McDonald’s Szechaun sauce is returning, more info to come this week

McDonald’s is gearing up for a second, limited-time offer of its Szechuan sauce, which became a cultural phenomenon last fall thanks to Adult Swim’s Rick and Morty.

McDonald’s made the announcement on a new website, adding that more details will be announced on Feb. 22. A three-part podcast series, called “The Sauce,” will answer more details about the return.

So, come this Thursday, February 22nd, we’ll not only announce when, where, and how much Szechuan Sauce will be returning. We’ll also answer those questions and share those stories via a stranger-than-fiction, three-part podcast series: The Sauce.

McDonald’s first brought back the sauce for a one-day event on Oct. 7, 2017. The decision to do so was spurred on by the success of Rick and Morty’s third season, which included a popular Szechuan sauce joke in its premiere. The fast food chain didn’t prepare for the scores of fans who descended upon various locations, chanting inside restaurants for McDonald’s to release more sauce.

What started out as a joke — one that Rick and Morty co-creators Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon were into at first — quickly became a public and national embarrassment. Roiland tweeted out his disappointment with some fans’ behavior by the end of the weekend.

Empty-handed fans voiced their frustration online, tweeting about their journeys just to get their hands on the sauce. McDonald’s head chef, Mike Haracz, said the company was going to “make it right,” and the chain issued a statement on Oct. 8, promising to bring back the sauce on a much larger scale.

“Szechuan sauce is coming back once again this winter,” the statement read. “And instead of being one-day-only and limited to certain restaurants, we’re bringing back more — a lot more — so that any fan who’s willing to do whatever it takes for Szechuan sauce will only have to ask for it at a nearby McDonald’s.”

The company has been quiet since then about plans for satiating Rick and Morty fans’ desire for Szechuan sauce — until now.

The sauce, which McDonald’s first issued as part of a tie-in with Disney’s 1998 movie, Mulan. McDonald’s representative didn’t tell Polygon anything else, but more information is expected to be released in the coming days.