We Tried McDonald's New Savory Chili WcDonald's Sauce And It's Wc-Idly 'Swicy'

McDonald's is a brand so beloved around the world, it has lent itself to both homage and parody in many countries' popular culture. The Eddie Murphy movie "Coming to America" made us want to take a bite out of a Big Mick at McDowell's, and since the early '80s, manga, anime, and video games from Japan have made others yearn to pull up a seat at a place called WcDonald's. Well, in 2024, McDonald's is making the latter comic dream become a reality, literally flipping its golden arched "M" logo into "W," and creating a whole WcDonald's universe. Some lucky stores around the world will be transformed into an actual WcDonald's and have immersive dining experiences. For the rest of us, we'll have to settle on manga-stylized packaging, episodic shorts, and a new dipping sauce — Savory Chili WcDonald's sauce, to boot.

I made a beeline to my local McDonald's, I mean WcDonald's to see what's what with this new Savory Chili WcDonald's Sauce. Although my order was to dine in, I was blessed to be given mine in one of these slick new brown bags that feature front and back pages of manga art by Acky Bright. Word bubbles preach the sauce's virtues, with one line acting so boldly by saying "the world's never tasted a sauce so true." The following dip and review is based on taste, flavor, texture, and overall lovability to see where the truth really lies.

This new McDonald's Savory Chili WcDonald's shimmery gold label was a good omen of things to come. The cup is a pleasant shade of red, blushing up the mostly dull color of the sauce itself. The Savory Chili WcDonald's Sauce mostly has a translucent look to it, with shades of brown, and specks of darkened orange. It's not overly goopy but can be rather sticky, so proceed dipping with much caution.

Right off the bat, you can smell the chili power contained within this one, along with traces of garlic and onion. The actual taste is a kitchen sink puttanesca of succulent sweet and savory ingredients, which are also spelled out in length on its label. This sauce primarily tastes like an Asian bent on Worcestershire sauce, or perhaps a sweetened take on the British classic tabletop HP brown sauce.

I started getting my dip on with McDonald's fries. Normally these tall and skinny sticks taste like crispy potato perfection, thanks to its signature salty coating. The Savory Chili WcDonald's Sauce is so overpowering, you didn't even realize there's any salt on the fries at all. Dipping McNuggets into the sauce did something similar, but even went a step further by neutralizing the taste of the McNugget altogether. Don't worry, this is actually a good thing as this sauce is worth succumbing too, even if the taste of potatoes and chickens have to be sacrificed along the way.

McDonald's Savory Chili WcDonald's Sauce is made up of water, sugar, corn syrup, vinegar, brown sugar, modified corn starch, salt, and contains 2% or less of spices, soybeans, wheat, garlic puree, ginger puree, fermented soybean paste, pear puree concentrate, salted sake, xanthan gum, yeast extract, lactic acid, potassium sorbate and sodium benzoate (preservatives), garlic powder, onion powder, natural flavors, safflower oil, paprika, rice vinegar, sesame oil, maltodextrin, and corn starch.

A serving size is one cup of sauce. That is good for 50 calories, 11 carbohydrates, 260 milligrams of sodium, 9 grams of total sugars, and 4 milligrams of calcium. The sauce is fat and cholesterol-free and contains no protein. It contains the allergens wheat, soy, and sesame.

The new Savory Chili WcDonald's Sauce dipping sauces will be available for a limited time only, and while supplies last at participating nationwide McDonald's, as well as 30 global market locations, starting on February 26. The sauce can be chosen as a side dipping sauce with McNuggets. One sauce comes with a 4 or 6-piece order of McNuggets, two with a 10-piece, three with a 20-piece, and six with a 40-piece. Extras sauces can always be ordered a la carte from the condiments menu. Additional fees may apply for extra orders of the sauces. In New York, an extra sauce costs .30¢   

Ordering can take place in-store at a register, via drive-thru, or by using a kiosk where available. To ensure that the sauces are in stock before you arrive at a McDonald's, try utilizing the handy McDonald's app for advanced pickup ordering. McDelivery is also an option, with services that include Uber Eats, DoorDash, or Grubhub. Prices may be higher for delivery.

As the sauce that had to follow in the blazing footsteps of Mambo + Sweet & Spacy Jam, the Savory Chili WcDonald's Sauce certainly had its work cut out for itself. After quickly succumbing to its prowess, I honestly can't even be bothered to remember what those two sauces even tasted like. All I can think about now is how perfect this Savory Chili sauce is, and how it doesn't even seem to belong in the world of McDonald's. Perhaps that's why it exists in a world of WcDonald's, where things are a bit more animated if you will.

Everyone and their mother are trying to find the perfect balance of sweet and spicy these days, and naming products to match. McDonald's new sauce didn't bother to say such things about this flavoring juxtaposition, and yet it's produced one of the better products I've tasted in the past year that completely hits the swicy spot. After what seemed like an endless barrage of satisfying dippings, the back of my mouth felt like it was encased in a wall of WcDonald's sauce. It was a wall I had hoped would never fall.

This sauce may not have legs beyond its limited release date, but it certainly can live beyond the walls of a McDonald's or WcDonald's. The Savory Chili WcDonald's Sauce would make for an excellent add-on to a stir fry, or even a proper English breakfast. I better start ordering extra sauces with every WcVisit.