Four high school students who created a winning sauce recipe saw it incorporated into a meal at McAllen Memorial High School.

Angel Gonzalez, Luis Gonzalez, Fernando Bernal and Yurem Romo, known collectively as "The Sauce Boys," concocted a marinara sauce recipe that was selected as the best in a school district contest last fall. It was served as part of the lunch menu to students on Monday.

The sauce will be rolled out district-wide across 31 campuses. It will be paired with cheese tortellini for the 2026-27 school year.

Last November, three teams from the district's culinary class competed. The students had to follow USDA guidelines for public schools and recipes had to abide by nutritional restrictions.

Teams had to stick to ingredients provided by McAllen ISD's Child Nutrition Department. As part of their preparation, the teams also toured McAllen ISD's Central Kitchen to see the equipment that is available, plus gain an understanding of the storage space limitations.

The Child Nutrition team, which organized the contest to give students an avenue to help create menus, selected  "The Sauce Boys" entry as the winner.

McAllen ISD serves breakfast and lunch each day to approximately 19,500 students per day. That comes to 29,600 meals per day and more than 5.5 million meals per school year.