The Costco Find Made For Your Air Fryer Has An Unexpected Flaw

There is a tiny window in which mozzarella sticks exist in that perfect state between cold, gummy cheese and molten cheese that leaks out of the breaded coating, leaving you with a hollow shell. If you can get a perfectly cooked mozzarella stick where all the cheese stays inside and gives you a great cheese pull when you bite into it, that's a thing of beauty. Not every brand of mozzarella sticks can do this, but Petite Cuisine Mozzarella Sticks from Costco are as close as any we have ever tried. Despite their cheesy perfection, they do have one glaring drawback: there's no sauce in the box.

Sure, not all mozzarella sticks come with marinara sauce for dipping. Even when they do, the sauce is sometimes pretty bad, but at least they include it. The box of Petite Cuisine shows a dish of sauce, but apparently it's for illustrative purposes only. When our taste tester reviewed the best Costco snacks to cook in an air fryer, these mozzarella sticks came out on top. Nevertheless, the lack of sauce seemed like a missed opportunity for something that was already so good. If the company had nailed that aspect, this would have gone from a home run to a grand slam.

With an unreal cheese pull, perfectly seasoned and crunchy coating, and a delicious mozzarella flavor, these sticks really hit all the right notes in and of themselves. You just need to remember to get some worthwhile sauce to go with them if you want the full experience. So what sauce is best?

Our taste tester wasn't the only one impressed by Petite Cuisine mozzarella sticks. Over on Reddit, the sticks are getting a lot of love as well. When it comes to sauce, Rao's marinara sauce, also available at Costco, comes highly recommended as a sidekick. Nevertheless, any good quality marinara sauce would do, but that's not your only option. Some on Reddit recommend Rao's Calabrian chili marinara sauce for a sweeter and spicier kick than regular marinara. Of course, there's always a chance that you're going to forget to pick up marinara sauce, or just run out. So what can you use in a pinch?

Ranch has been recommended as an appropriate accompaniment, as it works with almost any fried food. Some other suggestions include garlic butter or pesto to boost that savory hit, or Buffalo sauce or Sriracha to give it a spicy kick. And if being packed full of melty cheese isn't enough, you could double down with queso or this simple two-ingredient cheese sauce. If you want some more suggestions, you're in luck because we put together a definitive list of the best sauces for dipping your mozzarella sticks.

Sauce for a mozzarella stick is basically just icing on the cake. As our taste tester confirmed, these mozzarella sticks on their own are pretty delicious. They're not going to be let down, no matter what you enjoy them with. Your best bet may be to sample a few sauces and then try to restrain yourself from eating the whole box.