FOOD NEWS
Ranking Store-Bought Tartar Sauces From Worst To Best
BY FLETCHER HUNTLEY
10. McCormick
While McCormick is a trusted tartar brand for many, the sauce is mostly disappointing. It is of monolithic beige color with a few discernible green specks.
With its overpowering sweetness, you can barely taste other ingredients like lemon juice concentrate, mustard, and sweet pickles. It's also too thick, bordering on gelatinous.
9. 365
365 Organic Tartar Sauce is affordable for a fully organic product, but it suffers in quality. When you open it, you may find the oil separated from the rest of the sauce.
Even if you reintegrate it with vigorous shaking, it may still feel oily and too runny. Plus, its subtle bite of vinegar and lemon juice can't cut through its intense sweetness.
8. Sau-Sea
Sau-Sea Classic Tartar Sauce specializes in sauces made for seafood, but it lacks brininess and acidity. Without these flavors, this dip tasted more like a sugary mayo.
Its consistency is quite good but the texture lacks any hint of crunch from a pickle. Any pickle pieces you find in the sauce are mushy and don't add flavor or texture.
7. Colman's
Colman's Tartare Sauce, made in the U.K., has a rich and eggy mayo base, cut with just the right amount of vinegar. The pickle pieces are crunchy and add freshness.
The sauce is thick, robust, and a pleasure to dip. It's too sweet, with both sugar and glucose-fructose syrup, which obscures the remaining flavors.
6. Bookbinder's
Bookbinder's tartar sauce has a kick unlike most other sauces, due to the addition of the fiery horseradish. However, some of the other elements are lacking.
The sauce balances mayo's richness with vinegar's acidity, but it isn't enough to cover its added sweetener. You may also be left wishing for a stronger pickle taste and texture.