7 Store-Bought BBQ Sauces That Taste Just Like The Ones At Your Favorite Fast Food Chains

Fast food barbecue sauce just hits different, people. For whatever reason, those little tubs of sauce that you get with your fries or nuggets are infinitely more tasty than the store-bought bottle of barbecue sauce you have in your pantry — and, while you can definitely make your own barbecue sauce or upgrade a store-bought sauce, sometimes you just want a taste of fast food heaven at home. Well, you're in luck. As it turns out, you may have just been buying the wrong kind of barbecue sauce all this time: There are plenty of options out there that taste nearly identical to the sauces found at your beloved fast food chains.

It's worth remembering that fast food barbecue sauces can vary significantly, with various chains leaning into sweet, smoky, or savory notes in their sauces. The real challenge is how to figure out which one is the right match for your tastebuds, and we've done the hard work for you. The best part is that pretty much every barbecue sauce that tastes like a fast food equivalent is available online, and can be in your kitchen in no time.

McDonald's barbecue sauce is unlike any other. While it has a lot of the tangy, smoky notes that other fast food barbecue sauces contain, it also has a distinctive umami note that comes from the inclusion of soy sauce, as well as sherry wine powder which amps up its sour flavors. While it can be tricky to find these two ingredients in other barbecue sauces, there's one brand that does a pretty good job at emulating the other notes going on in this dip. Open Pit Hickory BBQ Sauce is the closest match out there, thanks to its similar ingredient list, color, and consistency.

Both Open Pit's sauce and McDonald's BBQ sauce are tomato-based, with vinegar, smoke flavor, and onion powder making appearances. They're also noticeably sweet, with high fructose corn syrup forming a large part of the sauce. However, where Open Pit really has the edge is in its inclusion of soy protein. This may not be soy sauce per se, but it definitely brings a slight note of savoriness that other barbecue sauces can lack, and sets Open Pit's Hickory flavor as the best replacement for the McDonald's version. Put it in a tiny serving cup, and you'll barely be able to tell the difference.

Purchase Open Pit Hickory BBQ Sauce on Amazon.

If you're ordering Wendy's nuggets, barbecue sauce is a must. This sauce has a noticeably sweet flavor that's backed up with all of those classic barbecue flavors, and a rich consistency that clings to your food well. Somewhat incredibly, too, the best way to emulate its flavor at home is to go for a barbecue sauce sold by another fast food brand. Buffalo Wild Wings' Honey BBQ Sauce is almost a dead ringer for the Wendy's version, both in terms of its sweetness and its consistency. While it's not exactly the same, it'll definitely hit the spot.

This similarity is all the more surprising given that store-bought barbecue sauces made by fast food joints are somewhat notorious for tasting pretty bad. Fast food restaurants often use different formulations for their bottled versions, which leads to a completely different-tasting product. Well, no one said they can't taste like the output from other fast food joints. While it's tricky to find the exact ingredients list for Wendy's BBQ sauce, the smoke flavor and chipotle peppers in the Buffalo Wild Wings sauce hit the mark on the fast food chain's sauce's smokiness, the corn syrup covers the sweetness, and vinegar and jalapeños bring the tang factor.

Purchase Buffalo Wild Wings Honey BBQ Sauce on Amazon.

Bull's Eye BBQ sauce is pretty well-loved by barbecue sauce admirers out there, as an easy-to-find option that covers those classic barbecue sauce notes. They might love it even more when they find out that it tastes pretty darn similar to Burger King's BBQ sauce. Numerous people have pointed out the closeness that Bullseye has to Burger King's sauce, with some in-the-know folks stating that this is actually the brand that BK uses in its stores.

Exactly where the chain uses this sauce is a little unclear, though. Some people have affirmed that Bull's Eye is used by Burger King, while others have been more specific, stating that it only uses it in its burgers and that its sauce pots use Heinz BBQ sauce. This is made more confusing by the fact that Kraft Heinz owns Bullseye, so may indeed be putting it in those teeny pots. Is your head hurting, too? Don't worry too much about the specifics — all you need to know is that Bull's Eye will hit the spot, and give you all of those layers of sweetness, smokiness, and acidity that you expect from a good sauce.

Purchase Bull's Eye BBQ Sauce on Amazon.

Sometimes, flavor matches come from seemingly unexpected places — until you look a little closer. This is the case when it comes to Kraft's Chicken & Rib BBQ Sauce, which appears to be a dead ringer for McDonald's barbecue sauce. This knowledge was passed down in the age-old manner of the internet forum thread, with folks over at RedFlagDeals sharing the wisdom that Kraft's sauce has the same sweet-smoky flavors as the McDonald's version. "Holy Moly, just bought some and gave it a try, it's very close!" said one happy customer.

This is all despite the fact that Kraft's sauce is explicitly designed to be used to coat chicken and ribs, and not necessarily as a standalone sauce in itself. The plot thickens, however, when you consider who might make McDonald's sauce in the first place. Kraft Heinz has had a long relationship with McDonald's, formerly making its ketchup. While that relationship seemed to formally end in 2013, with McDonald's beginning to phase out the use of Kraft Heinz products, Kraft and McDonald's have continued to collaborate in other ways. Plus, even if Kraft Heinz doesn't actually make their sauce today, it could definitely be the case that it was involved with its barbecue sauce at some point, and the franchise is trying to keep it as close as possible.

Purchase Kraft Chicken & Rib BBQ Sauce on Amazon.

Sometimes you're lucky enough to find a bottled barbecue sauce that tastes identical to your favorite fast food restaurant's version. Other times, you may have to make do with a sauce that's close enough. This is the unfortunate reality for folks who love Shake Shack's BBQ sauce. While an exact replica may not be out there yet, people have found that Austin's Own BBQ Sauce is a safe alternative, and can somewhat cover the same flavor bases.

Taking a look at their ingredients, we can kinda see why Austin's Own works — and why it's not entirely the same. Both Austin's Own BBQ Sauce and Shake Shack BBQ sauce have a tomato base, with Austin's Own using ketchup and Shake Shack's version using tomato paste. They also both have smoke flavor, molasses, and spices in the mix, with much of this in Austin's Own coming from Worcestershire sauce. Where they differ, though, is that Shake Shack's BBQ sauce uses mustard as one of its key flavors, an ingredient and flavor note that Austin's Own doesn't seem to have. In a pinch, though, it's close enough.

Purchase Austin's Own Original Mild BBQ Sauce on Amazon.

Sweet Baby Ray's is one of those barbecue sauces that everyone thinks tastes like everything else. Trawl the internet, and you'll find folks comparing it to the offerings at Burger King, Wendy's, and generic fast food barbecue sauce sachets. Well, these may all be close, it's actually most similar to McDonald's BBQ sauce. Multiple people online have pointed out that Sweet Baby Ray's hits the flavor spot that McDonald's sauce also covers, with reviews of the sauce also comparing it to the fast food chain's version.

This closeness is pretty interesting, considering how different their ingredients lists look. All of the major players are there, of course, with both of them containing tomato paste, vinegar, smoke flavoring, and dried garlic or garlic powder. However, where McDonald's gets its sweetness from high fructose corn syrup, Sweet Baby Ray's is amped up in the sugar stakes by a combination of cane sugar and pineapple juice concentrate. Sweet Baby Ray's also contains mustard flour which contributes to its tanginess, while McDonald's BBQ sauce doesn't have any mustard at all. However, tastebuds out there can't seem to tell the difference, and when you combine that with the deep-brown color they both have, your eyes won't be able to tell them apart either.

Purchase Sweet Baby Ray's Barbecue Sauce on Amazon.

Popeyes Bold BBQ Sauce is the ideal accompaniment to its chicken, offering a sweet and tangy counterpoint to its inimitable salty crunch. So what if you want that delightful combination at home? You need to reach for Redneck Lipstick Original BBQ Sauce. This sauce may not be a total swap for Popeyes' sauce, but it's definitely not far off. "It's not exactly the same, but it's really, really close. It tastes tangy, sweet, and bright. My brain immediately goes back to all the memories of eating Popeyes chicken," says one person happy with the comparison over on Reddit.

Interestingly, Redneck Lipstick doesn't align with one specific barbecue style. Instead, it aims to incorporate tastes from several different influences, bringing in Texas, Memphis, Kansas City, and Carolina-style flavors into its original sauce. We're not exactly sure that's what Popeyes aimed to do with its own sauce, but hey, if the shoe fits, right?

Purchase Redneck Lipstick Original BBQ Sauce on Amazon.

When selecting barbecue sauces for this article, we went straight to the most reliable source we could think of: The customers. We searched the internet to find people who had made direct comparisons between store-bought barbecue sauces and fast food barbecue sauces, looking on message boards and at reviews alike to figure out which options fit the bill. There were a lot of vague or unconvincing comparisons to sort through here, so we focused on comments and reviews which emphatically pointed out the closeness of certain sauces, and more specifically, why they tasted the same.

In some cases, several barbecue sauces were compared to a specific fast food restaurant's own offering. In these situations, we either included all of them to give our readers more options (as was the case with McDonald's and its barbecue sauce), or we went with the one that we thought was the closest flavor comparison. Once we had found the likeliest option, where possible we looked at the ingredients lists of both the fast food barbecue sauce and the store-bought option, identifying where they had similar formulations.