How to Make Tartar Sauce from Scratch | Easy (2026)

Learning how to make tartar sauce from scratch takes about five minutes and needs only three real ingredients: mayonnaise, finely chopped dill pickles, and lemon juice. Add mustard, onion, and fresh herbs if you have them on hand and you get a bright, creamy dip that tastes like food instead of pickle brine. Most cooks make it for the same reason. The jarred version is watery and oversweet.

The trick is not the ingredient list. It is how dry your pickles are and how you balance the acid.

What You Need

The core version below makes roughly 1.5 cups, enough for a plate of fried fish or a party platter of crab cakes.

• 1 cup real mayonnaise (not Miracle Whip or a salad dressing)
• 1/4 cup finely chopped dill pickles, about 4 medium pickles
• 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard or yellow mustard
• 1 tablespoon fresh dill or flat-leaf parsley, chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
• Freshly ground black pepper, a few turns of the mill

These are the additions worth having on hand:

• 1 tablespoon capers, drained and chopped, for a salty briny bite
• 1 tablespoon finely minced shallot or white onion, for sharpness
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar, which softens the acid without making it sweet
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce, for the deeper note restaurants use

You need a small bowl, a whisk or fork, a sharp knife, and a colander lined with paper towels. Prep time is 5 minutes. Chill time is at least 1 hour, which is when the flavors actually settle into each other.

One word on real mayonnaise. It is an egg yolk and oil emulsion, and its mild tang is what makes a good tartar sauce. Miracle Whip is sweetened and pickles the result into something bland and sweet, which is the most common reason a homemade batch disappoints.

Step-by-Step

Make the Pickle Mixture

Drain the pickles in a colander for 10 minutes, then blot them dry between layers of paper towel. Wet pickles are the number one cause of a watery sauce, and no amount of extra mayonnaise fixes that later.

Dice the pickles as finely as your patience allows, roughly a quarter-inch dice. Smaller pieces spread the pickle flavor through every spoonful instead of leaving you with one briny bite. Capers go in at the same size and get chopped with them.

If you want the flavor to bloom, salt the chopped pickle with a pinch of salt and let it sit while you mix the base. Ten minutes is enough. The salt pulls juice out of the pickle, so drain it again before folding it in.

Whisk the Sauce Base

Put the mayonnaise in the bowl first, then add the lemon juice, mustard, chopped herbs, and salt. Whisk until it looks uniform and glossy. Keep the ingredients cold; a cold base stays thick and emulsified, while a warm one turns loose.

If you are curious what the true from-scratch version looks like, you can skip the jar entirely. Whisk one egg yolk with a teaspoon of Dijon and a teaspoon of lemon juice, then drizzle in a cup of neutral oil while whisking constantly until the mixture thickens into mayonnaise. Fold your pickle mixture through at the end. Use a pasteurized egg if anyone eating is pregnant, elderly, or young.

Sour cream works too. Use half sour cream and half mayonnaise for a tangier result with a little more body, or all sour cream if you like the sharpness. Greek yogurt gives you the thickest, most tangy version and needs no extra thinning.

Season the base before the pickles go in, while the flavor is still concentrated. You can always add more later.

Add the Texture and Season

Fold the chopped pickles and capers through the base with a spoon. Folding rather than stirring keeps the mayonnaise from breaking and keeps the pickle pieces distinct instead of pulverized.

Taste it now. Too sharp means more mayonnaise or a pinch of sugar. Too flat usually means it needs salt, not more lemon. If it tastes right but looks thin, chill it for 15 minutes; mayonnaise firms up cold.

Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour before serving. The flavor needs that hour. Straight after mixing, the lemon tastes sharp and separate, and an hour later it settles into the fat and reads as one sauce.

Common Mistakes

A watery sauce comes from undrained pickles or wet relish. Drain, blot, and chop them finer. You cannot stir the water back out, so this is the one fix that has to happen at the start.

A bland sauce is almost always under-salted or made with Miracle Whip. Add a quarter teaspoon of kosher salt at a time. If it is still flat after salting, the fix is acid, not sugar, so add a few more drops of lemon.

An overly acidic sauce comes from overdoing the lemon. Double the mayonnaise and add a half teaspoon of sugar. Both soften the sharpness without diluting the flavor.

A grainy or lumpy sauce means the mayonnaise broke, usually from mixing too hard or letting the ingredients warm up. Stir in a tablespoon of cold water or milk to bring it back together, then chill it.

An overly thick sauce is a texture preference rather than a failure. Fold in a spoonful of pickle brine or water until it drags off the spoon instead of sitting on it.

Store the sauce in an airtight container in the refrigerator and use it within 5 to 7 days. Any sauce made with raw egg is more perishable, so make that batch the day you plan to serve it. Discard anything that smells sour beyond vinegar, looks off, or has been at room temperature for more than 2 hours.

For a party, the recipe scales cleanly. Double it for a table of six, and mix it a day ahead so the flavors have time to meld. Keep the pickles separate if you want maximum crunch, and stir them in just before serving.

It is a dip, but it works as a spread too. Spoon it over crab cakes, shrimp cakes, fish tacos, grilled salmon, or softshell crab sandwiches, and thin it with a splash of lemon juice or pickle brine so it coats instead of piling up.

Frequently Asked Questions

Start with the three-part base: a cup of real mayonnaise, a quarter cup of well-drained finely chopped pickles, and a tablespoon of lemon. Taste it, fix the salt or the acid, then give it an hour in the fridge. Everything after that is a variation rather than a requirement.