The Simple Dave's Hot Chicken Hack To Elevate Its Already Beloved Signature Sauce

Dave's Hot Chicken has been growing fast and has no plans to slow down after its 2025 acquisition for around $1 billion. This eye-popping price was reached less than a decade after three friends pooled $900 in 2017 to set up a portable fryer in an East Hollywood parking lot. Now, with just shy of 350 U.S. locations as of October 2025, the chain's success is fueled by its Nashville-style hot chicken. Making the experience even better is the signature Dave's sauce. While beloved by customers as is, there is a simple hack that boosts its flavor: Just add honey.

The creamy, orange-yellow sauce, served with chicken tenders and on the sliders, is tangy, spicy, and a little sweet. Since Dave's doesn't publicize its ingredients, copycat recipes often guess things like pickle juice, chipotle peppers, and, ironically, honey. However, a Facebook user posted a photo of the actual ingredient list, which a store manager had sent them from a shipping box. The sauce contains mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard, sugar, soybean oil, red wine vinegar, citrus fiber, and "Dave's mild seasoning" (made with brown sugar, paprika, salt, spices, and onion and garlic powders).

To execute the hack, simply ask for a packet of honey and mix it well into a small cup of the signature sauce. The result is obviously sweeter, but with a mellower flavor than the original's plain sugar. The extra sweetness also helps better tame the fiery heat of the chicken.

When eating Dave's tenders or sliders (tenders on a potato bun), customers choose from seven heat levels, ranging from no spice, through lite mild, mild, medium, hot, and extra hot, to Reaper. The top level, made with extremely hot Carolina Reaper peppers, has a disclaimer; you must sign a waiver before eating it, acknowledging potential harm. To help tame the heat, the chicken tenders come with pickles and a slice of bread, as well as Dave's sauce. The sliders are topped with pickles, the sauce, and a creamy kale slaw.

Once you've prepared the honey-hacked Dave's sauce, you can simply substitute it for the regular sauce when eating your chicken. The sauce also works well for dipping fries or the smaller, tender bites, which have just three heat options (no spice, medium, and hot). The chain also offers Mike's Hot Honey as one of its dippers. As a variation on the hack, you could mix that into the original sauce instead. The combination of added honey-flavored sweetness with more heat could be excellent with a milder level of chicken or with fries.