This copycat Big Mac Sauce recipe is so close to the McDonalds special sauce, you wont be able to taste the difference! Use it to recreate your own homemade Big Macs, or as a topping and sauce for your favorite foods.
Big Mac Sauce has wonderfully creamy, tangy, and sweet. This flavor combination stands cuts through the richness of a fatty cheeseburger, making it a perfect burger topping. It is said to taste very similar to Thousand Island dressing, despite not being tomato-based.
Created by Jim Delligatti 1967, the original Big Mac wasnt actually called a Big Mac. It first went by different names – “The Aristocrat” and the “Blue Ribbon Burger”, neither of which caught on with customers. The third name, “Big Mac” was created by Esther Glickstein Rose, a young corporate McDonalds employee. This sandwich went on to worldwide fame, popularizing the iconic special sauce.
The earliest McDonalds advertisements didnt refer to Big Mac Sauce as we now know it, but rather, called it “secret sauce”. However, in 1974 a new advertising campaign came up with the famous jingle “Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions – on a sesame seed bun.” It has been known as “special sauce” ever since!
Is Big Mac Sauce the same as Thousand Island Dressing? The two are similar, but they have different ingredient ratios. Also, Thousand Island dressing is made with ketchup and diced onions. Big Mac sauce doesn’t use either of these ingredients.
How to make it
Im going to go out on a limb and assume you dont have a pantry full of preservatives and chemical binders, and neither does your grocery store. So let me break this down into simple ingredients youll understand. Based on McDonalds ingredient list, you will need sweet relish (not dill pickle relish), mayo, vinegar, American yellow mustard, garlic powder, onion powder, and paprika to make homemade Big Mac sauce. That sounds a lot more reasonable, doesnt it?
Make this famous sauce simply by mixing the ingredients together in a small bowl, then store it in the refrigerator overnight in an airtight container to allow the flavors to meld. You can enjoy it immediately if you are impatient, but letting it meld makes a big difference.
Store your homemade sauce in an airtight container in the refrigerator. As a mayo-based sauce, Big Mac sauce will spoil at room temperature if left outside of the fridge. It will also develop off-flavors if it is not sealed properly in a covered container. I do not recommend freezing it. For best flavor, any leftover sauce will keep for about a week in the fridge.
Big Mac Sauce is not Thousand Island dressing. Thousand Island dressing requires tomatoes, which arent an ingredient in authentic Big Mac Sauce. For this same reason, I firmly believe the best Big Mac Sauce recipe youll find will always exclude French dressing. Unfortunately, it seems 95% of the Big Mac Sauce recipes on the web call for French dressing but dont be fooled. Although I will admit the flavor is in the right ballpark as the real thing, *spoiler alert*, it still tastes like French dressing.
What are the Ingredients?
How do I know there are no tomatoes in McDonalds Special Sauce? Because, I looked up the ingredient list. This is what is in McDonalds Big Mac Sauce:
Video: Taste Test: Big Mac Special Sauce v. other dressings
FAQ
What’s the difference between Big Mac sauce and Thousand Island dressing?
What is the closest thing to Big Mac sauce?
Is Thousand Island dressing the same as burger sauce?
What is Big Mac sauce made of?