A packet of Chinese-style dipping sauce from McDonald's has been sold for $19,462 on eBay – all because of the hype developed by cult cartoon series Rick and Morty.

The fast food chain released a limited edition range of Szechuan dipping sauces way back in 1998, to coincide with the premiere of animated musical Mulan.

At the time, nobody thought twice about the sauce, and it quickly dropped out of production.

That was until an obscure reference to the sauce was made in the wildly popular cartoon series Rick and Morty.

Overnight, demand for the sauce went through the roof – from constant tweets begging McDonalds to release guides on how to make your own, the internet was ablaze with fans trying to get their hands on the Mulan-inspired sauce from 1998.

Then one quick-thinking 20-year-old in the UK struck gold. After buying a used car – complete with rubbish wrappers strewn all over the floor – he discovered a pristine, unopened packet of Szechuan sauce from 1998.

(Image: eBay)

"I just bought a really old car, while cleaning it I found a packet of this sauce," he wrote on the ad.

"After watching the recent episode of Rick and Morty I went online to see if it was worth anything. Turns out it was. Also this comes with a packet of wasabi as well."

With a meagre starting bid of just $10 (already a laughably high amount for a packet of sauce), the auction caught wind amongst Rick and Morty superfans.

A bidding war with over 180 potential bids ensued, and the packet of sauce attracted a flurry of bids before finally settling on a final price of $19,462.

The privacy-protected buyer – who doesn’t have any eBay history – could potentially be a fake account.

But that hasn’t stopped other users from trying to cash in on the show's hysteria, with a simple eBay search revealing over 10 different sellers all trying to offload questionably authentic packets of sauce.