TikTok’s Viral Pink Sauce: Everything You Need to Know

Via @chef.pii/Tiktok (3)

TikTok always seems to have something new to talk about. From rubbing frozen cucumbers on your face to drinking “healthy Coke” and mixing big bowls of cowboy caviar, it seems like every day someone is raving about a new trendy food hack.

Now, everyone is talking about the Pink Sauce. Yet people aren’t exactly “raving” about this sauce’s existence.

The sauce became a viral sensation on TikTok after it was shared by creator Chef Pii. This Miami-based chef first posted a video dipping a fried chicken tender in the hot-pink sauce on June 11, and TikTok users went wild. Yet while the sauce-chicken combo seems enticing, the practices for creating, selling and distributing the Pink Sauce have been questionable—and TikTok users are taking notice.

What Is Pink Sauce?

According to the Pink Sauce website, this fluorescent condiment includes dragon fruit, honey, sunflower seed oil, chili and garlic. Previous nutrition labels also listed pink Himalayan sea salt, as well as less than 2% of lemon juice, milk and citric acid.

Despite its creamy-looking consistency, the sauce is a bit watery compared to most. The consistency is thin and looks more like watery pink milk slipping from the nozzle of the bottle. In many of Chef Pii’s videos, it’s generously applied to fried chicken or burgers but slips easily down the sides of the food and onto the consumer’s fingers.

While Chef Pii is seen enjoying the sauce in earlier TikTok videos, the one video of her pouring sauce into a bottle that states that the sauce is “edible and natural” is what ultimately sparked viewers’ attention.

Why Are People Obsessed with It?

While the sauce ingredients seem pretty straightforward, the manufacturing of it continues to be a mystery for many—including the color of the Pink Sauce, which keeps changing over time.

In the original video, the sauce has a darker magenta color and appears to be thicker in consistency, similar to ranch dressing. Eight days later, the sauce was a bit lighter in color as it was poured on a taco in a video, yet still had a similar thick consistency to the original sauce.

Another five days later, the sauce looks to have a much lighter pink color and has that watery consistency. Currently, the sauce color is closer to salmon, flecked with seasoning, and dribbles down food easily.

Even though Chef Pii tried to address the ever-changing colors, stating that “the color didn’t change, just the lighting,” users are still obsessing over how the sauce color and consistency never seem to match. And although the color of the sauce is advertised to come from the dragon fruit, users speculate that the pink color is likely not from the fruit but a dye—which doesn’t seem to be listed in the ingredients.

Is Pink Sauce Safe?

Originally, TikTok viewers weren’t informed about the sauce’s ingredients, which is why many users called it a “mystery sauce.” Now, Pink Sauce bottles—which are officially sold out online—make it clear right away what the main ingredients are. And yet, the nutrition label continues to be a mystery—boasting 444 servings of sauce in a bottle at 90 calories a serving.

The nutrition label also included misspellings (vinegar was spelled “vinger”), and when addressed by viewers on a live stream asking if the Pink Sauce was approved by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA), Chef Pii stated that the “pink sauce is not a medical product” and ultimately confirming that the sauce was not legally fit to sell.

“what do you mean FDA APPROVED?”

Y’all look 😭😭😭 https://t.co/uwarGmlT7z pic.twitter.com/kuYhVzFZ01

— Life w/ Derek (@derekarnellx) July 25, 2022

As of Monday, Aug. 1, the nutrition label information was no longer available for customers on The Pink Sauce website. Instead, a message from Chef Pii is posted about how the “Pink Sauce team is hard at work ensuring our Pink Sauce is safe and abiding by all food safety standards and guidelines.” She also states that they are dedicated to providing customers with “clear, unambiguous, and accurate labels” that will exceed FDA guidelines.

Lastly, with milk being one of the ingredients listed on the label, some question if the sauce needs to be refrigerated after some rancid-smelling batches of the Pink Sauce were sent out to customers. One user complained that she “waited this long for nothing” to receive a package that reeks. Especially for a small bottle that is a whopping $20 a pop.

Between the lack of FDA approval, the changing sauce colors, mysterious ingredients and lack of direction on refrigerating the product due to ingredients that can go rancid, plus lack of communication from Chef Pii herself, we would recommend avoiding this sauce—even if the videos on TikTok look enticing.