If you’re a condiment fiend, then you can’t enjoy even one bite of food without that special spicy/sweet/salty/sour/whatever-your-preference-is flavor on it. It’s nice to know, should the apocalypse come, you could still have your condiments and eat them too, even if you have to do it in your bunker. Here are 10 condiments you can make at home, and probably for less than you can buy them at the grocery store.
It’s the reason you’ll eat raw veggies, and the reason your kids will eat salad. It lets you eat 10 more super-spicy hot wings and sometimes, it’s all you want to dip your fries in. Ranch is a household staple. Here’s how to make it. Recipe from SheKnows.com.
Ingredients:
Instructions:
If you’re a real barbecue sauce fan, then you don’t just save it for weekend cookouts. You put it on your wraps, you spread it on your pizza, you make pasta sauces out of it, and you dip your chips in it. Here’s how to make it. Recipe from Chow.com.
Ingredients:
Instructions:
If you’re a tomato lover but can’t quite stand the taste of the corn syrup and sugar in store-bought ketchup, you’ll love the robust, natural flavor from this homemade ketchup recipe, from WellnessMama.com. She replaces the sweetness from the corn syrup with some surprising ingredients.
Ingredients
Instructions
No omelet, breakfast burrito, Mexican dish or chicken drumstick is complete without it. But buying Tabasco all the time can add up. There are several steps to making the spicy, sweet stuff. But this post from WesternGardeners.com comes with great instructional photos.
This condiment has its own cult following and several social media fan pages. Top chefs are making their own spin-offs, offering them on burgers and appetizers. There have even been some Sriracha cocktails. The LaTimes.com published this easy, five-ingredient recipe for the popular sauce, which goes as follows.
Ingredients
1 pound mixed fresh red chiles, stemmed & chopped
2 to 4 garlic cloves
¼ cup cane or rice vinegar
1 ½ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons brown sugar
Instructions:
Blend all ingredients into a coarse paste. Add the mixture to a pan on low heat to simmer, stirring it occasionally, for five minutes. Remove from heat and add the mixture back into the blender, blending until it’s smooth, and adding water to thin it as desired. Strain the sauce, removing the solids, and put the liquid sauce in a glass container. Cool completely in the fridge.
Relish is essential for any barbecue, but also tastes delicious on sandwiches, or spread on a cracker with tuna salad. This recipe from DaringGourmet.com is for a unique sweet pickle relish that incorporates red bell peppers and allspice berries.
Ingredients
Instructions:
Without realizing it, you probably have all of the ingredients to make your own mayonnaise in your kitchen already. The best part about making it at home is that you can control the fat content, plus you can make it a flavored mayo—like pesto or cayenne pepper—which is often overpriced in stores. Here is a super-simple recipe from FamilyFreshCooking.com.
Ingredients
Instructions:
Add egg yolk, salt, lemon juice and any spice or garlic and water to a blender or food processor. Blend on medium high speed well. Slowly drizzle the oil into the egg mixture until you have added all of it, keeping the blender on medium high speed the whole time. Blend until you have a creamy, opaque emulsion.
If you’re eating deep-fried seafood, you need to have tartar sauce. Of course, real fans of the stuff eat it with a plain steamed piece of fish too, or plopped into a baked potato. It’s one of the easiest condiments to make at home, as proven in this BonAppetit.com recipe. You’ll notice two of the other condiments on this list are a part of the recipe!
Ingredients
1 cup mayonnaise
6 tablespoons sweet pickle relish
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
What doesn’t chimichurri taste good on? It’s slightly spicy flavor, plus those bright, cool herbs and partly creamy, partly granular texture make anything better, from steaks to toast to roasted vegetables. The great news is that as far as appliances go, all you need is a blender. It doesn’t need to be cooked at all. We found this recipe at Epicurious.com.
Ingredients
Instructions:
Puree all ingredients in processor. Transfer to bowl. (Can be made two hours ahead. Cover and let stand at room temperature.)
Mustard is a great healthy alternative if you eat sandwiches every day but your mayonnaise habit is wreaking havoc on your waistline. There are the obvious uses like hamburgers and hot dogs, but mustard also tastes great with soft pretzels, mashed into a baked potato, or spicing up a deviled egg. We like this grainy, slightly sweet country mustard recipe from Honest-Food.net.
Ingredients
Optional:
Instructions: