12 Zaxbys Dipping Sauce Flavors, Ranked Worst To Best

Zaxbys, which was launched in 1990 in Georgia, feels like the little engine that could. Though it's considerably younger than fellow Georgian brand Chick-fil-A, Zaxbys has had a pretty hot run as a fried chicken fast-casual chain. It currently has over 1,000 restaurants across 22 states, maintaining a narrow lead over main competitor Raising Cane's count of 975 restaurants. In a word, business is booming for the company that dared to build its menu completely around chicken. 

That menu is still heavily devoted to chicken, and the founders can be proud that the best item you can get at Zaxbys is one of their original items: the Chicken Fingerz. But there's another menu item that's been around just as long and caused just as much fanfare: the mysterious, delicious Zax Sauce. Some would argue that half of Zaxbys success relies on its famous sauce. This led me to an interesting condiment-focused question: What's the best sauce at Zaxbys? Can we just assume it's the Zax Sauce? That's a pretty bold claim, considering the chain has a surprisingly large assortment of sauces.

As such, I tried Zaxbys sauces and ranked them from worst to best. I wanted to see which ones worked well as a hot sauce, which had the flexibility to work as a dip for both fries and Chicken Fingerz, and which were worth skipping altogether. My findings surprised me. 

Honey mustard sauce is usually a safe bet for fried chicken tender fans. A proper one promises the perfect blend of sweet and savory and a marriage between the golden richness of honey and mildly spicy mustard. I wanted this Zaxbys Hot Honey Mustard sauce to take mustard's natural heat and turn it up a notch, while still providing that comforting touch of honey. 

This was a stunning bust considering how low the standard is when it comes to fast food honey mustard. At no point did this sauce deliver anything in its title. It really wasn't that spicy, the honey was non-existent, and the mustard was more like a bitter aroma rather than the classic condiment. I wouldn't put this on a basic sandwich, let alone a great plate of fried chicken. If you do end up at Zaxbys, do yourself a favor and don't ruin that beautiful tender with a dip in this blah sauce. 

All of my complaints about the Hot Honey Mustard apply here. Where was the punchy mustard or the soothing honey sweetness? Honestly, dipping my chicken into this sauce felt like I was submerging it into a black hole of flavor. While I wasn't expecting the flavor of our taster's top-ranked honey mustard brand, I expected something at least palatable. Needless to say, this sauce does a serious disservice to Zaxbys' high-quality fried chicken.

As an added ding, I can't recommend this sauce for other Zaxbys food items either. It ruined the fries, and it would probably ruin the wings, fried pickles, and fried chicken sandwich as well. It only scores a bit higher than the spicy honey mustard because it only failed to deliver on two flavors rather than three.

I feel a little bad for ranking this sauce so low. First off, this is a very good version of the classic Asian condiment. It's sweet, salty, and makes almost everything it touches taste better. The keyword there, though, is "almost." Teriyaki enhances the flavors of foods like chicken wings or baby back ribs, and while the chain does offer chicken wings, most people are heading to it to get a box of deep-fried chicken.

The sad truth is that teriyaki sauce does not do fried chicken any favors. Taste-wise, it's a salt bomb that blows out any of the natural, succulent flavor a chicken finger should have. Texture-wise, the sticky, viscous sauce mutes the delectable crunch of the fried chicken, to say nothing of what it does to the poor French fry. Though it certainly tastes better than the honey mustard sauces, it's a truly incompatible sauce for the job it's expected to do.

According to a Zaxbys Facebook post, this is one of the chain's most popular sauces. With that kind of clout, I expected this to offer the same kind of mind-blowing flavor that the Zax Sauce has been delivering for over 30 years. Spoiler alert: It did not.

Maybe it's because I come from a household that treated a bottle of vinegar-based hot sauce like a salt shaker, but this sauce really didn't read like the original or spicy to me. First off, don't threaten me with a good time — if you're going to call it "Tongue Torch," you better deliver on the spicy claim. Instead, this tasted like a mild batch of Tabasco with some extra paprika thrown in. It's not an unpleasant addition to the fried chicken, but it is completely forgettable. It also doesn't work well with fries, but hot sauce rarely brings out the charm in potatoes anyway. Unless you want to use this sauce to be an averagely hot coating for some chicken wings, I suggest you skip it.

Some think that if a hot sauce lacks a scorching heat level, it's an oxymoronic — if not pointless — addition to a menu. After all, the heat is the main allure. But most good hot sauces work so well because they have a nice balance of flavors to match the heat, like the acidic tang cutting through a vinegar-based hot sauce like Frank's or the white- and brown sugar-sweetness underlying homemade Sriracha. So I tried the Wimpy Sauce with an open mind.  

This was a perfectly benign sauce. The vinegar, paprika, and other seasonings work well with the chicken fingers. It's mildly pleasant; I just wouldn't go out of my way to order it. There are better tangy sauces, better sweet sauces, and certainly better hot sauces on this list. Still, unlike the Tongue Torch sauce, I can respect that this sauce at least delivers on its title. The heat level is indeed wimpy.

Like the teriyaki sauce, the Sweet and Spicy Sauce seems to have an Asian-inspired flavor profile. I picked up the umami taste of soy sauce, sesame oil, and even a sweet punch of ginger. As for the heat, that spicy kick seems to come from a bit of cayenne (according to the ingredient list on the packet). All of those other ingredients I can get behind and enjoy. 

But the main flavor and ingredient that derailed the overall effect was corn syrup. The saccharine taste and sticky texture of this sauce didn't enhance the fried chicken or the french fries. Perhaps it would be better suited for a batch of wings, but a truly good sauce should work on whatever piece of chicken you toss it on. Still, I did appreciate some of the solid umami flavors floating around in this sauce, making it a better bet than the one-note Wimpy and Tongue Torch sauces. But otherwise, it can't break out of the bottom half of this list.  

Zaxbys has invested quite a bit into the hot sauce department. About half of the ones I tried were marketed as being "spicy" or "hot" — and that's not even counting the anti-hot sauce that was Wimpy. Each one of these hot sauces seemed to be building toward a final white-hot tier. That last step? According to Zaxbys, it's the Nuclear Sauce.  

Like the Wimpy and Tongue Torch Sauces, the Nuclear Sauce is heavy on the vinegar base, combining serious tang with a blast of heat. Sure, the hyperbole is still there with the name of the sauce — I guess the term "extra hot" doesn't have the same marketing appeal — but it was sufficiently spicy to stand out. Of the three sauces (Wimpy, Tongue Torch, and Nuclear), Nuclear is the most successful in complementing the fried chicken. It probably works better on wings, and it certainly doesn't add anything good to fries, but I can see a hot sauce lover enjoying this on some Zaxbys Chicken Fingerz.  

Just when I thought the Nuclear Sauce was going to scratch that spicy itch, the Buffalo Garlic Blaze Sauce came and topped it. This sauce seemed to accomplish what the other vinegar-based hot sauces on the list tried so hard to achieve but failed at. This makes sense, considering that Buffalo sauce is distinctly different from hot sauce. Hot sauce is one of the main ingredients featured in Buffalo sauce, but it doesn't define it. Instead, butter is typically also mixed in to add a velvety richness. I'm not quite sure there's butter in this sauce, but there is a distinct decadence that makes for an infinitely luxe texture. 

As for flavor, it's a pretty solid sauce. The acidic tanginess shifted into a pleasant heat, which was followed by a nice garlicky aftertaste. I appreciated the coordinated flavor flow, and it certainly made for a worthy companion to both the fried chicken and the french fries. There were still a few more sauces that I found more versatile, but this is definitely in the top five. 

To me, most barbecue sauces from fast food restaurants taste like glorified ketchup. Sugared tomato flavor seems to dominate all other elements, making me feel like I've dipped my food in tomato fruit syrup rather than sauce. As a welcome surprise, Zaxbys did not follow the status quo with its BBQ sauce.  

This dip offered an excellent balance of smoky, spicy, and sweet flavors. Speaking of sweet, I felt like the taste of sugar here came more from molasses and brown sugar than a bucket of corn syrup — even if the ingredient packet made it clear that corn syrup was present. It still gets points from me for tasting real. I also found it refreshing that this sauce didn't lean nearly as heavily on vinegar as the other hot sauce dips Zaxbys offers. This gave the other flavors, like the smoke and paprika, a true chance to shine. This may not be the most universal sauce — not everybody likes barbecue on their fried chicken — so it still can't make it to the top three spots. But I think those who do like the sweet and smoky flavors of barbecue will be pleasantly surprised by Zaxbys offering. 

Is there a salad dressing more American than good old ranch? Never mind — I will entertain no disagreement over my completely subjective claim. I admit that the ranch already had the upper hand over the other sauces, as I think even a passable ranch packet is better than a bucket of good hot sauce. But don't let my bias cloud the issue: This is some of the best ranch you can get out of a drive-thru window.    

This classic ranch is mild, tangy, and rich, and it doesn't suffer from the overly gluey texture or practically cheesy flavor some poorer dressings have. It offers the nuanced flavor of buttermilk and herbs — just what I always want at the forefront of my ranch dressing. I'd pour this condiment on chicken, fries, or anything else I can order at Zaxbys. My only piece of criticism is that the sauce has a thin consistency. It doesn't affect its flavor, but it can make dipping a bit of a pain, as a good portion of the sauce tends to drop right off the chicken and fries if you wait too long. For that reason, it couldn't quite take the top spot, but its stellar flavor secured its third-place position. 

On the surface, Zax Sauce seems to be a really simple formula of ketchup, mayonnaise, Worcestershire sauce, and a bit of seasoning by way of garlic powder and black pepper. I don't think I'm unveiling any high level secrets here; there's plenty of dupe Zax Sauce recipes you can try, and you can now buy a bottle of it (complete with a revelatory ingredient list on the back) at Walmart if you so choose. But even in those copycat recipes, fans will often admit there's something missing from the base, be it vinegar or a special blend of seasoned salt. All that to say, this is a stellar sauce that's hard to beat.

This sauce is tangy, rich, and only slightly spicy. It complements not just fried chicken and wings, but also the basket of crinkle-cut fries that often accompanies a Zaxbys meal. I'll take it a step further and say almost any savory item would benefit from a touch of Zax Sauce, especially its fried pickles. For this uniquely delicious and flexible flavor, Zax Sauce almost takes the top spot. But one sauce brings just a bit more oomph to the table.

I won't lie: I went into this tasting with some firm preconceived notions. At no point did I think that anything other than the Zax Sauce was going to take the top spot. After all, I'd spent plenty of years backing up this opinion by devouring hundreds of Chicken Fingerz with only Zax Sauce to wash it down. But this is why you've got to let the spirit of adventure take the wheel every once in a while. 

How do you make a good thing even better? For me and the Zaxbys head honchos, it's upping the tang and spice level of an already delectable sauce. It's kind of like if Zax Sauce got a hefty dash of the tasty Buffalo Garlic Blaze. While the heat won't numb your tongue, it's sufficient to add some welcome complexity to the mix. As the true versatile Goldilocks sauce on this list — complete with sweet, spicy, salty, and umami flavors firing on all cylinders — it had to take the gold. 

I tried each of Zaxbys savory dipping sauces for this article, meaning I excluded the dressings intended for salad (like the Blue Cheese) and skipped the strawberry sauce (which was intended for the Fried Cheesecake Bites). For the taste test, I tried each sauce with both fried chicken and french fries, as these are two of the most common foods people order from Zaxbys. 

As for the ranking, I considered whether the sauce's actual flavor delivered on its name. If the sauce claimed to be super spicy, for example, I took note of whether it brought the heat. I also took into account the sauce's texture, as watery sauces tended to ruin the crunchy chicken rather than coating it properly.