Copycat Chick-Fil-A Polynesian Sauce Recipe

Polynesian sauce is one of Chick-fil-A's popular lineup of sauces for dipping sandwiches, nuggets, and waffle fries. If you're a fan of this sweet and tangy sauce, you'll be glad to know it's fun to recreate it at home. An easy way to do that is to stir some honey and apple cider vinegar into store-bought Catalina salad dressing. While quicker, it doesn't quite touch all the notes of the original.

Recipe developer Michelle Bottalico has created a recipe for a copycat Polynesian sauce you can make from scratch. (Well, we don't make the ketchup from scratch, but you can certainly make your own if you want.) The original ingredients include sugar, soybean or canola oil, two kinds of vinegar, tomato paste, and spices, but the manufacturer also throws in less-than-natural ingredients like corn syrup, modified food starch, dextrose, and propylene glycol alginate. Bottalico has chosen simple pantry ingredients that vibe with the original. The beauty of making it this way is that you can customize the sauce according to your unique tastes or dietary needs. 

This recipe makes 1 ¼ cups of sauce, which is 20 tablespoons. That's ten generous 2-tablespoon servings. Store leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator and don't double-dip. Just give the sauce a shake or a stir before you use it again. It will last up to two weeks that way, so you'll have a flavorful sauce on hand to complement your meals when you need it.

For this recipe, you will need canola oil, ketchup, sugar, honey, white vinegar, and apple cider vinegar. The spices you will need are salt, paprika, ground mustard seed, onion powder, and garlic powder.

Place the oil, ketchup, sugar, honey, white vinegar, and apple cider vinegar in a medium jar.

Place the lid on the jar, close it tightly, and shake vigorously to evenly combine the ingredients.

Add the salt, paprika, mustard seed, onion powder, and garlic powder to the jar and shake again to combine.

Taste the sauce and adjust for spices or sweetener if desired.

Serve or refrigerate for up to 2 weeks before serving. Shake well before use.

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Brown sugar instead of white would add a richer flavor, and cayenne or hot sauce would add heat. To make the recipe white-sugar-free, use only honey, maple syrup, agave syrup, or molasses. You can tweak the flavor with the vinegar, too. Red wine vinegar would work. Balsamic vinegar would add a deeper flavor, and white balsamic vinegar would add tang with sweetness. Grind your own mustard seed for a bolder flavor, and reduce the salt or leave it out for a salt-free version.

To make an easier version of this recipe, stir 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar and 3-5 tablespoons of honey into 1 cup of store-bought Catalina dressing. The amount of honey depends on your taste for sweetness, and you can add another tablespoon of vinegar if you like it tangier.

On the other hand, if you want to make this recipe completely from scratch, you can make your own ketchup. Just add tomato paste, cornstarch, and additional sugar to the ingredient list. You'll need to dissolve the sugar in water on the stove first. Heat the tomato paste with the oil and spices in a separate saucepan. Whisk in all the remaining ingredients except for the cornstarch and bring it to a boil. Whisk in a cornstarch slurry and then let it simmer on low. Once it thickens, take it off the heat and let it cool completely before storing.

If you're watching your sugar intake, Polynesian sauce might be hard to enjoy. This recipe is very sweet. The 1¼ cup total recipe volume includes 3 tablespoons of sugar and 1 tablespoon of honey, and the ¼ cup of ketchup normally has some form of sugar in it, too, depending on the brand and variety. You can lower the sugar content simply by reducing the amount of sugar and honey. As for the ketchup, choose a reduced-sugar variety.

You can also make this sauce sugar-free if you want. Leave the sugar and honey out and use an alternative ketchup. You can find sugar-free ketchup in well-stocked grocery stores. Primal Kitchen makes a version that includes white balsamic vinegar, which is naturally sweetened from white grape must. Another option is to make the sauce from scratch with tomato paste as described above, allowing you to only include the ingredients you want. Finally, there are plenty of sweetener options that aren't sugar. If your diet includes it, stir in some artificial sweetener, or choose a more natural sugar alternative like monk fruit.

When you reduce or remove the sugar in this recipe, you may need to adjust the quantities of other ingredients, like vinegar and spices, until you're happy with the flavor. Sugar-free ketchup and other sauces taste different, but they're still delicious, and the final sauce will still be a tasty complement to your chosen foods.

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