This Underutilized Sauce Makes Egg Salad 20X More Flavorful

All by itself, egg salad is a pretty solid lunch choice. It's protein-packed and endlessly versatile, providing a yummy blank canvas for adventurous home chefs. We've seen curry powder used as a seasoning upgrade in egg salad, and we definitely wouldn't turn up our noses at Kewpie mayo as a top-secret ingredient. Another swap we love for egg salad with mega sass, however, is actually super clever. That's because it consolidates ingredients while taking your ho-hum sandwich straight to FlavorTown. It's tartar sauce, and before you pooh-pooh the idea, hear us out — tartar sauce is basically everything that you already enjoy in egg salad, but with a little extra flair that totally elevates your dish.

The primary ingredients of tartar sauce are mayo and pickle relish, plus a little mustard. The sauce might be a little maligned, because some folks think you can only use it with fried fish. Those are all components of a classic egg salad, however, proving that tartar sauce isn't a one-trick pony! What makes tartar sauce the condiment of choice isn't just that it's an all-in-one solution, but also the delish fact that many preparations incorporate some lemon juice and spices for extra zing. A jolt of acid is a near-guaranteed flavor booster, and the bonus of dill really takes things over the top. What you end up with is an egg salad that doesn't deviate too far from the norm but has zippy extra components that still gussy up the flavor. Don't already have a trusty bottle of tartar sauce in your fridge left over from fish and chips night? No worries; whipping up your own is easy-peasy.

Tartar sauce recipes abound, ranging from the simple ones that just stir together prepared condiments to those that utilize homemade aioli and pile on flavor with capers, red onion, and fresh herbs. Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay adds an offbeat ingredient to his tartar sauce that will add fire in the best way! Some tartar sauces take a different approach to creaminess and utilize Greek yogurt instead of mayo. 

The benefit to making your own tartar sauce is that you can customize the ingredients and imbue your egg salad with layers upon layers of character, all in one condiment. As a bonus, you'll have this "fancy" tartar sauce on hand for other uses in the near future, like the fish and chips we mentioned earlier. How about tartar sauce deviled eggs, for that matter?

Reddit users approve of the use of tartar sauce in egg salad, even if some haven't explicitly tried it. "Sounds yummy," one commenter reasoned. "Tartar sauce is basically mayo with chopped pickles and mustard and some other spices, all would work well in an egg salad sandwich." On another thread where Redditors discussed their favorite egg salad add-ins, the subject came up once more: "[C]hopped dill pickles and chopped onion [...] I love dill in my egg salad, too. My egg salad is basically tartar sauce with hardboiled eggs in it." Tartar sauce may seem like an outlandish companion to egg salad at first glance, but the more you think about it, the more practical — and delectable! — the thought gets.