Condiment Recipes for Your Pantry

Thai Sweet Chili Sauce — The Spruce / Qi Ai

Chile oils and hot sauces to spice things up, chutneys to add tangy sweetness, herby mixtures to brighten—there's no limit to what you can do with condiments. Condiments are sauces, pastes, and spice mixtures that you add to food just before serving to give it a kick of flavor or extra texture. Whether tangy, spicy, salty, sweet, or a combination, we like placing them on the table so diners can serve themselves as little or as much as they want.

Much as we love tried-and-true classics like store-bought ketchup, mayo and mustard, there's a whole world of flavors we recommend adding to your pantry. Make your next meal extra special by serving it with a homemade condiment or two.

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Easy Tomato Ketchup

The Spruce / Ulyana Verbytska

For a homemade take on a classic American condiment that's often served alongside French fries, make easy tomato ketchup. The recipe uses tomato paste, dried spices, and brown sugar to mimic the taste of your favorite store-bought ketchup. You can even can the recipe for longer storage.
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Green Schug: A Middle Eastern Hot Sauce

The Spruce / Preethi Venkatram

Sometimes spelled zhug, shug can be red, green, or brown. No matter what the color, it's hot and delicious. This green shug is made with jalapeño, garlic, fresh herbs, and spices, giving it a bright flavor in addition to the spice.
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Dutch Satay Sauce

The Spruce / Stephanie Goldfinger

This Indonesian-influenced sauce is a popular condiment in the Dutch kitchen. Nutty, creamy, and spicy, pair the peanut satay sauce with skewered meats, barbecue, fries, and more.
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Creole Mustard

The Spruce / Nita West

Amped up with spices and whole mustard seeds, Creole mustard offers a more complex flavor than your typical yellow condiment. It couldn't be easier to make, you just need to allow a few weeks for the flavors to develop. It also makes a nice gift.

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South Indian Coconut Chutney

The Spruce / Danielle Moore

This mild coconut chutney, with black mustard seeds, dried chiles, and curry leaves, is especially suited for dosas, idlis, and uttapams. It's also nice with just about any meat as well as spread on a meaty sandwich.
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Classic Chinese Duck Sauce

The Spruce / Julia Hartbeck

Duck sauce, also known as plum sauce, adds a delicious sweet, tangy, savory flavor to dishes like ribs, egg rolls, noodles, stir-fry, and duck (of course). This from-scratch recipe takes some time but is worth the effort for its superior flavor. Let it sit a couple of weeks before using for the best experience.
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Jalapeño Hot Sauce

The Spruce / Julia Hartbeck

Making your own hot sauce lets you have total control over the level of heat and other flavors. It's easy to make—just crack all of the windows and wear gloves to avoid irritation. Use hot sauce to add a kick to just about anything, from burritos to grilled cheese to pizza to micheladas.
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Spanish Garlic Alioli

The Spruce

Ultra creamy with a punch of garlic flavor, Spanish alioli (spelled allioli in Catalan, where it is made without egg) is served with a wide range of dishes like croquettes, fried potatoes, vegetables, meats, and more. It's also tasty simply spread on bread or your next sandwich.

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German Curry Ketchup

The Spruce / Ali Redmond

Aromatic curry-flavored ketchup is an essential part of the popular German street food, currywurst. The condiment pairs perfectly with smokey sausage and crisp fries but is also delicious served atop a hot dog.
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Mango Amba Sauce

The Spruce / Anita Schecter

Similar to a chutney, mango amba sauce is a flavorful mixture of cooked mangoes, brown sugar, and a mixture of savory spices. It's commonly used in Middle Eastern cuisine to top kebabs, falafel, seafood, eggs, and more.
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Cucumber Raita

The Spruce / Elaine Lemm

While most condiments are designed to add spice and heat, cucumber raita does the opposite—it cools down spicy dishes, adding a creamy, refreshing note to the dish. Use regular yogurt for a smoother mixture and Greek yogurt for a thicker, richer raita. Serve with spicy curries and kebabs.
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Aioli: Garlic Mayonnaise

The Spruce

The Spanish have alioli, and the French have aioli; the two are very similar. This classic aioli recipe adds a bit of mustard. You can make it in a blender or with a whisk; it takes just a few minutes to whip up. The versatile condiment plays nice with all sorts of dishes, from fish to vegetables to burgers.

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Nam Chim Kai (Thai Sweet Chili Sauce)

The Spruce / Qi Ai

This sweet chili sauce from Thailand, where it's called nam chim kai, is incredibly easy to make at home. It adds a lightly tangy and spicy sweetness to dishes like shrimp, egg rolls, wings, spring rolls, and more. Store it in the fridge for up to a month.
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Classic Basil Pesto Sauce

The Spruce

Pesto is a classic Italian sauce made with fresh basil, garlic, pine nuts, Parmesan or Pecorino cheese, and olive oil. Feel free to swap high-priced pine nuts for walnuts. It's frequently used on pasta but it also makes a flavorful condiment for sandwiches and paninis.
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Aji Amarillo Sauce

The Spruce / Maxwell Cozzi

Made with the aja amarillo chile pepper, a staple of Peruvian cooking, this versatile sauce will add some creamy spiciness to just about anything—roast chicken, plantains, yuca, French fries, vegetables, and so on. The recipe can be made using peppers in fresh, frozen, or paste form.
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Gremolata

The Spruce

A simple mix of fresh parsley, garlic, and lemon zest, gremolata adds fresh flavor to meat and seafood dishes of all kinds. This is a condiment best made and served fresh since it's full of raw ingredients. Try using any leftovers the next day in your scrambled eggs or omelet or use it to add a punch of flavor to soup.

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Mango Sauce

The Spruce / Diana Chistruga

This Thai-inspired mango sauce is the perfect blend of sweet and savory with a hint of spice. Use a fully ripe mango for the smoothest, most flavorful sauce. Serve alongside spring rolls, fried shrimp, skewers, and more.
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Eel Sauce

The Spruce / Pete Scherer

Japanese-American eel sauce contains no eel; it's so named because it often accompanies unagi (grilled eel) and eel rolls. It requires only four ingredients: mirin, soy sauce, sake, and sugar. It's reduced to a syrup, making a fragrant, savory sauce for wings, tofu, vegetables, and seafood.
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Red Taco Sauce

The Spruce / Leah Maroney

This tomato-based taco sauce is a classic Tex-Mex condiment that adds nice flavor and sauciness to tacos, nachos, and seven-layer dips. Add a chipotle pepper or two for a smoky variation or more cayenne pepper for spice.
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Easy Homemade Mayonnaise

The Spruce / Ali Redmond

Mayonnaise is made by very slowly mixing oil into egg yolks, creating an emulsion. This makes the condiment creamy and stable, perfect for spreading on sandwiches, topping burgers, adorning fish tacos, and adding to potato salad.

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South African Fruit Chutney

The Spruce / Julia Hartbeck

While chutney has Southeast Asian origins, fruit chutneys are also popular in South Africa. This recipe is made with peaches, dried apricots, and raisins that are cooked in a mixture of vinegar, sugar, and spices. The resulting condiment is sweet, tangy, and savory, and is especially good with salty meats.
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Tahini Sauce

The Spruce

This quick and easy tahini sauce adds lemon, olive oil, salt, and garlic to sesame seed paste and thins it out to make it easy to drizzle over sandwiches, wraps, vegetables, and meats.
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Banana Ketchup

The Spruce / Cara Cormack

A favorite condiment in the Philippines, banana ketchup became popular when tomatoes were hard to come by in WWII. Bananas add a delicious hint of sweet fruitiness while keeping the sauce savory. Try serving with grilled meats or alongside fries for dipping.
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Sambal Sauce

The Spruce / Stephanie Goldfinger

Sambal is a popular condiment in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. The spicy sauce is made from chiles and aromatics like ginger, lemongrass, turmeric, and galangal. If you like spicy food, try it on just about anything, from rice dishes to sandwiches to soup.

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Tonkatsu Sauce

The Spruce / Christine Ma

Best known for topping crispy katsu, tonkatsu sauce is similar to a Japanese barbecue sauce. It only takes four ingredients to make and no cooking is required. Serve with anything fried or barbecued meat.
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Simple Mustard Recipe With Variations

The Spruce

You only need a few ingredients, a spice grinder, and about five minutes to make homemade mustard. It'll keep for a couple of months in the fridge, ready to be used on everything from sandwiches to sausage. For the best flavor, let it sit in the fridge for a couple of days before using.
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Salsa Verde

The Spruce / Victoria Heydt

This bright-tasting green salsa is just as good on tacos as it is rice bowls, wraps, and more. Roasting the mild chiles first makes for a smoother mixture and adds layers of flavor. This recipe uses raw tomatillos, which gives this salsa a chunkier texture and more tart flavor than a more typical salsa verde made with roasted tomatillos. You can easily adjust the heat by using more or less jalapeño.
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Hoisin Dipping Sauce

The Spruce / Kristina Vanni

Salty and lightly sweet, hoisin dipping sauce adds tons of flavor to grilled meat and vegetables, tofu, and stir-fry. It only takes a few minutes to assemble, but let it sit for an hour before serving to let the flavors marry.

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Georgia Mustard Barbecue Sauce

The Spruce / Kristina Vanni

While barbecue sauce is often mopped on grilled and smoked meats, it also makes a memorable condiment for meats, veggies, and sandwiches. This Georgia mustard-based sauce is tomato-free and nice and tangy.
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Chimichurri Sauce

The Spruce / Maxwell Cozzi

While chimichurri is best known as a sauce for Argentinian parrillada, it can be drizzled on pretty much anything. The herb, garlic, and vinegar sauce brightens up vegetables, meats, eggs, soups, grains, you name it. It's especially good on grilled steak.
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Quick Fresh Tomato Chutney

The Spruce

Tomato chutney is a nice way to preserve the flavor of tomatoes and make a versatile condiment at the same time. The flavors are similar to ketchup but with a heartier, chunkier texture and shorter cook time. Serve as a ketchup alternative with meatloaf, burgers, and hot dogs.
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Nam Prik Pao (Thai Chili Sauce)

Anutr Tosirikul / Getty Images

A flavorful mix of fish sauce, tamarind, garlic, chiles, sugar, lime, shrimp paste, and shallots, nam prik pao adds a burst of spicy umami flavor to anything it touches. Serve alongside noodle dishes, soups, rice, and more.

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McDonald's Special Sauce

The Spruce

If you can't get enough of McDonald's secret sauce, then make your own at home anytime you like. The signature sauce is good for more than just burgers—try it on sandwiches or as a dipping sauce for fries or chicken nuggets.
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Chrzan (Polish Horseradish Sauce)

Getty Images / DebbiSmirnoff

This simple horseradish sauce is traditionally served with ham but will add a nose-clearing, spicy punch to anything you like. A food processor makes the recipe quick and easy to make at home. Try it with roast beef or lamb.
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Chogochujang Dipping Sauce

The Spruce / Julia Hartbeck

Add a nice kick of spice along with a hint of sweetness to your rice dishes with chogochujang. It's heavily features gochujang, a bright red, fermented soy, rice, and pepper paste that's popular in Korean dishes.
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Spicy Chile Mayonnaise

The Spruce / Diana Rattray

Adding sriracha chile sauce, sambal oelek, and lemon juice to regular mayonnaise turns it into a condiment to remember. It's great for adding creaminess and spiciness to a dish at the same time. Try serving spicy chile mayo with fried seafood.

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