Every Zaxby's Wing Flavor Ranked Worst To Best

Zaxby's is a Southern fast food chain that specializes in chicken; however, the menu isn't limited to just one type of preparation. Sure, Zaxby's offers chicken sandwiches, but the menu also lists other items like salads, chicken fingers, and chicken wings. 

The impressive thing about the chain is that the menu isn't limited to boneless "wings" that are basically just big chicken nuggets; the menu also offers traditional bone-in wings that are made from genuine poultry parts. Still, Zaxby's is fast food, not fast-casual, so it doesn't quite offer the selection of wing sauces you might get at Buffalo Wild Wings or Wingstop.

Selections may vary by location, but the Zaxby's menu presently offers 8 different wing sauces (BBQ, Buffalo Garlic Blaze, hot honey mustard, Nuclear, sweet & spicy, teriyaki, Tongue Torch, and Wimpy) plus an additional 5 that are available as dips (blue cheese, honey mustard, ranch, Zax Sauce, and Spicy Zax Sauce). 

There is, however, a certain amount of overlap between the sauces and dips, as each one of the former is also available as the latter. The honey mustard, though, is a bit of a strange case: The plain version is a dipping sauce only but the kicked-up hot honey mustard is both a sauce and a dip. Whichever sauce or dip flavor you opt for, it's essential to pick the perfect condiment to go with your chicken wings. 

Honey mustard is a sauce we tend to associate with chicken nuggets, so if you're going with boneless wings, this might not be a weird combo. It's not a sauce that you often see paired with bone-in wings, though, and for good reason: Honey mustard tends to be pretty bland, and it can also be overwhelmingly sweet. Zaxby's version of honey mustard is, well, not terrible. It's pretty much the type of sauce you'd expect from a fast food chicken nugget dunk.

However, honey mustard is a big nope as a wing sauce as it's just not something that works too well with traditional wings. You might think that honey mustard makes for a lighter, lower-calorie sauce than some other wing toppings, but a small cup of the stuff has 180 calories, which is just 10 calories less than the high-fat ranch dressing. Zaxby's itself describes that sauce as "a lotta sweet and a little tang," but we'd just as soon not have our wings drenched in anything quite so syrupy, thanks all the same.

Ever since Mickey D's dropped its "special sauce" alongside the Big Mac, it seems like every fast food chain has to have its own signature condiment. At Zaxby's it's the Zax Sauce, which is basically fry sauce, meaning it's ketchup mixed with mayo plus a little bit of extra seasoning. Zaxby's seems to offer the stuff with everything, so of course, you can get it with the wings. Should you, though? We think not.

Ketchup is a condiment that occupies a rather specific niche. It goes perfectly with hamburgers (though maybe not on hot dogs!), and it's pretty great with fries. Mayonnaise is best on sandwiches or in creamy salads such as tuna, egg, or chicken. Mayonnaise is also great as a fry sauce all on its own, which is the way it's typically served in Belgium. 

Mix the plain mayonnaise with ketchup, though, and they make something that goes fairly well with fries but is way too bland for chicken. While Zaxby's claims its Zax Sauce was "custom-made" for the "Chicken Fingerz," we'd prefer a different dip for those as well.

Zax Sauce on its own is a big "nope" for us, not just for wings but pretty much everything. As we said, it's basically fry sauce, which is a condiment that is often described as being a cult favorite; however, we prefer to keep our ketchup and mayonnaise separate: Is that so wrong? Add in a little jalapeno pepper puree, though, enough to kick things up to a "two flame emoji" level, and, well, that's a pretty decent condiment right there. Spicy Zax Sauce is still not great, but it's definitely a significant improvement on Zax sauce. 

For us, Spicy Zax Sauce is a kind of "close your eyes, hold your nose, and pretend" stand-in for Buffalo sauce, which, in our long-held opinion, is still the best wing sauce of all time. If the only other sauces available were ranch sauce and honey mustard sauce, we'd still reluctantly accept the stuff. Still, we remain unconvinced that either ketchup or mayonnaise belongs in a wing dip, with the exception of the latter condiment as a necessary (but boring) component of blue cheese dressing.

We had hopes that the teriyaki sauce might offer more than a one-note flavor, and, in fact, it does. It's got two major notes: Too salty and too sweet. This teriyaki sauce tastes as if someone has taken a thick sugar syrup and mixed it with extra-salty soy sauce, which may very well be what Zaxby's did with this condiment.

According to Zaxby's menu, the teriyaki sauce is meant to have some garlic and ginger: "Tongue-tantalizing" garlic and ginger, no less. Well, not only was our tongue not tantalized, but we couldn't detect either of these flavors. On its own, this teriyaki sauce is practically inedible, but on top of Zaxby's chicken wings, it's actually not that bad as the chicken helps absorb some of the salty sweetness. All in all, it's not a great option as far as wing sauces go, but it is, at the very least, a small step up from ketchup, mayo, and basic barbecue sauce.

Buffalo Garlic Blaze is one of the newer sauces on Zaxby's menu: It was introduced in early 2022. As the Zaxby's menu says, it's meant to be a classic Buffalo-style sauce, but with the addition of garlic, as per the name. That's nice if you're a real garlic fan, in which case this is the perfect sauce for you. Call us purists, but we prefer our Buffalo sauce garlic-free, and we also feel that someone should hold the line against the insidious inclusion of garlic into absolutely everything, making it the most over-used spice, possible ever.  

There are a few other issues with the Buffalo Garlic Blaze sauce, though, even if you are trying to keep the vampires away. While Zaxby's gives this sauce a two-flame rating, it's really not as hot as all that. In fact, it's far more garlicky than blazing. Plus, this sauce has 120 calories, while all of the other Buffalo-style sauces (Wimpy, Tongue Torch, and Nuclear) have a fraction of that amount. As garlic itself is practically calorie-free, what did they add to this sauce?? Seems kind of shady to us. Honestly, you'd be better off opting for one of the higher-calorie options. 

Zaxby's Tongue Torch has a somewhat misleading name. It's not going to set your tongue on fire, not unless you have an especially low tolerance for heat. The sauce seems to be based on a standard Buffalo sauce recipe. Given the hints of sweet, fruity flavor in this sauce, it may contain a tiny amount of habanero-based hot sauce. While the habanero (if those peppers are even present in this sauce) does take the heat level up just a bit, for the most part, this condiment resembles the far milder Louisiana-style hot sauce.

The Zaxby's Tongue Torch isn't insanely hot: Even Zaxby's only gives Tongue Torch two flames and describes it as having a "little kick." However, Tongue Torch does have its fanatic adherents. One recent Reddit thread devoted to discovering a copycat recipe (spoiler: they did not succeed) was started by someone who claimed to be "absolutely obsessed with tongue torch." 

While "obsessed" may not mean anything more than mildly interested, one of the people commenting may, in fact, be exhibiting signs of true obsession with the sauce: As they said, "I need that recipe I wish I could f***ing find it! I lie awake at night wondering if I'll ever be gifted the only thing I seek from life." While we wish them luck in their quest for fulfillment, for us, while Zaxby's Tongue Torch is a good wing sauce, it's definitely not life-changing.