Tartar sauce is probably the number one sauce people love to see sidled up to their seafood. Its tangy flavor and creamy yet interesting consistency make it the perfect pairing to all kinds of fish and seafood dishes, from shrimp cocktail to fried oysters to broiled salmon. And homemade tartar sauce takes minutes to make and tastes so much better than the stuff in the jars.

What Is Tartar Sauce?

Tartar sauce is a mayonnaise-based sauce blended with capers, dill pickles, onions or shallots, lemon juice, and other herbs and seasonings. Serve it with fish and seafood, particularly fried fish and seafood. But also think of it with other types of food, like beef and vegetables. Some versions have capers or olives added – here we go with capers, as well as fresh tarragon, plus a bit of Dijon mustard. You can use dill can in place of the tarragon if you like.

Some recipes call for bottle sweet pickle relish, and you won’t go wrong with that. However, in this recipe, you take one extra minute to chop up cornichons, or baby sweet pickles, which means that you have a fresher, zingier sauce. Often, relish is made with sugar or additives, so you can avoid that.

The etymology of the name is a bit unclear. The origin of the sauce is France, where the sauce was named for the Tartars, and there may be a connection to steak tartar, which was sometimes served with a sauce like this one. The Tatars (another spelling option) were a group of people who settled in the Ukraine and parts of Russia. Apparently, they introduced the concept of steak tartar, raw meat finely chopped, mixed with egg, and paired with this mayo-based sauce.

How to Make Easy Tartar Sauce

1. In a small bowl, add the mayonnaise, lemon juice, cornichons, scallions, capers, mustard, tarragon, and salt and pepper to taste.

2. Mix well to blend. 

What to Serve with Tartar Sauce

You can use this sauce in so many ways! It doesn’t last long, so make sure you find something to pair any leftover sauce  with! Other than seafood dishes, it goes well with all kinds of vegetable dishes. Try it with fried zucchini coins!

• Fried Fish Sandwich
• Fried Calamari
• Perfect Pan-Seared Scallops
• Crab Cakes
• New England Baked Haddock
• Air Fryer Shrimp

Another way to serve tartar sauce is to spread it on baguette slices and float the bread in a seafood or fish stew.