Saucy Nuggets and Cheap Beer

I have to admit, I’m a tiny bit of a food snob. I feel awful and mope if what I make for dinner isn’t some gourmand’s wet dream. OK, I’m also a tiny bit melodramatic. Nonetheless, now that I’m a White Class Girl, I’m bucking up, sassing up, and rolling up my sleeves in the classiest way possible: Chicken Nuggets and Beer.

Dipping hard earned chicken nuggets (or, in this case, soy nuggets since the market was out) in plain ol’ ketchup isn’t the WCG way, however. After returning home laden with a box of nuggets and a six pack of Red Oval Classic Lager ($2.99!), I threw open the cupboards and the fridge and pulled out everything vaguely sauce looking. My goal was to create several delicious and unique dipping sauces armed with only what I had in the kitchen. I love making my own sauces because I can make them exactly how I want and it's cheap—very WCG.

Note: I don’t measure ingredients ever, sorry! Just add a little bit and taste and then add something else and so on until it tastes good. I listed the main ingredient first.

Here are my results:

1) Apricot Balsamic Sauce. Lejeune wasn’t too excited about this one as he is, in his words, “not a fan of meat and fruit together.” However this ended up being one of our favorites. This recipe is adapted from Good Housekeeping. Use a lot of the preserve and then a little of the others and adjust to taste.

-Apricot Preserve

-Balsamic Vinegar

-Soy Sauce

-Tangerine Zest (there was only one ripe on the tree, just waiting for me)

2) Honey Mustard. A classic dipping sauce and so ridiculously easy I have no idea why I haven’t done this before. Go about 50/50 of each to start.

-Honey

-Yellow Mustard

3) WCG Sauce. So good I named it after this blog. The BBQ Sauce and Mustard should be about equal. Add the hot sauce to your desired hawtness.

-BBQ Sauce

-Grainy Dijon Mustard

-Hot Sauce

4) Wasabi Island. Yes, I just made that name up. A new take on the revered tradition of mixing your mayo and your ketchup on your paper plate and proudly announcing to your mother that you “just invented something.”

-Trader Joe’s Wasabi Mayonnaise

-Ketchup

5) Teriyaki Everything. This was really runny for me so I just poured it into a sauce pan and let it reduce to about 1/3 over medium heat.

-Soyaki Sauce

-Ketchup

-Hoisin Sauce (just a teensy bit)

-Apple Cider Vinegar

-A squeeze of that tangerine

Served each sauce in a plastic cup with a fancy spoon, baby carrots on the side, and beer.

The Red Oval Classic Lager kinda tasted like PBR. I wouldn’t take it to party but for $2.99 for a six pack (!), I might get it again.

All in all, this was surprisingly satisfying and cost just a couple bucks. I had a really hard time deciding which sauce would be used for my “last bite”—I ended up going with the WCG Sauce but am curious to know what other people would choose!

Xoxo,

Kitty

P.S. The camera ran out of batteries after a few poorly lit photos, but I’m definitely doing this again and I’ll take better ones. Promise!