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Pickle tartar sauce with capers and parsley
A spoonable tartar sauce with chopped pickles, capers, parsley and lemon, made with shop-bought mayonnaise.
In this guide5 sections
A sauce that stays on the food
A good tartar sauce needs enough body to cling to a bite of fish or a roast potato. Chop the pickles and capers finely and drain them before they meet the mayonnaise. The sharp ingredients should be distributed through the sauce, not sitting in a thin puddle around its edge.
Yield: about 250 g, enough for 4 servings. Prep time: 15 minutes. Cook time: 0 minutes. Use prepared mayonnaise for a straightforward cold sauce. This recipe does not ask you to make an emulsion with raw egg, and it works with a suitable shop-bought egg-free mayonnaise if that is what you normally use.
Ingredients
- 150 g (5 oz) shop-bought mayonnaise
- 70 g (2½ oz) drained dill pickles
- 15 g (1 tablespoon) drained capers
- 10 g flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
- 15 ml (1 tablespoon) lemon juice
- 5 g (1 teaspoon) Dijon mustard
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
Method
- Put the pickles and capers in a small sieve, shake off liquid and blot on a clean towel. Chop the pickles into small cubes, then run the knife through the capers until no large whole berries remain.
Chop both the pickles and capers so no large pieces dominate the sauce. - Place the mayonnaise in a bowl with the Dijon mustard. Stir until the mustard is evenly dispersed, then add the lemon juice and black pepper. Scrape the sides so the sharpness is not concentrated in one area.
Mix the mustard and lemon through the mayonnaise before adding the chopped ingredients. - Add the chopped pickles, capers and parsley. Fold with a spoon until the sauce is evenly speckled. It should drop slowly from the spoon; do not add pickle brine automatically.
Fold until the pickles, capers and parsley are evenly speckled through the sauce. - Taste a small amount alongside the food you are serving. Capers and mayonnaise vary in saltiness, so this recipe deliberately starts without extra salt. Cover and chill for 10 minutes if your meal is not ready.
- Spoon only what you need into a clean serving dish. Keep the remaining sauce refrigerated rather than letting the full bowl sit beside the hot food throughout the meal.
Capers are small but assertive
Capers bring a different sharpness from cucumber pickles. They are worth chopping because a whole caper can dominate a mouthful of an otherwise mild sauce. If your jar is very salty, rinse the measured capers briefly and blot them again before chopping; do not rinse the mayonnaise mixture.
The parsley should be dry before chopping. Wet leaves transfer another small but unnecessary dose of water to the bowl. A few stem pieces are fine if minced finely; coarse stalks make the sauce awkward to spread.
For a stronger mustard-and-paprika flavour, try pickle remoulade with paprika. There are more meal ideas in the full pickle recipe collection.
At the table
Make this shortly before the meal or keep covered in the fridge for the next day. Prepared mayonnaise does not make a mixed sauce suitable for warm storage.
Keep cold during storage and serving; see the recipe library’s storage guidance.
Keep the jar open
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