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.
Watch the Video
Related: See our creamy honey mustard sauce, which is perfect with fish sticks or chicken nuggets.
Making the Best Homemade Tartar Sauce
This better than store-bought tartar sauce is incredibly simple to make. You probably already have most of the ingredients you need to make it in your kitchen. We love this sauce served next to homemade fish sticks and our favorite crab cakes.
Tartar Sauce Ingredients
The full recipe is below, but here is a quick overview of each ingredient. Here is what you will need to make tartar sauce from scratch:
Mayonnaise provides a creamy base. You can use store-bought mayo or for the best tartar sauce, try making your own mayonnaise.
Pickles add 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 juice is essential for the best tartar sauce. It thins out the sauce making it the perfect consistency for dipping, and adds a fresh zesty flavor.
Capers are an optional ingredient since we don’t always have them in the fridge, but they add even more flavor and work wonders when mixed with lemon and herbs.
Fresh or dried dill is a must for us. If you don’t have dill, parsley is a good alternative.
Worcestershire sauce is 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 use it to make this homemade ranch.
Dijon mustard is another optional ingredient, but if you have it on hand, we highly recommend it.
Just a few seconds of stirring turns the sauce into a creamy and delicious mixture.
For the best tartar sauce, refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes. It gets better and better overtime.
FAQ: Can I make the sauce lighter in calories? For a lighter sauce with fewer calories, you can swap the mayonnaise for light mayo or plain yogurt.
How Long Will Homemade Tartar Sauce Last
Here’s the great news, this easy homemade tartar sauce lasts for about a week when stored in the fridge.
We love making a double batch so we can enjoy it throughout the week.
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.
How to Make the Best Tartar Sauce
- PREP
- TOTAL
This easy homemade tartar sauce is extra creamy and perfect when served next to shrimp, fish sticks, crab cakes, and even roasted veggies.
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
1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill or 1 teaspoon dried dill
1/2 to 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard, optional
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
You May Also Like...
This was excellent. I followed the recipe exactly and it turned out perfect. This is my new go to.
Hi April, We are thrilled that you gave our recipe a try. Thanks for coming back, it means so much.
We ran out of TJ’s, and made this which is my now go to for Tartar Sauce. The Dijon and Worcestershire were a great addition. I’ll have to check with the boss about the garlic though!!
Made this in a pinch when I cooked fish and realized I had no sauce. It was delicious, and I didn’t even have time for it to sit a while and let the flavors blend. I had everything but dill pickles so had to sub pickle relish, otherwise followed exactly. Thank you for posting!
Made it and it was delicious. It makes quite runny, but thickens in the fridge. Love that there is a bite to it. I had no dijon but I have added it to the shopping list!
Really good.
Excellent recipe all the family loved with my breaded cod filets! Made it as directed and only added two crushed garlic cloves because I am constitutionally required to do so. Thank you!
Constitutionally required! Hahahaha! Same! I made this and also added crushed garlic and I loved it. I did add sweet pickle relish because I’m married and compromises happen. Love it!