According to poll results, Applebee’s is considered the 17th most popular dining brand in the United States. That’s pretty impressive given how many restaurants and chains are out there!
Applebee’s has a daunting task ahead of it given the FDA’s proposed ban on food dyes, and it’s not alone…
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Along with other major brands and restaurants, Applebee’s has several menu items that currently use food dyes the FDA wants gone by the end of 2026.
Those dyes are:
- Citrus Red 2
- Orange B
- Red 3
- Red 40
- Yellow 5
- Yellow 6
- Blue 1
- Blue 2
Some of the menu items aren’t surprising, but there are a few that surprised me! Let’s look at them all now…
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I’m not going to lie – this one is perplexing to me. Tartar sauce is a mayonnaise-based sauce usually including pickles, dill, and other herbs. Applebee’s discloses all of the ingredients in its dishes, and blue dye is listed as the last ingredient for its tartar sauce. Pretty strange!
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Both the Classic Hot Buffalo Sauce and Extra Hot Buffalo Sauce at Applebee’s contain Red 40.
For comparison, a popular brand of Buffalo sauce, Frank’s RedHot Buffalo Sauce, doesn’t contain any added dyes. (It gets the red color from cayenne pepper and paprika.)
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Some chocolate syrups and sauces contain Red 40 to enhance the color, while others (like Hershey’s chocolate syrup) are free of added dyes. Unfortunately, Applebee’s Kids Hot Fudge Sundae uses Red 40 in the chocolate syrup.
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If you thought the strawberry sundae would be a better option, I have some bad news.
Like the hot fudge sundae, the Kids Strawberry Sundae uses Red 40 in the strawberry puree. There’s also Red 40 in the maraschino cherry, so just a heads-up in case you have a maraschino cherry on any other dessert or drink.
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Applebee’s offers Cinnabon Mini Swirls as a dessert. The cream cheese frosting in this treat has Yellow 5 added, even though regular cream cheese doesn’t typically have any dyes added. Interesting…
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Both the regular Dijon mustard and the Dijon mustard sauce contain Yellow 5 to enhance the color.
Regular yellow mustard doesn’t usually contain dye, just in case you were wondering. Yellow mustard gets its bright color from turmeric, which means we might see more turmeric used as a natural yellow dye with the impending ban…
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Another sauce, another banned dye.
If you order something that has Jalapeno Bacon Sauce or Tangy Bacon Sauce, just be forewarned that they both contain Yellow 5.
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Okay, this one was another surprise to me.
The onion rings contain not one, but TWO banned dyes! Yellow 5 and Yellow 6 are listed as ingredients for onion rings. (I get that fried foods are supposed to have a golden color, but do we really need yellow dyes to help achieve that?)
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What’s a “gummi brain”, you’re probably wondering?
It’s a part of the limited-time cocktail offered around Halloween called the “Zombie” and is used as a garnish. Gummi brains contain both Red 40 and Blue 1 dyes.
The drink also contains blue curacao, a type of liquor that uses blue dye, so it’s a double whammy there.
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The majority of menu items containing dyes on the Applebee’s menu fall under the sauce and dessert categories, with a few surprising outliers (tartar sauce and onion rings – really?).
What do you think of the menu items containing food dyes at Applebee’s? What do you think of the FDA’s proposed ban on food dyes in general? Share your thoughts in the comments!
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