Did you know that McDonald's Chicken McNuggets were formulated by a renowned chef from Luxembourg? When McDonald's started to test their expansion into chicken nuggets in 1980, they tapped René Arend, a chef who cooked for world leaders and movie stars, to come up with a winning recipe. The secret sauce was, well, sauce — Arend came up with three dips to accompany the eerily uniform but , believing they would add flavor and variety to the meal. Seeing as McNuggets are now as iconic a menu item as the Big Mac, with over 25 different sauces drifting in and out of rotation over the years, he was clearly right.
It's a shame that one of those original three recipes — — ranks as our least favorite of the six permanent dipping sauces McDonald's keeps on the menu. Sweet 'N Sour Sauce, alongside Hot Mustard and Barbecue, were the original three introduced with Chicken McNuggets in 1984, not counting Honey. (If you're curious, Hot Mustard comes in at #5, while Tangy BBQ takes our top spot, so it's not all bad news for our man René.
) Popular in Chinese cuisine, sweet and sour was only introduced to America in the 19th century, but by the time McNuggets came along, it was a natural choice for dipping sauce. In fact, the sweet and sour sauce was Arend's personal favorite but, alas, not ours. Sweet 'N Sour Sauce doesn't taste as strong as we'd like Says our writer: "After peeling back its Granny Smith apple-green label, in the white dip tub lies an unattractive pool of greenish-b.
