Sweet and Spicy Dipping Sauce

Name: Sweet and Spicy Dipping Sauce
Total time: 5 min
Ingredients: ½ cup mayonnaise; 2 tablespoons ketchup; 2 tablespoons prepared horseradish; 1 teaspoon paprika; ½ teaspoon ground oregano; 2 teaspoons kosher salt; 1 teaspoon coarse black pepper; 2 or more drops hot pepper sauce

The Garden & Saucier

Sweet and Spicy Dipping Sauce

Print Recipe

The Strategy:

A do-it-all dipping sauce that lands squarely between sweet, tangy, and hot, and comes together fast. Mayonnaise gives it body, ketchup and a spoon of horseradish bring the sweet-and-sharp, and you set the heat yourself with as much hot sauce as you dare. It is the sauce that makes fried anything irresistible — and it is endlessly yours to adjust.

Makes: about ¾ cup | Total Time: 5 minutes till it’s ready

Ingredients

For the base

½ cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons ketchup
2 tablespoons prepared horseradish

For the seasoning

1 teaspoon paprika
½ teaspoon ground oregano
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon coarse black pepper
2 or more drops hot pepper sauce

Overhead prep flat-lay of a bowl of mayonnaise and small dishes of ketchup, prepared horseradish, paprika, ground oregano, salt, pepper, and a bottle of hot sauce with a whisk on marble

Instructions

Whisk together mayonnaise, ketchup, horseradish, paprika, and oregano.
Season with salt and pepper.
Stir in as much hot sauce as you like.
Pour the dipping sauce into a bowl.

Close-up of hot sauce being stirred into a creamy pink-orange dipping sauce, a swirl forming

Thing to Note:

Need a sweet and spicy dipping sauce for your fried chokes? Here’s one of my faves. For extra spice, add more hot sauce. For extra sweetness, up the ketchup content or add a bit of honey. Remember it’s your sauce … add whatever you want!

The full recipe lives in the Vault

Ingredients, method and every chef-tested detail are in the Vault. Join the Estate Registry for $79 a year: six printed dinner-party editions mailed to you, and the Vault opens as our gift.

Become a Member · $79

What’s included · Member Sign In

The Heart of the Table

Every cook needs one sauce that turns “just fried something” into an event, and this is mine. It is the little bowl that appears whenever there are crispy things to be dunked — artichokes, pickles, chicken fingers, you name it — and it never comes back to the kitchen with anything left in it. Best of all, it bends entirely to your mood: sweeter tonight, fiercer tomorrow, always yours.

A gorgeous single-view lifestyle photo of Sweet and Spicy Dipping Sauce in a small bowl at the center of a platter of golden fried food.

Neighborly Grace

THE PRESENTATION: Spoon the sauce into a small, deep bowl and nestle it right in the center of the platter it is meant for, surrounded by whatever is crisp and golden. A dusting of paprika over the top and a few chopped chives make the humble little dish look like it belongs at the party.
THE POUR: This sauce lives for game-day and fried-food gatherings, so keep the pours easy: an ice-cold lager or a spicy michelada for the grown-ups, and a tart, bubbly ginger beer over ice for everyone reaching for the same basket of fries.
THE VIBE: Loud, casual, and fun — the paper-napkin, elbows-on-the-table kind of afternoon where the food is meant to be shared straight off the platter.

Chef’s Recommendations

Finds Common Ground in Horseradish: Beer Battered Fried Onion Rings
The Fry-Sauce Dunk: Crispy French Fries with Spiced Ketchup
The Comeback Sauce Cousin: Crispy Fried Pickles with Southern Comeback Sauce
The Southern Fry Match: Southern Fried Chicken

The Estate Table

Build tonight’s menu around this dish.

✦ Set the Table

Sweet and Spicy Dipping Sauce

Sweet and Spicy Dipping Sauce

The full recipe lives in the Vault

The Heart of the Table

Neighborly Grace

✨ The Estate Swaps