secret sauce

noun

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

Examples of secret sauce in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The chicken, seafood, and noodles are mixed with a secret sauce, plus cilantro, green onions, peanuts, carrots, and chilies. —Lennie Omalza, The Courier-Journal, 2 July 2025

And maybe that’s the secret sauce: the culture she’s created feels like family, not just production. —Corein Carter, Forbes.com, 27 June 2025

That’s why a lot of the secret sauce CloudNC used to build its AI models was brewed in a small manufacturing operation that CloudNC itself runs in Essex, to the East of London. —Jeremy Kahn, Fortune, 26 June 2025

Entrepreneurship is the secret sauce — the ‘killer app’ — of the American economy. —Ted Tucker, National Review, 22 June 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1906, in the meaning defined at sense 2

Rhymes for secret sauce

• albatross
• applesauce
• barabbas
• helios
• kshatriyas
• across
• backcross
• crisscross
• lacrosse
• recross
• tomas
• blas