Tartar Sauce Recipe
Here’s a basic tartar sauce recipe for your fried catfish
, grilled fish, crab cakes, tuna cakes, or birthday cakes! Just kidding about the birthday cakes, I think. But totally not judging if you’re into trying that.
Tartar sauce (or tartare sauce if you’re in the UK) has been around a long time and likely originated from the Tatars that occupied Ukraine and Russia way back when. Sounds like I might have made that up, but I read about it on the internet so it’s very likely completely true. I guess in France it was traditional with Steak Tartare which is raw ground steak mixed with egg yolk and herbs and I’m having a hard time right now not feeling a little ill imagining all that cholesterol. I’m curious as to when it became standard condiment for fried fish. I’d wager the British had a hand to play in that game.
Feel free to add cayenne pepper for more heat, or cilantro and lime juice for a Mexican-style tartar sauce. If you want to get extra fancy, try making tartar sauce with homemade aioli instead of regular mayo. If you’ve never tried making aioli, it’s worth a shot. Pretty easy and very satisfying. See this video and aioli recipe
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Tartar Sauce
- Yield: 2-4 1x
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup mayonnaise
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon minced dill pickle
- 1 teaspoon minced capers
- 2 tablespoons minced parsley
- 1/4 teaspoon cayenne or black pepper
Instructions
- Mix it all together and stick it in the fridge. It’ll keep a couple days.
Notes
Try using sweet pickles instead of dill for a different taste.
If you are out of lemon juice, use a tablespoon of pickle or caper juice instead.
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Love it, although we have a mixed marriage in our house. I am of the tartar sauce faith, while my wife is of the cocktail sauce persuasion.
I like them both, as long as the cocktail sauce is hot and horseradishy.
copy that.
Great!
This tartar sauce is delicious! I love it! I love adding the cayenne, it gives it such a nice kick. Although it gives such a kick that someone who doesn’t love spicy would probably thing the cayenne makes it too spicy. I was also out of parsley and added a lot of fresh thyme leaves in its place and it still came out tasty.
Yum! Love the idea to add fresh thyme.
The best tartar sauce I have tasted , I love it on Fish tacos