A Few Notes On McDonald's Hot Mustard Sauce

There are certain things you love in life more than most other people do. This is not a revelation I am sharing with you, merely a comment. And sometimes you may not talk much about those things, because you assume most people either don't know about them or just don't care.  But then, every once in a while, you meet someone who cares passionately about one of the same things you do. You think Ah, I'm not the only one, and you spend perhaps an hour discussing something that, to eavesdroppers, sounds bizarre and possibly psychotic. (I once spent more than two hours at a bar holding a conversation with a girl I'd just met about Law & Order episodes from 1995-1997. When she left, the waitress, who was a friend of mine, said to me: "That was freaking weird.")

The movie Diggstown, Andrew Toney's crossover move, Sunset Riders on Sega Genesis... these are just three things I love that I don't spend much time - well, any time, really - talking about with other people. But sometimes I meet someone who appreciates those things as much as I do. And every once in a great while the subject of McDonald's hot mustard comes us and I see that look in someone's eyes: they love it just as much.

I have been reading reports for more than five years now that McDonald's is going to discontinue the hot mustard, but not once have I asked for it and been told by an employee that they are out of it. I doubt it's going anywhere. I never considered writing about it in so much depth. But then something happened the other day. While I was eating McNuggets, I noticed this writing in the box:

What the hell is that? They don't respect their hot mustard enough to even mention it with the others? Ranch is boring. McDonald's barbecue - uh, sorry, BarBeQue - sauce, sweet chili, and sweet and sour all taste of one flavor: sweet. The spicy buffalo is decent, I will admit that. And the honey mustard, while not bad, is indistinguishable from dozens of other honey mustards.

But that hot mustard sauce is... well, it's special. It is unmistakably mustard, but it has a bit of heat to it, a vinegar punch. I have been eating it for as long as I can remember. I won't go into too many stories, but I could:

I used to ask for six hot mustards every time I went to McDonald's. Sometimes they charged me, sometimes they didn't. At one point I had a reserve of perhaps 50 of them, but over the years I used them all.

I once adhered bread crumbs to a piece of chicken using nothing but a smear of egg wash and a tub of McDonald's hot mustard. I baked the chicken in the oven for 25 minutes and served it to two friends. They both proclaimed it "absolutely amazing" (yeah, they were both drunk, but still) and begged me for the recipe.

I once stopped at a McDonald's in the morning on a drive from Portland to Sacramento. It was early November and the sky was so blue it almost hurt my eyes to look at it. In fact, here is a picture from the McDonald's parking lot:

I ordered my usual sausage biscuit and hash browns then asked for some hot mustard. She told me it would be 15 cents. I told her I'd take ten of them. Then I had an idea, one of those thoughts that come to you on vacation when anything goes: "Do you have, like, a case of it that I could buy from you?" I asked the girl behind the counter.

She laughed but then saw that I was serious. She went off and got the manager. After a few seconds of contemplating, he decided he just couldn't do it - not because he didn't want my money, but because that was all the hot mustard sauce he had left. I left with my ten packets of sauce. In my memory I had eaten them all by the time I got back to Pasadena, but that can't be right.

It's been my preferred sauce for McNuggets for as long as I can remember.

But it's not just McNuggets that the hot mustard sauce complements:

I enjoy the McDouble with hot mustard and peperoncini.

The McChicken is equally enhanced with the sauce.

And the hot mustard is indispensable on the sausage biscuit. 

And, in case you're wondering, it's not just McDonald's grub with which I use the sauce:

Trader Joe's hash brown patties with McDonald's hot mustard, goat cheese and basil is one of my favorite breakfasts. Well, pretty much my favorite.

Not surprisingly, pan-fried gyoza go wonderfully with the mustard.

And, finally, I will show you my dinner from last night: a fried chicken "sandwich." I'd intended to make a traditional sandwich but my bread had spoiled so I wrapped it with butter lettuce. I added pickles, Trader Joe's Toscano black pepper cheese, and McDonald's hot mustard. It was, of course, delicious.

Thank you for following along. Normally I wouldn't have written so much about a fast food condiment but, with the loss of Popeye's Delta Sauce, it's probably my favorite one out there. And seeing it disrespected by McDonald's upset me. I don't choose any of those other sauces, McDonald's: I choose the hot mustard. Because it's the best one you've got. Even if you don't realize it.