The Prowler Staff was met with another competition following the wednesday of April 13. What was once an idea to make an article about McDonald’s returning Szechuan sauce was transformed into a competition amongst a slew of sauces of all varieties of taste, popularity and, in the case of one, location. With only one sauce allowed to remain on top, the class was tasked with trying them all and determining the best sauce.

The competition was simple: each student collected a plate with chicken nuggets and put the six competitors on their swatch-board-like plates. The sauce roster (a “saucetor”, if you will) included McDonald’s Szechuan Sauce, Chick-fil-a Sauce, Great Value Ranch, Kraft Honey Mustard, Sweet Baby Ray’s Traditional BBQ and the surprise challenger, NO BRAND Korean Pork Cutlet, a Korean brand sauce from Korea itself.

Each sauce was rated on a scale from 1-5, and the students gave their thoughts on their favorite sauces, which also won an additional point when selected as favorite.

The Kraft Honey Mustard apologists were Briana Kahler (Senior), Rubylynn Snyder (Junior) and Madalynn Spyker (Senior). 

“Honey mustard [was my favorite] because I usually eat McDonald’s nuggets with this sauce,” claimed Kahler. 

Snyder agreed, saying “[I like] Honey mustard because [I] like the honey sweet taste along with its tanginess.”

Sweet Baby Ray’s conquered the buds of three students, including Sophomores Cayden Burt, Chase Brosend and Kaelin Shuler. 

“[I] thought the combination of sweet and spicy was nice,” said Brosend.

Juniors Owen Hill and Veronica Langrehr were swayed by the Chick-fil-a Sauce. “It tastes like honey mustard and it’s really popular,” stated Hill. Langrehr also noted that the sweetness of the sauce simply works with chicken. The sauce received minor retaliation from Kahler, who noted that “the Chick-fil-a sauce was mid.”

Ranch, a sauce regarded by many to be the best, surprisingly had only one #1 vote, coming from Novalea Verno (Senior). “It’s a classic, and it goes on EVERYTHING,” she elaborated.

McDonald’s Szechuan Sauce and the No Brand Pork Cutlet Sauce had the weirdest results. Both of them had either really high scores, or really low scores.

The McDonald Szechuan Sauce has a unique history. Originating in 1998, the sauce was a collaboration with the release of Disney movie Mulan. It briefly returned ten years later after a joke in Adult Swim’s Rick and Morty, and it finally returned again March 21 for a limited time.

The chinese inspired sauce was a hit with Aaron Lecorchick (Junior), who praised it for its ability to go with just about any asian dish. 

“It was sweet and tangy, and overall was really good.” However, Kahler gave the sauce a zero, saying the “smell was really bad, and the taste was lowkey even worse.” It reminded her of Teriyaki sauce, which she personally dislikes.

No Brand, ironically, is a popular brand name in South Korea that sells groceries and foods at surprisingly low prices compared to competitors and also has their own chain of burger restaurants. Their grocery products aren’t available worldwide, requiring a flight to Korea to get your hands on them, but the company has pushed internationally by placing one of their burger restaurants in Turnsdale, CA. 

No student claimed the Pork Cutlet Sauce to be their favorite, but Spyker had it as her runner up behind Honey Mustard. 

“It tastes similar to A1, and I could probably drink it,” she added. In the scores, the sauce received many 3’s and 4’s, but also saw numerous 1’s. 

After all the scores were tallied, the conclusion saw Kraft Honey Mustard sitting at 24 points, crowning it as the best sauce. The Honey Mustard received fours and fives consistently, and with three people claiming the sauce as their favorite, the three extra points boosted the score. The lowest ranking sauce was the Szechuan Sauce, at only 15 points. The Korean Pork Cutlet Sauce was only half a point higher, as a few reviews said the two tasted similar. Ranch, BBQ and the Chick-fil-a Sauce all stayed level to each other. The competition was a success, and hopefully a rematch can be enacted next year with newer and greater sauces.