This copycat Chick fil A sauce is a clean, healthier alternative to the traditional smoky honey mustard dipping sauce. Made with all natural ingredients, you don't have to feel too guilty about adding this to your chicken nuggets. This one doesn't use BBQ sauce, so it's considered a paleo Chick fil A sauce.
Chick fil A Sauce Ingredients
I used to live for this sauce until I was diagnosed with chronic migraine and realized that I needed to make some diet changes. In the past, one of my favorite things to do when I was having a bad day at work was to leave the office to pick up a chicken nugget kids meal at Chick-fil-A with TWO Chick-fil-A sauces. For those that don't know what Chick fil A sauce is, it's like a glorious smoky BBQ flavored honey mustard. Quite possibly the most delicious sauce I've had up until the sauce. This was back when I never used to read labels...and woof. This one is a doozy.
While starting to clean up my diet, one of the changes was to give up MSG, including the hidden names for it, which you can find here. Unfortunately almost everything at Chick fil A from their sauces to their plain grilled chicken strips are filled with MSG. The word "natural flavor" is listed on the ingredients multiple times as well as the unclear "spices", which are all hidden names for monosodium glutamate.
Making your own at home is much cleaner and so much better for you, plus it's easy to do! For ingredients I used:
- Sir Kensington's Organic Mayonnaise
- Annie's Mustard
- Local Honey
- Trader Joe's Smoked Paprika
- Distilled White Vinegar
- Salt & Pepper to taste
If you're looking for an egg-free option you can certainly use this vegan aquafaba mayo recipe. Or if eggs aren't an issue, this homemade mayonnaise would work well too.
A Migraine-Friendly & Paleo Honey Mustard Sauce
What is really difficult is to make a smoky honey mustard sauce (similar to CFA) that is migraine-friendly! This is because most recipes contain BBQ sauce and to this day I cannot find a safe one in stores as they all use liquid smoke.
Liquid smoke is typically on avoid lists for most migraine diets and quite a few find it to be a trigger, even if they can have smoked meats. This leaves a difficult conundrum trying to make something taste smoky without using liquid smoke. I tend to like smoked paprika in this instance. Smoke paprika comes from pimento peppers that are dried and smoked over of a fire.
Smoked paprika works great in this sauce because it adds a little pepper to the sweet, tangy honey mustard sauce.
How to Make Chick Fil A Sauce at Home
This is really quite easy, just take all the ingredients above and stir them together and that's it. It takes about 5 minutes total, although I recommend chilling your sauce for at least 30 minutes to allow the flavors to combine. The smoked paprika gets stronger as it sits for a while and really lends a nice BBQ flavor to the sauce.
I'll have some chicken nugget and chicken tender recipes coming up, but felt this sauce was really able to stand alone. It would make a great dipping sauce for almost anything, like these chicken poppers.
Some other good options would be:
Creamy Cilantro Sauce
Honey Mustard Ranch
Ranch Dip
Whole30 Tartar Sauce
Copycat Chick Fil A Sauce
Ingredients
- ⅓ cup mayonnaise *see notes
- 2 tablespoons mustard *see notes
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 1 teaspoon distilled white vinegar
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
Instructions
- Combine all the ingredients in a small both and stir till fully incorporated. Cover and allow it to sit in the fridge at least 30 minutes for the flavors to combine. Taste and adjust any seasonings, adding salt and pepper as needed. Serve cold or at room temperature.
Notes
- I used Sir Kensington's Organic Mayo for this recipe, but you can make traditional homemade or this egg-free homemade mayo.
- For mustard, you can combine whole grain and regular yellow mustard for a nice combination, but I use mostly yellow mustard.
- I used Trader Joe's smoked paprika for this recipe. I find a teaspoon gives it a really nice smoky BBQ flavor, however, if your smoked paprika is very strong, you may want to start out with ½-3/4 teaspoon and go from there.
- Usually I don't end up seasoning this with salt and pepper. I find it's great on it's own.
Delicious and easy to make!
Thanks, Erica!
Hi Alicia, What do you think about smoked salt for seasoning meat, if it’s just salt that was smoked (with no other ingredients)? Probably still a trigger?
I like this sauce! I love dipping, so I have enjoyed this on everything!
I’ve made this many times and it is so delicious! Tonight, I’m making homemade fries to go with it. Often times will make the crispy chicken tenders and the sauce is perfect with them.
Oh my gosh that sounds so good!!
This sauce is incredible and easy. Will never go back.
I love this recipe so much that I now crave it when I’m having a high pain day. I use it with the chicken tenders recipe as well as a dipping sauce for basic roasted chicken. It’s also good with plain baked fish. I even dip roasted brussel sprouts in it sometimes!
So good! I’m basically eating everything with this sauce. Thank you!
My whole family LOVED this sauce! Very tasty.
Already commented under the fried chicken recipe (recommended!) but wanted to emphasize my appreciation for this copycat sauce. I followed this recipe exactly and left the sauce to cool in the fridge for about 30-45 minutes before serving. It was sooo delicious and I will definitely be making this again. My only comment would be it didn't taste exactly like chick fil a sauce (I prefer the more sharp taste of this) but it would be simple to add more honey for a sweeter copy.