How To Make Fish Sandwiches Taste Restaurant-Worthy With Tartar Sauce's Cousin

Sure, a good fish sandwich can be served on its own — just some perfectly-cooked fish on a tasty bun is always good. However, there are reasons why restaurant fish sandwiches always taste better than homemade. Part of that is the freshness of the fish, and if you know where you're shopping, that's not hard to accomplish. There are some underrated toppings for your fish sandwich that are easy to use at home and can take your sandwich to the next level. You can try some spicy harissa, go the herbal route with chimichurri, or just add some simple bottled barbecue sauce. But when you want something that's similar to a tartar sauce, but feels much more gourmet and will truly impress your guests (or family), you might want to think about adding a remoulade sauce to your homemade fish sandwiches.

Sort of a cousin to the simple, three-ingredient tartar sauce, a homemade remoulade sauce will kick it up a notch and add some incredible flavor. Just like a tartar sauce, a remoulade's key ingredient is mayonnaise, but it goes deeper in flavor — sort of a tartar sauce mixed with Hollandaise. It starts with mayo and usually has many of the trappings of your regular tartar sauce — capers, diced pickles, and lemon, but you can take it in a lot of directions to add more spice, more umami, or more pickled tartness to get it dialed in to exactly how you want it on your next fish sandwich.

Remoulade appears to draw its origins from the north of France in the early 18th century, and the name comes from Picard, the local dialect, for horseradish: rémolat. Although you're free to use horseradish in your remoulade, it's certainly not a necessity. These days, especially in the U.S., remoulade is mostly associated with Louisiana-style, Creole, or Cajun cooking — generally used on seafood, like crab cakes, shrimp, and fried fish. But it's perfectly acceptable to play around in the kitchen and use your remoulade however you see fit — maybe as a simple veggie dip or even on a grilled cheese sandwich.

Making a remoulade is simple, and you don't even need to cook anything. You'll generally want to start with a base of mayonnaise. Usually, the first additions are diced cornichon pickles and capers, but you can go with diced scallions and garlic in place of the pickles if you want more of an aromatic hit to the nose with some increased umami. Lemon juice is the usual choice for acidity, and you can up the ante with Worcestershire. For more spice, hot sauce is an easy add, as are spicy mustards and paprika. And a number of blends of herbs and spices are nice. You can go classic New Orleans with cayenne pepper and fresh parsley — or go a little outside of the box with a tarragon curry remoulade recipe. This one's even made from scratch without the pre-made mayonnaise, but it is still pretty easy to do in just about 15 minutes. A super simple remoulade can likely be made with ingredients you already have, and it's an easy way to give you some real cred in the kitchen, as if you've been studying the culinary arts for years.