Bang Bang Sauce: Creamy, Sweet & Spicy in 5 Minutes

This bang bang sauce is the creamy, sweet, spicy condiment you'll want spooned over crispy shrimp, drizzled across chicken bites, and tucked into every taco for the foreseeable future. With just four pantry ingredients and five minutes of whisking, you'll make a glossy coral-pink sauce that tastes uncannily close to the famous Bonefish Grill original, only better, because you get to dial the heat exactly where you want it.

I started making this at home after one too many takeout orders that arrived with a sad little plastic cup of sauce, half-frozen and barely enough to coat three shrimp. The homemade version is glossier, brighter, and so much more balanced. A spoonful of Thai sweet chili brings the sweetness, a generous squeeze of sriracha brings the heat, mayonnaise pulls it all into a luscious ribbon, and a tiny drizzle of honey rounds out the sharp edges. From "I should probably make a sauce" to "okay, what else can we dip in this?" in under five minutes flat.

What I love most: this bang bang sauce recipe is endlessly tweakable. Use less sriracha for kids, more for chili-heads, swap maple syrup for honey if you're keeping things vegan, and add a splash of rice vinegar if you want it bright enough to drizzle over a poke bowl. Once you have the base ratios down, it becomes the kind of staple condiment you'll rotate into the fridge every single week.

What Is Bang Bang Sauce?

This creamy, sweet-and-spicy condiment first hit American menus thanks to Bonefish Grill's wildly popular bang bang shrimp appetizer in the early 2000s. The exact restaurant formula is a guarded secret, but copycat Bonefish Grill versions have circulated online for years, and most home cooks settle on the same trio of building blocks: mayonnaise, Thai sweet chili, and sriracha. The result is glossy, slightly tangy, gently sweet, and addictively craveable, with just enough chili to keep things interesting.

If you've ever wondered how it differs from its mayo-based cousins, here's the quick rundown. Yum yum sauce, popularized at Japanese hibachi steakhouses, leans on ketchup, butter, and paprika for a paler, smokier profile. Boom boom sauce sits somewhere in the middle, with sweet chili, mayo, and a heavier dose of garlic. The bang bang shrimp sauce we're making here skips the ketchup entirely and lets sweet chili plus sriracha do all the heavy lifting, which is why it tastes brighter and more chili-forward than either of those.

Think of bang bang as a close cousin of spicy aioli, but with a noticeably sweeter, more Thai-inflected flavor profile. And if you've ever loved a good sriracha mayo on a sushi roll or grain bowl, this is essentially its slightly dressier, more balanced sibling.

Ingredients You'll Need

You only need four core ingredients, plus an optional splash of rice vinegar that quietly takes the whole sauce from "good" to "what is in this?"

Mayonnaise is the creamy base. Use full-fat for the silkiest, most restaurant-like texture; light mayo works in a pinch but tends to skew thinner and a little flatter on the palate. Hellmann's (Best Foods on the West Coast), Duke's, and Kewpie all work beautifully. Kewpie in particular adds a subtle umami depth that's especially nice with seafood.

Thai sweet chili sauce is the secret weapon. It's a syrupy, slightly tangy condiment flecked with chili and garlic, sold in glass bottles in the international aisle of most grocery stores. Mae Ploy is the gold standard, but any Thai brand will do. Avoid generic "sweet & sour" or duck sauce; they're too cloying and don't carry the same chili character.

Sriracha brings the heat, the vinegary tang, and that signature blush-red color. Two tablespoons hits a friendly medium spice level for most palates. Cut it in half for kid-friendly heat, or push it to three tablespoons (plus a pinch of cayenne) for serious fire.

Honey is the rounding agent. It softens any harsh edges from the sriracha and amplifies the natural sweetness of the chili sauce so the finished sauce tastes balanced rather than spiky. The optional splash of rice vinegar brightens everything and keeps the texture from feeling heavy, which matters most when you're using the sauce on rich proteins like salmon or fried chicken.

How to Make Bang Bang Sauce, Step by Step

This is genuinely the easiest recipe on the blog. No cooking, no blender, no special equipment, just a small bowl and a whisk. Full quantities live in the recipe card below, but here's the visual walk-through so you know what to look for at each stage.

Whisk the creamy base. Add the mayo and Thai sweet chili sauce to a small bowl and whisk until every streak disappears and you've got a uniform pale-pink ribbon. A small whisk works best, but a fork will absolutely get you there too. This base alone is honestly delicious, but we're just getting started.

Drizzle in the heat. Add the sriracha and honey, then whisk again. Watch how the bright red sriracha blooms through the cream, turning the whole bowl that signature coral color. Taste right here. If you want more punch, add another teaspoon of sriracha; if you want it sweeter, drizzle in a touch more honey. This is the moment to make the sauce yours.

Let it rest. Cover the bowl and let the sauce sit for at least 10 minutes, ideally 30, before serving. The flavors marry, the chili settles into the mayo, and the texture tightens into something thicker and more spoon-coating. If you can plan ahead, make it that morning. Overnight is even better.

Ways to Use Bang Bang Sauce

This is where things get fun. Once the sauce is whisked together, you'll find yourself eyeing every protein and vegetable in the fridge as a potential vehicle. Here are my favorite pairings, but please don't stop here.

The original: bang bang shrimp. Toss crispy fried or air fryer shrimp in just enough sauce to coat each piece, then pile them onto shredded cabbage with sliced scallions and toasted sesame seeds. It's the dish that started the whole craze, and it still slaps two decades later.

Chicken in every form. Drizzle it over panko-crusted chicken tenders, toss it with crispy popcorn chicken for a fast rice bowl, or use it as the binder in a bang bang chicken wrap with shredded lettuce and quick-pickled onions. It's also a stealth move on a grilled chicken sandwich, where the cool creaminess plays beautifully against char.

Tacos, bowls, and salmon. A spoonful over fish tacos, shrimp tacos, or a salmon-and-rice bowl turns a simple weeknight dinner into something genuinely special. It's especially gorgeous drizzled in a zigzag across a piece of seared salmon, finished with sliced cucumber and pickled ginger.

Dipping mode. Of all the homemade dipping sauces in my rotation, this creamy spicy sauce is the one I reach for first. It's a knockout with sweet potato fries, onion rings, fried pickles, crispy chicken nuggets, and golden tofu cubes. Set out a bowl at your next game day spread next to wings and watch it disappear before halftime.

Veggies and sandwich duty. Grilled corn, roasted broccoli, raw cucumber spears, and even a wedge salad become more exciting with a generous swoosh of this sauce on the plate. I've also used it as a sandwich spread on shrimp po'boys and pulled-chicken sliders, where it stands in for any number of fussier mayo-based condiments and adds way more personality.

Once you make one batch, you'll understand why this sauce has stayed on restaurant menus for so long. It's the rare condiment that hits sweet, spicy, tangy, and creamy notes all at once, and it plays nicely with practically everything you'd consider eating with your hands. Stash a jar in the fridge, where it keeps beautifully for up to a week, and the flavor only deepens with time.

Whisk up a batch tonight, find your favorite ratio, and make it a permanent part of your fridge door rotation. I'd love to hear what you end up dunking, drizzling, and slathering it on, so leave a comment below and tell me how you used your bang bang sauce.