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This burger sauce is just the right “special sauce” that your sandwich needs! It’s full of flavor: creamy, tangy, and reminiscent of a Big Mac.

Burger sauce
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Need a little something for your burger? Try this magic burger sauce! It’s just what a big sandwich needs: savory, salty, tangy, a little sweet: and totally irresistible. You know that classic Big Mac sauce (which is actually Russian Dressing?). This one is close to it: but even easier to make. Here are all our secrets!

Ingredients for this burger sauce

What’s in this burger sauce? We patterned it off our Russian Dressing, which happens to be very similar to the special sauce used for Big Macs. The base is mayonnaise and ketchup, and it’s studded with minced shallots and dill pickles. But for this special burger sauce, we wanted to make it even easier: with no need to dirty a knife or a cutting board! Here’s what you’ll need:

  • Organic ketchup
  • Mayonnaise
  • Mustard (either yellow or Dijon)
  • Pickle juice
  • Hot sauce

All you do is stir these ingredients together, and…that’s it! It’s one step, and keeps for months in the fridge. It’s basically like stirring together all your favorite burger condiments into one magical, special burger sauce!

Burger sauce

Why pickle juice?

Pickle juice brings in just the right savory element and nuanced undertone! Instead of using the minced dill pickles like Russian dressing, a hint of pickle just does the trick. If you don’t have a jar of pickles on hand, you can feel free to omit it. But it adds just the right “something” to this burger sauce.

Another use for pickle juice? It adds the “funk” in our Virgin Margarita.

Look for organic ketchup

We like using organic ketchup in our sauce recipes not just because it’s organic: better for you and the earth. But organic ketchup usually tends to have more natural sources of sugar, instead of high fructose corn syrup. It also tends to have better overall flavor!

Burger sauce

Ways to use burger sauce!

Guess what? You can use burger sauce on burgers. You also can use burger sauce on lots of other things! Like a dip for fries, a spread for grilled cheese, on wraps, tacos, as a salad dressing…you name it! Here are some of our top ideas:

Burger sauce

This burger sauce recipe is…

Vegetarian and gluten-free. For plant-based, dairy-free, and gluten-free, use vegan mayo.

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Special Burger Sauce

Burger sauce
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5 from 3 reviews

This burger sauce is just the right “special sauce” that your sandwich needs! It’s full of flavor: creamy, tangy, and reminiscent of a Big Mac.

  • Author: Sonja Overhiser
  • Prep Time: 5 minutes
  • Cook Time: 0 minutes
  • Total Time: 5 minutes
  • Yield: ¾ cup 1x
  • Category: Sauce
  • Method: Stirred
  • Cuisine: American
  • Diet: Vegan

Ingredients

Scale
  • ¼ cup organic ketchup
  • ½ cup mayonnaise (vegan, as necessary)
  • 1 teaspoon mustard (yellow or Dijon)
  • 1 teaspoon dill pickle juice (optional)
  • 1 dash hot sauce

Instructions

  1. Whisk together all ingredients in a small bowl. Refrigerate until serving.

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About the authors

Alex & Sonja

Hi! We’re Alex & Sonja Overhiser, authors of the acclaimed cookbooks A Couple Cooks and Pretty Simple Cooking—and a real life couple who cooks together. We founded the A Couple Cooks website in 2010 to share seasonal recipes and the joy of home cooking. Now, we’ve got over 3,000 well-tested recipes, including Mediterranean diet, vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, smoothies, cocktails, and more!

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4 Comments

  1. Valerie VanBergeijk says:

    This sauce keeps in the fridge quite a while and it tastes even better after a few days. Yum!






  2. Jeannette says:

    I was skeptical such ordinary ingredients could turn out into something so extraordinary, but holy hannah! That was delicious!! I put it on an egg sandwich and it was amazing!!






  3. Natalie Weeks says:

    This sauce is fantastic, a basic I didn’t realize I was missing all this time, and super simple to make -thank you! I used veganase and Louisiana hot sauce.






  4. JR says:

    Made this for my family with fresh veggie burgers and oh my it was the HIT!! Tastes like a more delicious chic-fil-a sauce