SAUCED BY ALFARO

Hoppen Hierarchy:★★★★

District: Papillion

Scratch-made chicken sandwiches, wings, and specials

Perfect For: Casual Dining; Takeout; Lunch

Standout Dishes: Nashville Hot Chicken Sandwich; Bang Bang Shrimp Tacos; Nashville Hot Chicken & Waffles

Michelle Alfaro is one of those “I trust you” chefs.

Her ability to pair flavors and textures is so spectacular that, no matter how wild some of her dishes appear on paper, you just trust her and go with it. It doesn’t matter if she’s putting BBQ sauce on spaghetti, fried dill pickle spears on a fried chicken sandwich, or whiskey peanut butter sauce on a burger.

This self-taught chef doesn’t miss. She understands how to balance different flavor profiles and create cohesive flavor bombs out of seemingly disparate ingredients. And, as the name implies, her sauce work is on point.

So if Michelle makes it, you can trust it’s going to be delicious.

Sauced by Alfaro is a scratch kitchen with a constantly updating menu that never fails to surprise and excite. From her creative takes on fried chicken sandwiches to Swiss Mushroom Chicken Soup, Asian Cheesesteaks, Puffy Tostadas, and French Onion Dip Sandwiches, you never know what Chef Alfaro is going to come up with next.

She’s a master at taking familiar, well-known food items like wings, burgers, tacos, and rice bowls and adding a special zing that makes them completely unique. It’s a tired cliche to say you can taste the love in a dish, but Michelle is one of the rare cases where it’s true. Her passion for food and cooking caused her to leave her career in 2018 to pursue a life in cooking, and she’s never looked back.

So pay no mind to the fact that she lacks professional training. The way her flavors sing, you won’t care about those minor details.

While some of Sauced’s more creative specials jump off the menu, what defines Sauced is its proficiency in nailing the cooking basics; only then does Michelle add her creative touches. Each fry is cut by hand. Every shrimp is breaded the morning of service. Every burger is seasoned to perfection and cooked to a masterful medium well.

Once the baseline is established, Michelle can have her fun.

Her specialty is fried chicken tenders, which serve as a wonderful canvas for her to paint on. Sauced gets my vote for the best fried chicken in Omaha; the chicken remains moist and juicy on the inside, while the outside develops a nice, crispy exterior with endless nooks and crannies for the delightful sauces to take residence.

Sauced’s masterpiece is the Nashville Hot Chicken Sandwich, which gets my vote for the best sandwich in the city (and is undeniably the best Nashville hot chicken sandwich in Omaha). This sandwich packs some heat, as crispy, hand breaded tenders are liberally dunked into a pot of hot chili oil that builds in heat the more of the sandwich you consume. But the sauce also has brown sugar, and bread and butter pickles and a hot honey aioli help to add balance.

For a fun twist, Sauced has a special with the Nashville hot tenders in between two Belgian waffles: the Nashville Hot Chicken & Waffles Sandwich. The Liege waffles are studded with sugar pearls and topped with bourbon hot maple syrup, giving just the right amount of sweetness to match the spice and savory elements of the sandwich. And the pecan whipped honey butter on top is the icing on the cake to complete this sweet/heat masterpiece.

But Sauced’s menu item might be the Bang Bang Shrimp Tacos. The base of the dish is plump, tender hand-breaded shrimp that receive a wonderful crispy texture from the deep fry. The bang bang sauce adds a sweet & spicy creaminess, but honestly the best part is the shell. Hand-crafted each day, the shell defies science—it’s fried and crispy, yet still chewy. It addles the brain, but you’ll push through the momentary confusion to keep shoveling these tacos into your mouth.

Then there’s the Chicken Parmesan Sandwich, which is about the size of a canoe, with two whale-sized chicken tenders popping out of the hoagie. The tenders are crispy on the outside as they are tender inside.

The marinara has just the right balance of sweet and acid; it’s honestly the only pasta sauce I need for the rest of my life. A Snuggie of gooey mozzarella envelops the whole thing. The secret MVP is the garlic confit brushed on the bun, which provides a subtle but beautiful garlicky punch.

Any lover of French dip sandwiches will fall head over heels for the Guinness & Swiss, which is headlined by caramelized onions cooked down in Guinness. Combined with tender, thing slices of sweet roast beef, gooey Swiss cheese, and a buttery roll, this sandwich is everything.

And that’s even before you baptize it in the Guinness jus, which is so rich, deep, and delicious you’ll want to slurp up any remainder with a straw.

The love and care that goes into each dish is borderline ridiculous. On days when Sauced offers chicken tenders with Michelle’s signature Salted Caramel Whiskey Sauce, diners flock to the restaurant, causing hours-long wait times. And still Sauced hand breads every tender and Michelle makes the sauce—which has, unlike most iterations of this type of sauce, a balanced sweetness thanks to large flecks of salt and the smoky bitterness of the bourbon.

The side dishes are almost as good as the mains. The Hand Cut Fries are crispy and liberally seasoned with large flecks of pepper and salt. They’re among the best fries you’ll find in Nebraska, hands down. The Crispy Cauliflower starts with heads of cauliflower that are breaded and fried to an excellent crispiness, creating a crunchy outer shell. Even though these bulbs are coated in the tangy bang bang sauce and jalapeno crema, they don’t become soggy.

And the Bang Bang Brussels, with their crispy, fried exterior and sweet, tangy sauce, are as good as any brussels you’ll find.

Even something as simple as salsa is executed to perfection at Sauced by Alfaro. Michelle actually started her culinary career with salsa, and it shows in her signature product. This salsa is so vibrant and fresh, more forward with herbs and tomatoes than spice, that it’s worthy of eating off a shoe, much less on one of Sauced’s homemade chips or tacos.

Sauced is located in a small space off the main street in Papillion, but it has a large patio. And if seating is filled, you can always take your food next door to Twisted Vine and enjoy a brew while you crush your meal.

And while Sauced’s base menu is tremendous, I’d recommend following its Facebook page to stay up to date on its ever-changing specials.

It’s really not possible to sum up Sauced in one sentence, but if I were to try, it would be: “Homey, scratch-made classics that surprise and delight with special and thoughtful surprises.”

Or you can just take one bite of any of Michelle’s dishes and you’ll perfectly understand why this is a must-try.