Dipping Sauces

I really love dipping sauces. They give your food a great new taste from the same old one you've been eating for years. Can anyone eat a chicken tender without dipping it in something? How about a french fry? Hey, you can dip anything you want into any one of dozens of dipping sauces. I love to invent new sauces all the time and see what food I can add great flavor to.

There are two kinds of dipping sauces, the ones you need to buy in the store, and the one's you can make yourself. Steak sauce, B-B-Q sauce, and honey mustard are certainly ones you should just buy at the store. I don't like to use steak sauce but if I do then A-1 is obviously the best, I like Williamson Brothers B-B-Q sauce (although it's hard to get outside of Atlanta), and O'Charlie's honey mustard is the best.

The next is the sauce you make yourself, and this is where the fun part is. It's great to be able to create a great dipping sauce to enhance the flavors, and since you made it yourself the personal satisfaction is nice. The basic guidelines I like to follow are the base of the sauce is either mayonnaise, sour cream, or cream cheese (white refrigerated substances). This may sound gross but this is what they use at the restaurants you just don't see it come together. Here are some of my favorites.

Abner's: half mayo, half ketchup, dab of Worcestershire, and enough pepper to make it look like Abner's sauce (or Zaxby's). Obviously good with chicken tenders, french fries also, tater tots, etc.

Tarter: Mayonnaise, relish, just a pinch of horseradish and garlic powder. I like to substitute the relish for pickled jalapenos for a spicy kick. Used for seafood dishes.

Crab cake sauce: Good amount of sour cream, little bit of garlic powder, little bit of Tony's or red pepper, and chives or green onion. Goes with crab cakes...sandwich or just as a dipping sauce.

Goes with anything sauce: Good amount of sour cream, fair amount of garlic powder and onion salt, some chives and maybe add a little pepper for the kick. Goes with a lot of stuff, it's like a ranch but with a different taste so you can use if for anything you like ranch with.

Blue Cheese dressing: Little bit of mayonnaise, a little more sour cream, just a bit of milk, blue chesse crumbles, onion powder and garlic powder. Tastes incredible, great on anything really...obviously good for buffalo wings and salad.

Volcano: I got this idea from the "volacano taco" at taco bell. Just mix sour cream and Texas Pete and beat it until it's smooth and looks redish-pink...very hot but very good. Goes with tacos or anything you want to make your forehead sweat.


Places that have great dipping sauces:

Ranch: Little Caesars, Taco Mac, Zaxby's, KFC

Honey Mustard: Arby's, Little Doey's, Oby's, Chili's

Zaxby's, Abner's, & Guthrie's (all their original sauce, yet all pretty much the same suace)

Chick-Fil-A sauce

Arby's has the best lineup of sauces there is, they are all good.


I'm sure I missed a few along the way, but I just can't think of everything. Those are the ones that really stick in my memory. I hope you are inspired to use and create dipping sauces.

JB