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The BEST Tartar Sauce Recipe

This recipe for the BEST Tartar Sauce is a family classic made with simple ingredients. Enjoy it with fish sticks (or any fried fish) and plenty of french fries for dipping. Grab the recipe below! But first, a little backstory…

The BEST Tartar Sauce

I hate tartar sauce.  A phrase I often found myself saying after tasting a dab of the unappealing, white goop that usually accompanies seafood entrees at restaurants.  With each order of fish ‘n’ chips, I always taste the tartar sauce thinking that perhaps one time it will actually taste good.  Somehow I am always disappointed. 

So you can imagine the look on my face when my friend asked me to recreate his mother’s version of tartar sauce.  If you are having trouble imaging this look, let me describe:  mouth agape, eyebrows furrowed, face scrunched and upper lip slightly snarled.  Despite my obvious disapproval, he turned to me and said, “Trust me, you’ll love this.”  He was right. 

Creamy mayo is blended with tangy dill pickles, salty capers, fresh parsley, minced garlic, bright lemon juice, salt and pepper.  The finished sauce packs a savory punch that works so well with seafood (especially crispy fried fish fillets).  You could even eat it with just a spoon!  Continue reading for the recipe.

Chopped Capers

Many tartar sauce recipes call for pickle relish (sometimes even sweet pickle relish – yuck!), but here I prefer using chopped dill pickles. This gives the sauce some nice tanginess and texture.

Chopped Dill Pickles

One thing that I really love about this recipe is that it’s prepared using ingredients that you usually might have in your pantry or fridge. I usually just have to pick up some fresh parsley and a lemon at the market, and I can whip this up in a matter of moments. And it’s so much tastier than store bought tartar sauce.

The BEST Tartar Sauce
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The BEST Tartar Sauce

Recipe courtesy of Ruth Marrs.
Servings 11 ounces
Author Brandon Matzek

Ingredients

  • 4 small dill pickles, finely chopped
  • 1/4 cup flat leaf parsley leaves, finely chopped
  • 1 tablespoon capers, drained and finely chopped
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 1 teaspoon lemon juice
  • 1 cup mayonnaise
  • Kosher salt
  • Freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

  1. Combine dill pickles, parsley, capers, garlic, lemon juice and mayo in a small bowl. Mix until well combined. Season to taste with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper.
  2. Chill for 1 hour before serving.
Making tartar sauce

If you’d like to learn how to make some delicious fried fish that would go perfectly with this sauce, check out my recipe for Crispy Fish Tacos. Instead of the tortillas and toppings, pair this crispy fish with fresh batch of french fries.

Crispy Fish Tacos

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Comments

  2. The Tartar Sauce is really very healthy sauce for health. It is my favorite sauce. It looking awesome. It is really very great recipe. Thanks for sharing such a best sauce recipe.

    Reply

  3. I seriously wish I had some fish to fry after reading this! I don’t usually like tartar sauce either but I bet this is so flavorful with all the fresh dill and pickles!

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  5. Great combination of flavors and certainly several notches above the average tarter sauce.  Great photos!!! 

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  6. Brandon, you out did yourself this time. I ususally add some grainy mustard to my tarter sauce. I think I like yours better. As always, another great recipe. 

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    • Thanks Veronica.  Mustard would be a nice addition.  However, this sauce is already packed with bold flavor.

      Reply

  9. Here this recipe i looking great and i always taste the tartar sauce thinking that perhaps one time it will actually taste good.  I wan to make it tonight.
    Physiotherapy in Knutsford

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  10. That is very close to the tartar sauce I make. I’ve never used the garlic, but I do use paprika. I will try yours without the paprika, and see if I like that too. Sometimes variety is great. Thanks for the great recipe.

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  11. Love this recipe! It was a little to tart for my hubby though(he prefers the sweet one, yuck!)…lol
    I added some sour cream and dill to it as well!

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  12. Thank you! I love anyone who takes the time to prepare worthy sauces! An addition of creme fraiche at our house made this the perfect tartar sauce for us. Well done!

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    • Or regular Horseradish since most ALL of the Wasabi in US restaurants and stores isn’t from the grated root of the Wasabia Japonica plant… It’s basically just regular horseradish … Dyed Green.. :0)

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  14. Brandon,
    I too hate Tartar sauce. It always tastes like it’s ruining the flavor of the food, instead of enhancing it. I tried your recipe with some crab cakes I made and I have to say it is fantastic! Thanks for sharing this recipe.

    Reply

  16. In the middle of frying catfish at 11PM in a small town is a bad time to find out youve run out of tartar sauce. We live an hour from the closest 24 hour grocery so I attempted to make my own. I must say I dont believe I will ever go back to eating the store bought junk again! It took some getting used to, and we all kept wondering what it was missing and we realized the sodium level in yours was much lower than store bought. I now prefer it with less salt and think for the benefit of everyone in the house we will stick with this recipe from now on. Thanks for sharing!

    Reply

    • Interesting! I’m not sure. I would make the sauce as is, and then dip a slice of radish in to see how the flavors work together.

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  18. Wow. Yes, you’re right. This tartar sauce is so good you can eat it with a spoon. I just had about five bites (hey, I was testing for salt levels, OK?). I halved the capers because I was using nonpareils, which I figured probably measure differently since more can fit in the tablespoon. Probably could have gone a little over half, but it was fine. Also realized after I started getting stuff out I was out of fresh parsley. Added a teaspoon of dry, which seems to be plenty.

    I do have to highly recommend that people try this with Duke’s mayo. We got it on sale a few weeks ago after seeing the commercials on TV and I’ll never go back. (That mayo is enough reason itself to eat this with a spoon!)

    Usually, I use mustard in mine, but the capers really make that unnecessary. Next time, I’ll try pulling out some of the pickle and adding a little jalapeño for a spicy version.

    Reply

  19. I forgot to get tartar sauce for tonight’s fish dinner. I’m so glad I did and glad I decided to make my own with this recipe. I thought it would be meh, that it would be like store bought…it’s not! This sauce is wonderful! It’s bright and delicious. I might make it on a regular basis for sandwiches. Really glad I found it.

    Reply

  20. I’ve been using this recipe for the last few years.. It IS the best I’ve ever found….
    I broke out the deep fryer to make Onion Rings.. So I made a batch.. Love Tartar sauce with onion rings…

    And Heather is right.. Dukes Mayo is THEE BEST MAYO.. EVER !!!.. I Order 4/32 oz jars at a time off Amazon or ebay…. I tried ALL the southern Mayo’s one year… Blue Plate is a close 2nd… and thanks to Heather for the reminder.. I NEED to order another 4-pack of DUKES !!!

    Reply

    • YAS! So glad you love this recipe. Good tip on getting Dukes from Amazon – I’ll order some now. Thanks for sharing!!

      Reply

Trackbacks

  2. […] So hopefully that fish had a fun life, did everything it wanted to do, and was happy. Because when it’s over, that’s it. Pass the homemade tartar sauce. […]

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  3. […] So hopefully that fish had a fun life, did everything it wanted to do, and was happy. Because when it’s over, that’s it. Pass the homemade tartar sauce. […]

    Reply

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