Skip Classic Tartar Sauce – Spread This Simple Alternative On Fish Sandwiches Instead

There are some common mistakes people make when cooking fish, but, on the specific topic of fried fish sandwiches, one oft-overlooked error is not choosing the right condiment for your handheld. Tartar sauce is the default topper for such a sammie, and we're not saying that it isn't a solid selection. This condiment generally has a mayonnaise base and gets its zestiness from the addition of something pickled, like relish. If we were to voice one complaint about tartar sauce, however, it might be the fact that the spread has a tendency to muscle its way to the flavor forefront of whatever food it's accompanying, and that goes for flaky whitefish. When you want a spread that enhances your fish without taking over the show, you might just want a simple dill yogurt sauce that you can whip up at home with a few accessible pantry ingredients.

The main player in this sauce is creamy Greek yogurt, which is still tangy, but a much milder and lighter base than mayo. Stir in some fresh dill, a little lemon juice, some minced garlic, and a bit of good olive oil to bring the sauce together. Season your sauce as you'd prefer — Gordon Ramsay likes to add hot sauce as a secret ingredient when he makes tartar sauce, and we wouldn't say "no" to some spice in our yogurt condiment. If you prefer to keep things dairy-free, you can use a non-dairy yogurt as the basis of your sauce as well. Chill your sauce in the fridge for a couple of hours to let the flavors marry, and you have a schmear good enough to eat with a spoon!

Perusing the ingredients of a dill yogurt sauce, you may have noticed the fact that it's basically a tzatziki sauce, minus the addition of cucumber. Yogurt, dill, lemon juice, and olive oil are all fundamental components of tzatziki, that spread that we love with gyros and falafel. It doesn't take a staggering jump of culinary daring to think that one could feasibly go ahead and shred some cukes to transform dill yogurt sauce into a full-fledged Mediterranean sensation that would, in fact, taste very good on a fish sandwich! When you compare ingredients and flavor profiles, tartar sauce and tzatziki aren't entirely dissimilar. Tzatziki, however, is lighter and not as likely to make your sandwich feel stodgy. Fish fried in oil is already oily enough for many people — mayo-based tartar sauce can be too rich. The yogurt base of tzatziki or a dill sauce, however, is not nearly as unctuous. 

You can, of course, feel free to stick with the classic dill yogurt recipe or to make some fun changes that will elevate your fish sandwich. Some folks add wasabi to tartar sauce for better fish sandwiches ... why not stir just a pinch into some Greek yogurt and enjoy the resulting burn? You could also switch the dill out in your yogurt base for a different herby profile that's no less enjoyable: we're thinking tarragon, chives, or thyme. If you want to replicate tartar sauce without the mayo component that some folks dislike, go ahead and stir some sweet pickle relish into your yogurt. With a light, creamy base, you have plenty of possibilities for jazzing up your next fish sandwich without automatically reaching for the tartar sauce.