Review: Buffalo Wild Wings Scores With New Bacon Sauce For Football Season

Buffalo Wild Wings has rolled out a line of brand-new, bacon-inspired menu items, just in time for football season. The lineup includes several new sandwiches, but likely the most interesting new product on the roster is a sauce. Going bold, B-Dubs decided to remake a menu item that's so intertwined with the restaurant chain's identity that it's in the very name: Buffalo sauce.

No worries for the Buffalo purists out there. You can still get your favorite Buffalo Wild Wings Buffalo sauce in all its classic glory, but for now, you can also get a brand-new Buffalo Bacon Sauce that's exactly what it sounds like — a combination of bacon and Buffalo sauce. But how does the sauce stand up to the OG, and is it worthy of your game day spread? We found out for ourselves, when we gave this sauce a taste-test as soon as it hit the menu (for more on our tasting methodology, check out the end of this article!).

There's no extra charge for the Buffalo Bacon Sauce. You can order it just like you would any other wing sauce from the long list of Buffalo Wild Wings sauce options. However, if you're not a wing person, whether bone-in or boneless, but the idea of a Buffalo-bacon marriage intrigues you, there's good news. You can also order this sauce slathered on your B-Dubs burger, sandwiches, or just about anything else on the menu.

The new Buffalo Bacon Sauce is only available for a limited time, and only at participating Buffalo Wild Wings locations, alongside the other bacon-loaded specialty menu items that premiered today, including a bacon mac n' cheeseburger, a bacon patty melt, and a BLT sandwich. It's worth noting that the bacon-topped sandwiches do not come with the Buffalo Bacon Sauce and, instead, put thick-cut bacon front and center, alongside a bacon aioli for the patty melt and the BLT.

It's a risky move to mess with something so beloved to so many people (yours truly included). A good Buffalo sauce makes a plate of wings. As such, you could consider me skeptical when I opened the Buffalo Wild Wings take-out bag to be greeted by a very strong bacon bit-esque aroma. Would this be another menu item to attempt to win bacon-loving customers' hearts, only to be proved more trendy than tantalizing?

Luckily for me, that wasn't the case at all. Unlike a lot of those bacon-inspired food items that have come and gone, this sauce didn't have a "fake" bacon flavor. Instead, there was a smoky depth that paired very nicely with the original Buffalo sauce, mellowing the Buffalo kick out a bit and creating a very crave-able flavor profile. Paired with a bit of ranch, each Buffalo Bacon Sauce-coated wing was a little taste of exactly what you want from football season eats.

When you're thinking about nutrition and Buffalo wings, oftentimes, you're thinking about the sodium or sugar in the sauce itself. Buffalo-style sauces, in particular, have a reputation for being chockful of sodium.

As for the Buffalo Bacon Sauce, each serving of sauce comes with 45 calories, 3.5 grams of fat, 1 gram of sugar, and 1,240 milligrams of sodium. Basically, that means that if you eat a serving of wings with the Buffalo Bacon Sauce, you're essentially consuming more than half your recommended sodium for the day. Add in some fries, chips and queso, or other B-Dubs or game day eats, and the sodium continues to climb.

That said, the Buffalo Bacon Sauce is hardly the most sodium-rich sauce on the Buffalo Wild Wings menu. That honor would go to the spicy garlic sauce, with its 1,700 milligrams of sodium. Other sauces on the menu that rank higher than the Buffalo Bacon Sauce include the hot Buffalo sauce and even the original Buffalo sauce — so you could definitely do worse.

So, if you opt for Buffalo Bacon Sauce on your wings instead of the pure, original Buffalo sauce, you'll definitely enjoy less sodium — but how else do these two sauces differ?

The primary thing that I noticed was that the Buffalo Bacon Sauce carried the characteristic zing of a Buffalo sauce, but the heat was lessened thanks to the smoky bacon flavor. Additionally, unlike some Buffalo sauces, the mild heat of the Buffalo Bacon Sauce did not build over time — allowing you to feasibly sit and eat wing after wing without needing to stop for a respite with a few baby carrots and celery sticks. While Buffalo sauce is certainly delicious, it is a flavor that is usually best enjoyed in moderation. In contrast, the Buffalo Bacon Sauce was highly crave-able and I certainly didn't tire of the flavor as I chowed down on wing after wing.

So, as I head to my local Buffalo Wild Wings outpost to catch a football game this season, will I be forgoing my normal order to enjoy more of the Buffalo Bacon Sauce? Has it usurped the original Buffalo as king of all the wing sauces?

Not quite. You can't unseat the almighty Buffalo quite that easily, even if this new Buffalo Bacon Sauce does come with its perks and benefits. That said, I wouldn't hesitate to order my wings with half Buffalo sauce, half Buffalo Bacon Sauce. I'd also be interested in trying the new sauce on B-Dubs' hand-breaded chicken tenders, especially when ordering them atop the restaurant's Buffalo chicken salad.

In short, if you haven't tried this sauce yet and you like both Buffalo and bacon, do it. This is one shake-up to your normal game day routine that's sure to be enjoyable and appreciated, whether you're catering a game day spread for your pals or just stopping by to your local B-Dubs to grab a beer and watch the game.

Buffalo Wild Wings supplied a 10-piece, boneless portion of wings in order to try the new Buffalo Bacon Sauce. While the wings did not come with the typical carrot sticks and celery, as noted in the review, there was no need based on the wings' flavor profile. I only added a side of ranch from my own fridge and tasted away. Based on my years of experience eating plenty of Buffalo wings from Buffalo Wild Wings and other restaurants, I compared the sauce to both Buffalo Wild Wings' other sauce offerings, as well the classic Buffalo sauce served at pizzerias, pubs, and other eateries, and purchased at the grocery store.