secret sauce

noun

|Updated on: 12 Jul 2018

Definition of secret sauce

1 : a sauce that adds an important element to a dish and that has ingredients which are typically kept secret

A frank of beef, pork, and veal … is split lengthwise, coated with secret sauce, and cooked on a grill.
—Jane and Michael Stern

— called also special sauce

2 : an element, quality, ability, or practice that makes something or someone successful or distinctive

If leadership has a secret sauce, it may well be humility. A humble boss understands that there are things he doesn't know.
—The Economist

— called also special sauce

Recent Examples of secret sauce from the Web

The secret sauce is its highly personalized subscription service based on interviews with its customers, either in person, online or via telephone.

— jeffrey a. trachtenberg, WSJ, "From a London Bookstore to the U.S. Reader," 5 July 2018
Proof that staying connected to her fans will always be her not-so-secret sauce.

— lauren valenti, Vogue, "4 Times Kim Kardashian West Disrupted the Beauty Space," 4 June 2018
Whatever Lil Miquela’s secret sauce, similar technology is being used to make others like her.

— emilia petrarca, The Cut, "Body Con Job," 11 May 2018
The newly public slides arrive on the first court date for the high-profile trial, which centers on whether Uber effectively stole Waymo's secret sauce when the ridesharing company hired away a top engineer named Anthony Levandowski.

— cyrus farivar, Ars Technica, "Waymo presents damning internal messages from Uber, which responds in kind," 5 Feb. 2018
Pro tip: The traditional vegetables are great, but a minimal version with only the cheese and secret sauce may be even better.

— dominic armato, azcentral, "25 best burgers in Phoenix: If you've got a hamburger craving, here's where to go," 23 May 2018
The problem is that Bearfield and Emerson’s secret sauce is their unflagging devotion to the community.

— nancy shohet west, BostonGlobe.com, "Creating a community isn’t as easy as running a store," 26 Apr. 2018
This slight costume change is the result of what Ms. Haughney said is the secret sauce fueling Tussauds’ 300-year survival.

— New York Times, "The Politics of Waxing," 26 Mar. 2018
Though there’s no standard protocol, generally an audit involves an outside entity coming in to review how a company develops its secret sauce—without compromising that company’s trade secrets.

— jessi hempel, WIRED, "Want to Prove Your Business Is Fair? Audit Your Algorithm," 9 May 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'secret sauce.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.