Easy homemade tartar sauce
My fiancé and I went out for lunch the other day, and I was very jealous of the tartar sauce he had with his fish and chips. I never see it served with anything other than fish, which is a shame because it’s one of my favourite condiments, and you don’t get vegetarian fish (well actually, there are some vegetarian fish-style products out there, but I’ve yet to find one that isn’t revolting, so let’s just ignore that).
Luckily I know a great, easy tartar sauce recipe, so instead of trying to find somewhere that would serve it to me alongside something other than fish, I decided to just make my own.
I learned this recipe when I worked in a restaurant a couple of years ago. The food we served was pretty rubbish, through no fault of our own – basically we were told to make pretty much everything in either the fryer or the microwave – but we did make our own tartar sauce, and I couldn’t get enough of it. I couldn’t stop myself from dipping a chip into it what seemed like every five minutes (don’t worry, I obviously took my own pot, I didn’t dip into the stuff we served to the customers!).
Tartar sauce is ridiculously easy to make, which I suppose is why we made our own at the restaurant, even though we served microwaved packets of risotto (yeah… I left very shortly after they started making us do that). This version only has four ingredients: mayonnaise, capers, pickled gherkins (I think that’s just plain old ‘pickles’ to you American folk), and raw onion. I know, it sounds a bit disgusting – who wants to eat raw onion?! But trust me, it works. In fact, it more than works – it’s incredible.
You can serve this sauce as soon as you’ve made it, but the raw flavour is a bit more toned down if you let it sit in the fridge for at least a few hours first. It stays nice and tangy, but it’s just a bit less intense. I guess it gives the flavours a chance to really meld (I’m not entirely sure what that means, but I’m sure it happens).
Next time I’ll show you what vegetarian dish I decided to serve this with – it was a very good choice!
Easy homemade tartar sauce
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Print Pin CommentIngredients
- 1/2 onion
- 1 tbsp capers drained
- 2 tbsp pickled gherkins around 8 baby gherkins, or one large
- 2 tbsp mayonnaise I used light
Instructions
- Chop the vegetables quite finely. Combine the four ingredients in a bowl, and mix well. You can serve this sauce immediately, but it’s best after a few hours in the fridge.
Nutritional information is approximate, and will depend on your exact ingredients. Please calculate your own nutritional values if you require accuracy for health reasons.
So you like making your own sauces? Try my homemade chip shop curry sauce!
Best tartar sauce I will not buy out of shop again
That’s so great to hear, thanks Doreen! Glad you enjoyed the recipe :)
Just made this sauce – it was amazing! Everyone loved it. Great recipe <3
Thanks Rebecca, so pleased you all loved it :D
What do capers taste like? How and why do I use them?
They’ve got quite a salty, sharp flavour. They add loads of flavour to tartar sauce!
This recipe is great but I added a touch of mustard lea & perrins sauce & balsamic vinegar & some small Charlotte or bab y onion Finley chopped about half ish lol