October 7, 2017 was a wild day. It was the day McDonald’s released its ultra-limited run of Szechuan dipping sauce in response to popular animated TV show, Rick and Morty. The animated show had made a brief mention of the sauce in its plot, and in a cheeky response, McDonald’s sent the show’s creators a four-pound bottle of the stuff. McDonald’s hinted that there’d be a bigger release.
Eventually, the fast food chain released the Szechuan dipping sauce for that one fateful October weekend in 2017, but in quantities so small that locations carrying the stuff were sold out instantly. This left scores of diehard Rick and Morty fans devastated. Eventually there was a wide re-release of the sauce for the rest of us (which we gave a B), and starting March 31, McDonald’s is giving it another short run. But there’s a slight catch, reports Yahoo.
How to get McDonald’s Szechuan sauce
As you might have expected, the catch is that you can only order the sauce through the McDonald’s mobile app, starting on March 31. You’ll be able to get some for free with an order of Chicken McNuggets, and People reports that you can also order up to five containers a-la-carte if you’re looking to stock up.
The original release of the vaguely gingery and sweet soy-sauce based sauce (I know, it’s convoluted) was in 1998 as a cross-promotion of the Disney movie Mulan. For the most part it’s an okay sauce, salty and sugary, but it doesn’t quite encapsulate the spicy and numbing sensation that much of Sichuan cuisine represents in its signature mala seasoning. And it is definitely not worth getting upset over, if you miss out on it.
For my money, the BTS sauces from last summer was where it was at, as the Sweet Chili and Cajun sauces packed a whole lot of flavor, which was more focused and authentic than some vague tie-in to a movie. It sounds like this run of Szechuan sauce will be pretty short, so if you’re curious, you’ll want to move on it early.