauces, the hunger for another taste is there, but with no plans for relaunch, people will just have to hold onto the memory.

There have been a handful of Chick-fil-A items that have been discontinued over the years, from the mac and cheese to the beloved bowls of coleslaw. One such discontinued item was the buttermilk ranch dressing, which may seem odd given the popularity of ranch as both a salad and chicken companion. Still, in 2016, the chain retired it in favor of bolder flavors, and as you may expect, this decision caused an uproar online. Fans begged for the buttermilk ranch to be brought back, even creating petitions and posts in hopes that the chain would budge on its decision.

In its stead, Chick-fil-A brought out the garlic herb ranch, which, depending on who you ask, pales in comparison to the original. Unlike other chains, Chick-fil-A doesn't often bring back flavors that have been retired, so hopeful fans are probably going to remain disappointed. But copycat recipes do exist to try and fill the void left behind.

If you've heard the term chicken fry, it's likely due to Burger King. With those long pieces of chicken also came a special sauce to further up the ante for customers. The chicken fry sauce had a flavor mix that united barbecue and mustard in a tangy, creamy dip. Given the popularity of the chicken fry, one would think the accompanying sauce would have stuck around. Unfortunately, Burger King discontinued the flavor sometime after 2015. And, as with other sauces on this list, sometimes a copycat recipe just doesn't hit the same.

Some customers have gone so far as to try and replicate the flavor from the small print ingredients list on the front of the sauce packages to varying success. Dedication like that seems to warrant giving the sauce a return, even for a limited-time run. But with no plans to do so, fans will have to keep making their own concoctions and hoping one eventually tastes just right.

The fast-food ranch craze continues with the now-defunct habanero ranch sauce from McDonald's. A now-closed petition, which aimed to get McDonald's to bring the sauce back into restaurants, said the ranch "brings joy to tastebuds around the country." Given the sheer number of campaigns that McDonald's runs in any given year, bids to get the habanero ranch back on menus pop up with every new sauce drop, but it doesn't seem to nudge McDonald's management into bringing back the spicy dip.

While McDonald's in other countries allegedly still serves habanero-flavored sauces, fans note that these iterations just don't taste the same. Nostalgia is a powerful thing, driving the sort of loyalty that most chains dream about, and while not as famous as the Szechuan sauce cult, habanero ranch certainly has its faithful followers who would no doubt get super excited if McDonald's ever decided to bring it back.

Burger King and McDonald's often take pages out of one another's books when it comes to introducing new menu items. After all, these burger chains are rivals in the fast food scene. So, when Burger King dropped its chicken strips back in 2012 as a stand up to the McDonald's chicken selects, the Home of the Whopper also dropped it with a few new dips. One of these was the kung pao sauce: a garlicky, soy sauce-forward flavor that carried similar qualities to McDonald's Szechuan sauce. A latent spiciness lingers after each bite, giving things a savory kick, but even the hope of battling McDonald's wasn't enough to keep the kung pao flavor in stock.

Luckily, kung pao sauce recipes are readily available online, given the popularity of dishes like kung pao chicken. The deeper flavor profile can add something special to chicken or even French fries, making it a sauce option that some Burger King fans still long for. While it may not be exactly the same, at-home versions, or even those you can pick up from a takeout spot, may fill the void in the meantime.

KFC isn't necessarily known for introducing bold flavors to its menu. After all, the bread and butter of the brand is fried chicken and other Southern food staples, which made the introduction of its orange ginger sauce exciting back in the early 2010s. The citrus-forward flavor somehow brightened the chain's famous fried chicken while an undercurrent of sweetness cut through the savoriness of the breading. A zing from the ginger gave further depth to the typical one-note sauces found at many fast food establishments.

Fans welcomed the variety it offered on top of menu staples like ranch and barbecue sauce, but the excitement didn't last. Tied to the KFC Dip 'Ems campaign, the sauce faded out of existence following its limited-time run. The flavor may not be available to purchase from KFC anymore, but orange ginger is a fairly popular combination in Asian cuisines, making copycat recipes readily available online.

If you ever had a bagel sandwich from McDonald's in the early 2000s, then you most certainly tried the famed breakfast sauce. The flavor was similar to mayo-spread with a creamy, herby appeal akin to a hollandaise sauce. Despite how popular it was for bringing added depth to the more basic bagel and egg combination, McDonald's discontinued both the breakfast sauce in 2018 and the bagels back in 2020, much to the disappointment of fans.

Slowly, the bagel sandwiches started being reintroduced, but the breakfast sauce was left behind in the 2010s. Copycat recipes do their best at replicating the tangy, savory flavor and consistency, signaling that the sauce was a hit. McDonald's is also known for bringing back favorites when fans get loud enough, which might mean the legendary breakfast sauce could one day make its menu return with enough continued pressure from those who loved it most. 

Michael Jordan is a legend in the sports and entertainment world. So much so that McDonald's released a Michael Jordan burger — the "McJordan" — back in 1992 that featured the basketball star's favorite toppings. The burger, sold primarily in the Chicago area due to Jordan's Chicago Bulls tenure, featured a quarterpounder with bacon, cheese, pickles, and the works. But the sauce is what still has people's attention. Barbecue sauce was Jordan's chosen sauce, and the McJordan barbecue sauce took the world by storm.

An unopened gallon of the stuff is for sale on eBay for thousands of dollars, though that's likely due to the fame of Michael Jordan and less about the sauce flavor itself. Regardless, to garner such fervent support for a limited-time item is nothing to scoff at. If McDonald's ever did bring back the tangy sauce, it would likely see plenty of purchases.

Sriracha is a flavor that people from all over have fallen in love with. The heat and tang of the ground peppers can elevate any dish, and Wendy's jumped on board the trend. But some menus can't have multiple spicy sauces at the same time, so in 2021, Wendy's removed the creamy sriracha sauce in favor of its ghost pepper ranch, which many say isn't available in their local Wendy's anymore, either. 

Needless to say that many fans weren't happy. Some said the replacement pepper sauce wasn't good enough, with some fans signing a petition to bring the creamy sriracha flavor back. But eagle-eyed fans noted that the McDonald's creamy chili sauce is an excellent replacement for the beloved Wendy's sauce, as it has a very similar flavor. Luckily, it's still available in McDonald's restaurants around the country for those who want to see if it stacks up to what was lost.

The garlic parmesan sauce from McDonald's throws it all the way back to the 1980s. In a move right out of the nostalgia playbook, McDonald's reintroduced three sauce flavors during its "Throwback Sauces" campaign back in 2024. These sauces hailed from different eras of the chain's history and were brought back into production to accompany chicken nuggets. The garlic parmesan sauce joined Szechuan sauce and jalapeno cheddar sauce for a short stint.

With a garlic-forward flavor, the mild cheesiness of the sauce was reintroduced as the perfect savory companion for the crispy, salty chicken nuggets we know and love. Sadly, as a limited-edition comeback, it was never intended to last. Perhaps that's what drove the fanfare around it, especially for those customers who tried the sauce when it first came out in the '80s. Following its second discontinuation, fans flocked to the internet to try and find copycat recipes. Time will only tell if it makes a third appearance.

Jack in the Box isn't a fast food establishment that gets a lot of fanfare in the grand scheme of things, but sometimes a dish or sauce comes along that makes a spot stand out, and that's what happened with the mayo onion sauce from the chain. From the 1980s through the 2000s, Jack in the Box burgers and sandwiches featured a mayo that gave fast food an added depth of flavor. There's debate on how the mayo onion sauce is made in copycat recipe forums, with many desperate to get it just right.

Given that the sauce has been out of commission for years, perfecting it at home has been difficult. The general flavor might be achieved by ordering mayo and grilled onions on any of the burgers, but as with some other sauces on the list, this one may simply be lost to the sands of time.

Another hot honey to be added to the list, Wendy's hot honey was a deeply beloved sauce that went along with the chain's other hot honey adjacent foods, such as the hot honey chicken sandwich. The sauce played into the swicey food trend that stole the internet's heart: crispy chicken with an aftertaste of heat and sweet. The hot honey sauce was only released back in 2022 with a full rollout fit for a queen, but despite some dedicated fans, Wendy's didn't think the sauce (and other hot honey menu options) were lucrative enough.

In less than a year, the sauce was discontinued, with many fans asking if it would ever return. While there are plenty of hot honey brands on the market, it was nice to be able to go through the drive-thru and get a small packet of the stuff without having to lug around a bottle from the grocery store.

Taco Bell sauce packet sayings are what people have come to expect when tearing into one to slather on their taco. Even discontinued sauces, like the fire-roasted sauce, are still brought up in the conversation. Fire-roasted sauce was introduced as part of a "Border Salsa" campaign aimed at offering flavors that were more authentically Mexican. The fire-roasted sauce was meant to mimic the taste of fire-roasted tomatoes in salsa, which can give tacos an added depth of flavor previously unseen at Taco Bell.

Following the discontinuation of the sauce, many people shared their passion for it online. One person on Reddit claimed they'd drink the sauce straight if they could, while others simply missed what the sauce added to their food. Taco Bell did bring back the Mexican pizza after enough conversation online, so disappointed fans may still have hope yet for the fire-roasted sauce to be sold again.

There's only so much innovation that fried chicken restaurants can achieve, given that most people come for consistency and not bold, new flavors. Due to this, sauces often get mimicked across the board, and KFC's Finger Lickin' Good sauce was one instance of this. Akin to the mayo-based sauces that have made places like Zaxby's and Raising Cane's famous, the Finger Lickin' Good sauce was introduced in 2015 to accompany the extra crispy chicken tenders on the menu.

Despite people seemingly loving it, the sauce was discontinued in 2020. Whether that was due to the pandemic or some other internal reasoning, the sauce left a gap for some fans. KFC sauce was introduced in its stead, which has a brighter flavor profile than the Finger Lickin' Good sauce. While some people can't tell the difference between the two, others are staunchly in the Finger Lickin' Good camp and are hopefully awaiting its return.