Zaxby's Style Sauce

At the beginning of this week I posted some yummy sweet potato chips.  Along with those chips I made some Zaxby's style sauce that I served with the chips and on the burgers we ate that night. 

I'm not sure how far the Zaxby's franchise stretches, but I'm guessing it isn't too far out of the southeast.  Zaxby's is a chain restuarant known for it's chicken-centric menu and A-mazing sauce that diners generously douse their sandwiches, wings and fries with.  There's still a lot of debate over what all goes into it (and in what quantities), and I'm pretty sure that even the best copy cat recipe still doesn't quite hit the nail on the head.

I did some digging and found the below recipe hailed as the best copycat around.  While it didn't taste exactly  like Zaxby's sauce, it was really good and therefore worthy of sharing.

Post-dinner that night curiosity got the best of me and I hopped back onto the computer for an online search for the exact list of ingredients in the sauce.  I'm not sure why I didn't think of this before.  Geez.

The Zaxby's website was gracious enough to list the ingredients as follows.....

Soybean oil, water, tomato paste, high fructose corn syrup (!!!!), corn syrup, distilled vinegar, salt, egg yolks, Worcestershire sauce concentrate (distilled vinegar, molasses, corn syrup, water, salt, caramel color, garlic powder, sugar, spices, tamarind, natural flavor, sulfiting agent), spice, sugar, garlic*, potassium sorbate (preservative), xanthan gum, calcium disodium EDTA to protect flavor, natural flavor. *Dehydrated.

Let me interject and ask: WHY is high fructose corn syrup in EVERYTHING?!  I had expected that it was in there, but it's frustrating to see that it's very high up on the list and is therefore in the sauce in a pretty large amount.  Sigh.

Despite my sauce not matching up to Zaxby's tit for tat, I still loved the outcome and didn't have any problem slathering my burger with it :)  And hopefully you won't either.

Zaxby's Style Sauce adapted from Copycat Recipe Guide
Printable Version
1/2 C Hellman's mayo
1/4 C Heintz Ketchup
1 1/2 tsp molasses
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp black pepper

Combine all ingredients (using hand mixer for added volume if desired) in medium bowl.  Store in fridge for a minimum of two hours to allow flavors to meld together.