This week’s TikTok food trend comes with a dash of mystery — that is, everyone wants to know what the hell is in pink sauce, and where to buy it.
For those who don’t spend all their time on their FYP, TikTok is no stranger to food trends — creators on the app have tried eating and drinking everything from aloe vera juice to chlorophyll to “internal showers,” and creators like Emily Mariko have built a platform on making recipes go viral. But pink sauce seems to be a wacky outlier — and not only because of its color.
Created by @chef.pii on TikTok, a Miami-based chef and TikTok creator, pink sauce is a thick substance that resembles Pepto-Bismol at first glance, and is meant to be used a condiment on fried chicken, tacos, Big Macs, and seemingly any food. When asked to describe the . If you’re wondering how it ends up looking the way it does, like it came out of a Willy Wonka factory, you’re not alone.
A few weeks after her first video eating the sauce on fried chicken went viral, Chef Pii posted another video that broke down the purported ingredients of pink sauce for the curious, now that she had also started pre-sales on bottles of the pink sauce. Those ingredients? Honey, garlic, chili, sunflower seed oil, and dragonfruit — which gives the sauce its pink color. However, some viewers still weren’t satisfied.
First, why does the pink sauce seem to change color in every video? Chef Pii chalked it up to changes in lighting, but some are still skeptical. Second, why do the ingredients in the graphic she had posted to clear up confusion not match the ingredients on the nutritional label shown on her website (and why is vinegar misspelled as “vinger”)? Suddenly dragonfruit has been replaced with pitaya, and pink sauce now contains milk — even though it supposedly doesn’t need to be refrigerated and has no expiration date listed.
According to The Verge, the texture and taste are also inconsistent — sometimes pink sauce is watery, sometimes it’s chunky, and sometimes it’s… glittery? Some have said it tastes like ranch with food coloring. But to others, it’s tangy, a word that Chef Pii had used herself to describe the taste in a comment.
TikTok creators like @seansvv have pointed out their concerns about food safety for people indulging in the pink sauce, considering the changing color, impossible serving sizes per bottle, and changing color that suggests the product is not being safely regulated for human consumption.
Dressing and condiments require food facility registration by the FDA, according to Mashable. FDA regulation includes meeting certain nutrition facts label guidelines, something Chef Pii appears not to have done — yet, at least, considering she made a TikTok saying that she and her team will be fixing the issues with the nutritional label, including the misspelling. Of course, that might be too little, too late for some customers who have already bought and consumed pink sauce.
For the curious who are intent on testing pink sauce out for themselves, you can currently purchase a bottle of the stuff for $20 (plus shipping) on Chef Pii’s website.
For her part, Chef Pii is standing behind her business and her sauce against the haters. She’s started a YouTube channel, and recently posted a TikTok of her posing with a bottle of the sauce for a photoshoot. This likely won’t be the last time we hear about pink sauce — for better or worse.