The Golden Arches rolls out a Special Edition Gold Sauce

We’re living in a golden age of chicken options across pretty much every fast-food chain, so it makes sense that McDonald’s is rolling out a Special Edition Gold Sauce.

Growing up in the 90s, you probably had two sauce options for your Chicken McNuggets, choosing from BBQ sauce and honey. (No, not honey mustard. Just honey. Some of us didn’t have palettes that were ready for BBQ sauce yet.) Those options bloomed into a cornucopia of dipping choices: Sweet and sour, Buffalo, honey mustard, ranch ... and that time the world went crazy for Szechuan sauce thanks to Rick and Morty.

And now we have McDonald’s Special Edition Gold Sauce. Before you start picturing some kind of Scrooge McDuck-esque dipping sauce, McDonald’s describes the limited-edition sauce as a “harmonious blend of vinegary North Carolina BBQ sauce, infused with notes of honey, smoke and mustard.”

While I’m sure that you can legally dip any McDonald’s item you’d like in Special Edition Gold Sauce, the chain has created three special items to highlight it: The Bacon Special Edition Gold McCrispy Sandwich, the Bacon Special Edition Gold Deluxe McCrispy Sandwich and the Special Edition Gold Snack Wrap. The chain is also pairing it with their McCrispy Strips too.

So is Special Edition Gold Sauce a golden ticket to a few new delicious McDonald’s items?

What it costs

According to the McDonald’s app, the Special Edition Gold McCrispy is $6.19, the Deluxe Special Edition Gold McCrispy is $6.89, the Special Edition Gold Snack Wrap is $2.99 and a 4-piece McCrispy Strips is $6.29.

My thoughts

McDonald’s didn’t hold back when it came to maximizing its usage of Special Edition Gold Sauce. It’s on two chicken sandwiches, a Snack Wrap and paired with McCrispy Strips.

With all of this food in front of me, I started with the Special Edition Gold McCrispy first. I like the McCrispy sandwich (despite only just recently learning that the spicy version doesn’t actually use Buffalo sauce). The potato roll that McDonald’s uses for its McCrispy sandwiches is the perfect vehicle, softening up thanks to the sauce on the sandwich — in this case the Special Edition Gold Sauce — while still offering some crunch thanks to the strips of bacon and pickles.

The Special Edition Gold McCrispy was an instant hit for me, with the flavor of the Special Edition Gold Sauce really shining through.

If some bacon and pickles aren’t enough to satisfy your hunger, we also have the Bacon Special Edition Gold Deluxe McCrispy Sandwich. Deluxe! This sandwich starts where the previous one left off and adds shredded lettuce and roma tomatoes.

No one can ever accuse the Bacon Special Edition Gold Deluxe McCrispy Sandwich of not being a substantial bite. Look at those layers. Unfortunately, if you’re looking for that “harmonious blend of vinegary North Carolina BBQ sauce, infused with notes of honey, smoke and mustard,” it gets a bit lost among the extra ingredients.

I tried both the ranch and spicy versions of the Snack Wraps when McDonald’s brought them back in July, enjoying each option.

The Special Edition Gold Sauce works well in a Snack Wrap, but you’re not going to get the same level of flavors in a Snack Wrap that you’d find in either of the two sandwiches that feature the new sauce. You just can’t compete with bacon. (Note for McDonald’s: Add bacon to the Snack Wrap.)

While the McCrispy Strips are unchanged from when they debuted in May, it turns out they’re the perfect menu item to order if you want to really enjoy the Special Edition Gold Sauce. (I guess you could also just do shots of the sauce straight from the plastic containers, but I wouldn’t recommend that if you’re looking for a meal.)

The sauce is the star of the show when you’re going pure and dipping McCrispy Strips into it.

Snack score

Bacon Special Edition Gold McCrispy Sandwich: 🍪🍪🍪🍪 (4 out of 5 cookies)
Bacon Special Edition Gold Deluxe McCrispy Sandwich: 🍪🍪🍪 (3 out of 5 cookies)
Special Edition Gold Snack Wrap: 🍪🍪🍪 (3 out of 5 cookies)
Special Gold Edition Sauce: 🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪 (5 out of 5 cookies)

I would absolutely order the Bacon Special Edition Gold McCrispy Sandwich again thanks to its balance of a soft potato roll, strips of bacon, crunchy pickles and the Special Edition Gold Sauce. (I really do enjoy a McCrispy sandwich.)

And if the sandwich isn’t your preference, I can recommend going straight to the saucy source with a bunch of McCrispy Strips.

The Special Golden Sauce menu was provided to Snackology for this independent review.