Easy French Food and Recipes

Tartar Sauce Recipe

This homemade tartar sauce recipe includes fresh herbs, pickles, hard boiled egg and of course, mayonnaise. You can vary the ingredients somewhat depending on how you want your sauce to taste. Feel free to use store bought mayonnaise to make tartar sauce, but do use a good quality product.

tartar sauce

The recipe here is a for a fairly traditional French take on this sauce. The French are likely to eat this with cold fish, meats, or raw vegetables, but it also makes a great accompaniment for warm seafood and fish of all sorts. It is a close sister to remoulade sauce.

If you think you'd like your sauce a bit different, don't hesitate to change around the ingredients. Their are no strict rules for how to make tartar sauce. The idea is to start with mayonnaise and add some finely chopped and interesting tastes.

As for the mayonnaise you can make your own with this mayonnaise recipe. It really isn't difficult, just make sure you pour the oil in drop by drop at the start. Or for an easy tartar sauce, just use store bought mayonnaise. Store bought mayonnaise varies widely in quality - look at the ingredients and try to find something that contains eggs, vinegar, and oil and not much else.

Sauce Tartare

Makes about 1 1/4 cups

Ingredients

  • 1 cup mayonnaise
  • flat leaved parsley
  • 2 gherkin pickles
  • 1/2 small onion
  • 1 hard boiled egg
  • 2 tablespoons capers
  • salt and pepper

Directions

  1. Finely chop enough parsley so that you have two tablespoons.
  2. Finely chop all of the other ingredients.
  3. Mix everything in to the mayonnaise and season to taste with salt and pepper.

This can be safely kept in the refrigerator for several days.

Variations

Here are some ideas for other ingredients that might go into a tartar sauce recipe:

  • herbs of all sorts: parsley, dill, chervil, tarragon
  • cayenne pepper
  • olives
  • shallots or chives
  • Dijon mustard

Learn more about French sauces.

Return to French Sauce Recipes.

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