It's Official: Szechuan Sauce Is Finally Returning to McDonald's

The prophecy has been fulfilled: Szechuan sauce is returning, and may McDonald's have mercy on our souls. After an attempt at a limited run in October resulted in riots of furious nerds and chicken nugget lovers, McDonald's promised the sauce would be back this winter, and now, it looks like the second coming of the sauce is imminent. 

McDonald's announced Szechuan sauce's return via Twitter and a website dedicated to the condiment and said it will officially reveal more details on February 22. The news comes just days after leaks from employees all but confirmed the sauce was headed back to the chain's restaurants. In other words, that one Rick and Morty fan who traded their car for Szechuan sauce last year is about to look really silly, and the rest of us are about to have a pleasantly novel chicken nuggets dipping experience.

As of Wednesday, McDonald's has not said anything about exactly when, where, and how you can get your hands on some Szechuan sauce. The company appears to be saving those details for its announcement on Thursday.

In case you were off-planet somewhere last year, the company's limited-release-gone-wrong happened on October 7, and the response bordered on apocalyptic. Put simply, there wasn't enough sauce and people lost their damn minds. Those folks who couldn't find their minds were mostly fans of the animated series Rick and Morty, the Season 3 premiere of which featured Rick shouting about how his life's sole mission was to have McDonald's Szechuan sauce again.

The sauce/suspected ichor was originally released to promote the Disney movie Mulan back in 1998. To be clear: It was all a bit that a bunch of people took way, way too far. McDonald's was trying to play into the joke and angered the fans, and now must pay the blood sacrifice: bring back the sauce again.

Heavy received a picture of cases of the sauces arriving at one store with 250 sauces in each case. With six cases, that means that restaurant received at least 1,500 sauces. That's far more than was available on the day that shall surely live in infamy, when there were reports that some stores only got 20 packets. 

Let's all just hope there's enough this time. 

Until the Szechuan sauce packet-shaped hole in your heart is filled, enjoy these pictures as proof:

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James Chrisman is a News Writer at Thrillist who kindly asks that everyone calm down for a second. Send news tips to news@thrillist.com and follow him on Twitter @james_chrisman2.