Fast food options typically boil down to sandwiches, burgers, fried chicken, and faux Mexican food. But one of the main differences between these limiting categories is the overwhelming variety of fast food dipping sauces. And Burger King’s Zesty Dipping Sauce is a major fan favorite. Redditors favorably compared it to remoulade sauce and Outback’s Bloomin’ Onion sauce, while copycat recipes put it in more of a Thousand Island dressing category; a mix of ketchup, mayo, and spices that historically constitute many restaurants’ secret special sauces. It’s thus incredibly fitting that the store-bought sauce fans deem the ultimate Burger King Zesty Dipping Sauce dupe is Sweet Baby Ray’s Secret Sauce.
Instead of hoarding a bunch of packets, as one Redditor admitted to doing, Sweet Baby Ray’s Secret Sauce is the near-identical grocery store copycat for this fast food sauce that you can always have on hand. Not only is this iconic brand available at most mainstream grocery stores, but you can also buy it on Amazon. There are tons of Reddit threads dedicated to finding a BK Zesty Sauce dupe, and the majority of respondents swore by Sweet Baby Ray’s Secret Sauce. Notably, the ingredients lists on both bottles reveal a major overlap, with both mayo-based sauces relying on horseradish and mustard for their zesty kick. A YouTuber confirmed that it’s “Extremely close. I would say BK’s Zesty Sauce has a little bit more of a bite to it, but as far as flavor goes they’re almost exactly the same.”
Some fun ways to use Sweet Baby Ray’s Secret Sauce at home
Just as Redditors like to use Burger King’s Zesty Dipping Sauce on everything from onion rings to burgers, Sweet Baby Ray’s Secret Sauce is equally as versatile. In fact, it’ll gamely accompany an even broader range of dishes since you’ll be using it at home, which gives you more freedom to experiment. The most obvious place to start is by slathering it on top of your favorite burger recipe. You can dip store-bought frozen french fries in Sweet Baby Ray’s Secret Sauce or drizzle it over a plate of homemade crispy potato wedges. If Sweet Baby Ray’s Secret Sauce doesn’t have enough of a spicy kick to it as BK’s Zesty Dipping sauce, you can always pair it with something like spicy chicken nuggets — Tasting Table has a handy ranking of frozen spicy chicken nuggets brands for you to find the best fit.
A zippy horseradish kick would make for a great addition to mayo-based salads; swapping a portion or all of the mayo in a chicken salad or egg salad recipe would really amp up the flavor. Sweet Baby Ray’s Secret Sauce would be a great mayo swap for deviled eggs or even this recipe for deviled egg salad. As a remoulade-adjacent dip, Sweet Baby Ray’s Secret Sauce would also taste great with fried shrimp or spread over a homemade po’boy. While Sweet Baby Ray’s Secret Sauce lacks the tomato paste that BK’s Zesty Sauce boasts, it’d still taste pretty great as a Thousand Island swap to slather over a classic Reuben sandwich.
