Best Homemade Tartar Sauce (2024)

This easy homemade tartar sauce is better than anything you can buy at the store. It’s extra creamy and perfect for serving next to your favorite seafood dishes.

Best Homemade Tartar Sauce (1)

This easy tartar sauce is quick to make and flavorful, making it better than store-bought tartar sauce. You probably already have most of the ingredients you need to make it in your kitchen.

We love this sauce served next to poached salmon, homemade fish sticks, and our favorite crab cakes.

Best Homemade Tartar Sauce (2)

Key Ingredients

  • Mayonnaiseprovides our creamy base. You can use store-bought mayo or for the best tartar sauce, try making your own mayonnaise. While I prefer the richness of full-fat mayo, you can substitute the mayonnaise for light mayo or plain yogurt for a lower calorie sauce.
  • Picklesadd crunch and flavor to the sauce. We use dill pickles and particularly enjoy these homemade pickles or the refrigerated Claussen pickles for this. For a sweeter style, try bread and butter or sweet pickles instead.
  • Fresh lemon juiceis essential for the best tartar sauce. It thins out the sauce making it the perfect consistency for dipping, and adds a fresh zesty flavor.
  • Capersadd texture and so much flavor to our tartar sauce. I think this is one of those ingredients that really makes this sauce better than what you can find at the store.
  • Fresh or dried dillis a must for us. If you don’t have dill, parsley is a good alternative.
  • Worcestershire sauceis an unusual ingredient, but it brings the sauce together. We only add a dash. We add Worcestershire sauce to dressings and sauces quite a bit. We even use it to make this homemade ranch.
  • Dijon mustardadds extra flavor and tang. I love it.

How to Make the Best Tartar Sauce

If you can chop and stir a few ingredients together, you can make tartar sauce. I’ve always been disappointed with store-bought tartar sauce, so taking a few tips from our favorite seafood restaurants, we devised a recipe of our own. I’ve never looked back.

You’ll add everything to a bowl and stir them until well blended. Just a few seconds of stirring turns the sauce into a creamy and delicious sauce. Then, I place it into the fridge for at least 30 minutes since this does get better overtime.

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What to Serve with Tartar Sauce

Skip store-bought sauce and serve it next to these easy homemade fish sticks, easy baked popcorn chicken, these perfectly roasted shrimp, or oven-baked salmon.

Tartar sauce is a must when making our Maryland-style crab cakes.

I love to serve tartar sauce with roasted vegetables. I especially love dunking baked sweet potato fries or these oven-baked potato wedges into the sauce. Roasted cauliflower is also delicious.

More Homemade Sauce Recipes

  • Creamy Honey Mustard Sauce
  • Homemade Ketchup
  • Sweet Tangy BBQ Sauce
  • Creamy Tahini Sauce
  • Easy Mignonette Sauce
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I love this tartar sauce recipe so much. I’ve always been disappointed with store-bought tartar sauce, so I was so excited when we figured out a way to make tartar sauce at home.

Makes 3/4 cup

Watch Us Make the Recipe

You Will Need

1/2 cup mayonnaise, try homemade mayonnaise

1 small dill pickle, chopped very small (3 tablespoons)

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice, plus more to taste

1 tablespoon capers, chopped, optional, but recommended

1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill or 1 teaspoon dried dill

1/2 to 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard, optional, but recommended

Salt and fresh ground black pepper

Directions

    1Combine the mayonnaise, pickles, lemon juice, capers, dill, Worcestershire sauce, and mustard in a small bowl and stir until well blended and creamy.

    2Season with a pinch of salt and pepper. Taste then adjust with additional lemon juice, salt, and pepper. For the best flavor, cover and store in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.

    3Keep, tightly covered, in the refrigerator for one week.

Adam and Joanne's Tips

  • How long does homemade tartar sauce last? This easy sauce lasts for about a week when stored in the fridge. We love making a double batch to enjoy it throughout the week. Past that, and you lose the fresh flavor from the lemon.
  • The nutrition facts provided below are estimates.

Nutrition Per Serving Serving Size 1 tablespoon / Calories 64 / Total Fat 6.9g / Saturated Fat 1.1g / Cholesterol 3.9mg / Sodium 103.8mg / Carbohydrate 0.3g / Dietary Fiber 0.1g / Total Sugars 0.1g / Protein 0.1g

AUTHOR: Joanne Gallagher

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Best Homemade Tartar Sauce (2024)

FAQs

What is traditional tartar sauce made of? ›

Tartar Sauce Ingredients

It's typically made with mayonnaise, chopped pickles or relish, lemon juice, and herbs (like tarragon and dill). There are also a handful of optional ingredients you can add that take the tartar sauce's flavor to the next level. For example, this recipe includes yellow mustard.

What is the mother sauce of tartar sauce? ›

Tartar sauce is based on either mayonnaise or aioli, with certain other ingredients added. In the UK, recipes typically add to the base capers, gherkins, lemon juice, and dill.

How do you make Jamie Oliver tartar sauce? ›

Tartare sauce: Rinse out the food processor then add 3 gherkins, 1 teaspoon of capers, a small bunch of parsley and the remaining anchovies and their oil. Squeeze in the juice from half a lemon and drizzle in some olive oil. Process until smooth then transfer into a bowl and mix in 200g of mayonnaise.

What are the ingredients in Trader Joe's tartar sauce? ›

Expeller pressed canola oil, water, relish (cucumbers, water, distilled vinegar, salt, calcium chloride, dried red bell pepper, xanthan gum, spices, natural flavors), cane sugar, distilled vinegar, egg yolks (egg yolks, salt), dried onion, salt, ground mustard seed, xanthan gum, extra virgin olive oil, rosemary ...

What is Culver's tartar sauce made of? ›

Tartar Sauce - Soybean Oil, Cured Cucumber, Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Egg Yolks, Distilled Vinegar, Contains Less Than 2% Of Green Olive, Salt, Onion, Red Bell Pepper, Capers, Pimentos, Sodium Benzoate And Potassium Sorbate (As Preservatives), Mustard Bran, Spice, Xanthan Gum, Calcium Disodium EDTA Added To ...

What is McDonald's tartar sauce made of? ›

Tartar Sauce

Ingredients: Soybean Oil, Pickle Relish (diced Pickles, Vinegar, Salt, Capers, Xanthan Gum, Potassium Sorbate [preservative], Calcium Chloride, Spice Extractives, Polysorbate 80), Egg Yolks, Water, Onions, Distilled Vinegar, Sugar, Spice, Salt, Xanthan Gum, Potassium Sorbate (preservative), Parsley.

What is the king of all sauces? ›

Bechamel – a milk based sauce that is thickened with a roux (clarified butter and flour). This sauce is named after its creator Louis XIV's steward, Louis de Béchamel. Considered the king of all sauces, and often called a cream sauce because of its consistency, this sauce is most often used in all types of dishes.

How long does homemade tartar sauce last? ›

Tartar sauce should be stored in a sealed container in the refrigerator for about a week. Obviously, if it starts to smell funky in the fridge or the flavor is off before the week is up, you should dump it. Similar to other mayonnaise-based condiments, tartar sauce does not freeze well because the emulsion can break.

What is in Hellmann's tartar sauce? ›

Ingredients. Water, soybean oil, vinegar, sugar, pasteurised egg yolk, gherkins (2.7%), salt, thickener (1442) natural mustard flavour, capers (1%), stabiliser (zantham gum), parsley, garlic powder, preservatives (200,385), herb.

Why does tartar sauce taste so good? ›

Tartar sauce gets its herbal notes from pickle relish or herbs such as dill or tarragon, meaning it checks both of these boxes for enhancing flavor.

What's a good substitute for tartar sauce? ›

Instead of tartar sauce, use a garlicky aioli with or without a little dill or chopped pickle. Another good sauce option that goes well with seafood is a tomato-based cocktail sauce. Hummus, which is also slightly acidic with lemon juice, can also make a nice dip for seafood.

How long will homemade tartar sauce keep? ›

Tartar sauce should be stored in a sealed container in the refrigerator for about a week. Obviously, if it starts to smell funky in the fridge or the flavor is off before the week is up, you should dump it. Similar to other mayonnaise-based condiments, tartar sauce does not freeze well because the emulsion can break.

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