Why It's So Hard To Recreate The Infamous Viral Pink Sauce

In the summer of 2022, it was hard not to see a peculiar neon-pink sauce — which gets its color from dragon fruit — everywhere on TikTok. The viral sauce was just one of the biggest food trends that emerged last year. The Pink sauce and the creator behind it came under limelight for almost all the wrong reasons. The hashtag #pinksauce has accumulated more than 689 million views on the app.

But, the buzz surrounding the sauce was clouded by controversy. In case you were living under a rock, the mysterious Pink sauce that captured the attention of TikTok was created by Chef Pii, a TikTok personality who began posting videos of the Pink sauce last summer. As the videos became viral, there was a demand from people to try the sauce, Chef Pii told NBC News. As Chef Pii began selling her sauce, questions rose over the lack of nutrition and ingredient discrepancies, according to Daily Dot. Many also have noticed inconsistencies in color and viscosity in the sauce and packaging.

The pink condiment has led to memes, debates, and people attempting to recreate the sauce. However, recreating it is trickier than it seems.

Melissa Rogers, known as @MelissaEnchant, tried to recreate the controversial Pink sauce and documented it in a Twitter thread that went viral in July 2022. "I'm not going to pay $20 for a mystery sauce BUT I am going to attempt to recreate it at home," Melissa tweeted.

Making the Pink sauce at home is quite difficult because Chef Pii has remained quiet on the exact ingredients the sauce contains. Rogers recreated the Pink sauce two ways: How it was marketed and based on the ingredients listed on the sauce label.

Saw mystery pink sauce was trending and it caught my attention. I’m not going to pay $20 for a mystery sauce BUT I am going to attempt to recreate it at home.

Let’s try it two ways. First the way it says it is via marketing & the second using their ingredient list. #PinkSauce pic.twitter.com/LeJ5evv7yn

— Melissa – Eras Tour Glendale 3/18 Vegas 3/24 3/25 (@MelissaEnchant) July 21, 2022

First, Rogers recreated the condiment using ingredients that were highlighted in a promotional graphic: dragon fruit, sunflower seed oil, honey, chili, and garlic. Rogers narrowed the recipe down to four different types of chili: chili flakes, chili powder, chili paste & chili oil, and also used roasted and raw garlic. With 14 possible combinations, Rogers failed to accurately recreate the Pink sauce that Chef Pii showcased in her TikTok videos. "Not bad but definitely could taste better," Rogers tweeted, adding the sauce made was more like a "fruity vinaigrette."

Rogers then recreated the Pink sauce using the bottle label — the sauce apparently contains water, salt, spices, lemon juice, and milk in addition to the promoted ingredients. However, Rogers was unsuccessful in replicating the Pink sauce. The sauce was too liquid, and the garlic taste overpowered the entire sauce, Roger noted. "There's zero way to use these ingredients the way they're listed on the label & get the pink color she has with only 2% milk."

Milk may not be an ingredient Chef Pii used at all — but instead, mayo. Using mayo, Melissa Rogers recreated the Pink sauce and disregarded the order of the ingredients listed on the label. With two parts oil to one part mayo and a hint of whole garlic & splash of dragon fruit, Rogers made what is as close as to resembling Chef Pii's viral Pink sauce. Still, as Rogers noted on Twitter, it's hard to accurately replicate the Pink sauce without an accurate list of ingredients. The final verdict. "It's not bad but it's not good. It's kind of like a summer aioli sauce that's heavy on the garlic & chili."

Now the Pink sauce is on grocery store shelves where you can confirm the ingredients used for the creation. The Pink sauce got the attention of Dave Gourmet, who partnered with Chef Pii to create a "shelf-stable version" of the sauce, according to NBC News. The pink sauce, which is now gluten-free and vegan, is available at Walmart. Its ingredients confirm Roger's suspicion that the original Pink sauce used mayo and not milk. In addition to "ranch flavor," the revised Pink sauce contains dragon fruit puree, coconut cream, and white vinegar, among other ingredients.