Make Your Egg Salad Crave-Worthy With One Unconventional Sauce

Loaded into a crusty baguette, a batch of egg salad is the perfect dish to meal prep. Simply coat your chopped boiled eggs in mayo, herbs, and seasonings and you have a protein-packed salad that gets better as it sits in the fridge. However, if making a batch of egg salad is already a firm fixture in your Sunday night routine, you might be itching to switch things up. An easy, but unconventional, way to transform your dressed huevos into a crave-worthy egg salad is to drizzle in a touch of steak sauce.

A combination of tomato puree, vinegar, spices, and sweet elements like corn syrup or raisin paste, steak sauce is a tangy but slightly sweet condiment that traditionally lends a ribeye or sirloin heaps of flavor and moisture. However, incorporate a dash of this bold sauce into your egg salad and you'll instantly boost its savoriness and imbue it with zesty complexity. All you need to do is substitute a spoonful of your regular dressing (whether it be mayo, yogurt, or even half a creamy avocado), with a dollop of this umami condiment to suffuse your egg salad with a meatier flavor and smoky note. Bear In mind that steak sauce is concentrated so you wont need to add much to make a real difference — overdo it and the flavors will overwhelm the mellowness of the diced egg. The aim is to complement the natural creamy richness of the eggs and lift its flavor.

Ingredients like crushed orange and date paste found in some steak sauce brands, work with the tartness of the vinegar to create a sweet but tangy sauce that has a fruity brightness. This piquancy is perfect for elevating a classic egg salad into new territory but you can underscore this quality further by adding a spoonful of tartar sauce to your eggs or even a dollop of sweet pickle relish (this trick will also lend your finished dish some subtle crunch). Alternatively, turn up the heat and squeeze in some American mustard, or maximize the smokiness with a sprinkling of smoked paprika. As always, the key to mixing any of these additions into your egg salad is to start small and taste as you go. Be mindful that store-bought steak sauces are heavily seasoned so you may need to reduce or omit the salt that your regular egg salad recipe calls for. 

If all else fails, take inspiration from some of these egg salad dishes from around the world, such as Swedish Gubbröra, which features anchovies, or German Eirsalat that includes chopped apples, to create the perfect, personalized balance. While egg salad is a classic, it doesn't have to be boring; there's plenty of bandwidth for some culinary experimentation, particularly if you use a vegetable chopper to make easy work of dicing your eggs and veggies.