This Is How Chick-Fil-A's Signature Sauce Was Created

There are a lot of things to love about Chick-fil-A: juicy chicken nuggets, sizzling hot waffle fries, and frosty fresh-squeezed lemonade. But of all the delicious things on the fast food chain's menu, perhaps the most popular is the dipping sauce. After all, what's a chicken nugget without something rich and tangy to dunk it into?

Chick-fil-A has a range of sauces to choose from, but it's most famous for its signature sauce, the specialty creation that customers use on everything from their fries to their nuggets to their chicken sandwiches. Even though (per the company's website) Chick-fil-A has existed since 1967, when the first of its locations opened its doors, the signature sauce has only been around since 2008. So how did the first batch of deliciousness get created? The story of everyone's favorite sauce just might surprise you — and might make you appreciate that little plastic container you get at the drive-thru a little bit more.

What has now become one of Chick-fil-A's most popular items actually began as something of a mistake, says the company's history page. In a Chick-fil-A restaurant in Fredericksburg, Virginia, back in the 1980s, an employee who was taking their lunch break accidentally mixed barbecue sauce with the location's homemade honey mustard sauce. Thus was born the culinary hybrid known as signature sauce. It only existed at that location, however — apparently customers would fill up soda cups with the sauce from the pumps — until the restaurant's owner, Hugh Fleming, sold the recipe to Chick-fil-A in 2007. Even today, Fleming still can't get over his recipe's success. "I can't believe the mania about it," he told Chick-fil-A. 

And life just got better. Did you know that you can now buy Chick-fil-A's coveted sauces in stores? The Chickenwire reports that the chain released a line of bottled sauces (including Chick-fil-A, Polynesian, Barbeque, Honey Mustard and Garden Herb Ranch flavors) at select Publix, Target, Walmart, and Winn-Dixie stores in Florida. Even tastier news: 100 percent of profits will go to fund scholarships for Chick-fil-A employees.

If the product flies in Florida, the company will consider expanding nationally in 2021.