Gallery: 33 Great Sauce Recipes for Burgers

Ketchup

While nothing will replace a flavor so ingrained in our psyches as Heinz, this ketchup had its own appeal. It's brighter and fresher than bottled ketchup, with a natural tomato flavor that has just enough spice to clearly define itself as ketchup over any other tomato sauce.

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Yellow Mustard

Ground mustard forms the base of this French's copycat yellow mustard, with vinegar pumping up the kick, and turmeric providing that bright yellow color that sets American mustard apart. While the flavor was well in line with store brands, the texture has a slightly gritty, homemade feel as opposed to the familiar, super processed version.

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Spicy Beer Mustard

This spicy, slightly sweet beer mustard was made to complement pastrami, but there's no reason you can't put it on burgers, too.

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Sweet Cucumber Relish

This cucumber relish is sweet and tangy with a nice note of celery and a little bitterness from the mustard seed to really round it out. It's perfect for canning, but there's no reason it can't be used right away.

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Basic Barbecue Sauce

Skip bottled barbecue sauces; this basic sauce base takes about 15 minutes to make from start to finish and is merely a launching point for infinite varieties.

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Kansas City-Style Barbecue Sauce

When most people think of barbecue sauce, they're probably picturing a thick, sweet, and tangy tomato mixture—that's Kansas City style.

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Chili Sauce

This chili ends up with a homogeneous, saucy texture perfect for topping burgers, hot dogs, or fries.

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Cheese Sauce

This cheese sauce has the melty, gooey, spreadable dippability of sauce found in chain restaurants and movie theaters, but with the complex flavor of real cheese.

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Mayonnaise

Homemade mayonnaise has a much fresher and brighter flavor than bottled. Your arm may ache from all the whisking, but the end result is worth it.

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Aioli

While "aioli" is thrown around incredibly loosely for any mayo-like sauce, it's really only one thing: garlic mayonnaise, which is great for adding a creamy garlic bite to burgers, fries, or really any such thing your heart desires.

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Chipotle Mayonnaise

Chipotle mayo is a pretty hot condiment whose popularity is well-deserved. With just a few ingredients, you can create a complex mixture of spicy, cool, earthy, and smoky that becomes an excellent spread for sandwiches and burgers, or a dip for fries, chips, and veggies.

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Louisiana Remoulade

Louisiana remoulade starts with a mayo base, but then adds ingredient after ingredient to form a reddish complex sauce that's creamy, tart, and spicy.

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Sun-Dried Tomato and Roasted Garlic Mayo

This mayo is bursting with deep tomato and garlic flavor. Great for putting on burgers or dunking fries into!

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Baconnaise

Save your bacon fat to make this rich, smoky spread. Goes great on a Bacon Attack Burger!

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Big Mac Spread

The sauce on a Big Mac may seem to be a Thousand Island-type spread, but it's actually a mayonnaise-based sauce with no ketchup or tomato to speak of.

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Shake Shack Sauce

You can't make a Shake Shack burger (or Double Shack Stack) without the right sauce: a mix of mayo, ketchup, mustard, a few spices, and pickles.

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In-N-Out Spread

This spread may be a basic Thousand Island-style dressing—a mixture of ketchup, mayonnaise, and sweet pickle relish— but you've got to get the ingredient ratios right if you're going to make an In-N-Out Double-Double, Animal-Style.

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Peruvian Green Sauce

This spicy, tangy, and cooling sauce is easy to make. A tangy mayonnaise base is pepped up with a squeeze of lime juice and lemon, along with the heat of fresh jalapeños and a big handful of cilantro.

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Ranch

This homemade Ranch strikes a mellower tone than the store-bought version, with creamy, rich buttermilk and fresh parsley, chives, and dill.

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Creamy French Dressing

Sugar and ketchup formed the base of this dressing, while onion and vinegar play heavily as well, and small amounts of Worcestershire, paprika, and garlic powder add some depth. Mayonnaise makes it creamy; leave it out and you get regular old French.

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Franch Dressing

Half French dressing, half ranch equals Franch. The French lends a sugary ketchup and onion flavor, while the ranch influence is distinctly herbal, and both respective tangs make that "zing" the dominant trait.

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Pimento Cheese

Do we really need a spread that's primarily cheese and mayonnaise? In the case of pimento cheese, the answer is yes. This Southern classic is simply a mixture of grated sharp cheddar, mayo, pimentos, cayenne, and hot sauce.

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Arugula Pesto

The peppery bite of arugula is tempered by oil and Parmesan, creating a smooth, yet incredibly flavorful pesto.

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Thai Sweet Chili Sauce

This thickened mixture of chilies, vinegar, sugar, and garlic rightfully puts its flavor in the Asian corner, but it's so accessible you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't profess love for its balance between sweet and spicy that makes it perfect for everything from eggrolls, to fries, to burgers, and so much more.

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Hot Chili Chutney

Roasted hot and sweet red peppers are combined with caramelized onions, rosemary, cinnamon, sugar, and balsamic vinegar to create a complex and robust condiment that starts of sweet, but leaves you with a wallop of heat.

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Homemade Sriracha

Setting out to recreate Huy Fong's ubiquitous sauce, this sauce hits the right notes, but with a brighter, fresher flavor that makes homemade Sriracha something special.

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Cherry Barbecue Sauce

You can call cherry a "secret" ingredient to this barbecue sauce. It adds a deep fruitiness that gets well embedded in the sauce. It's noticeable, yet a little hard to discern at the same time. The cherries are paired with ancho chili powder, which gives an earthy spice, along with the very distinctive white pepper.

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Blueberry Ketchup

Escaping the thought of ketchup as a singular tomato-based sauce led to this blueberry ketchup. It has the familiar sweet and tangy flavor but with a bright fruitiness that opens the door to a wide variety of uses.

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Cilantro Pesto

If you like cilantro, you may prefer cilantro pesto (blended with pumpkin seeds, cotija cheese, serrano pepper, and lime juice) to the classic basil.

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Basil Pesto

Pesto is ripe for experimentation but if we're talking traditional, it's going to be basil, pine nuts, garlic, olive oil, and Parmesan combined into a smooth paste. It's quick work to get all the ingredients chopped and combined into a nutty, herbal paste by using a food processor.

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Basic Teriyaki Sauce

This is a simple mixture of soy sauce, brown sugar, Sake, and mirin, cooked down until it becomes a semi-thick, spoon-coating sauce with a constant pull between sweet and salty.

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Bacon Jam

This complex mixture of sweet candied smoky–salty bacon—with earthy undertones from a hit of coffee, and pockets of heat—is great on burgers, pizza, biscuits, and more.

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Tomato Jam

In this recipe, juicy heirlooms are paired with fresh ginger, cinnamon, and a dash of red pepper flakes for kick. Besides being a great condiment for burgers, it's also great on BLTs and grilled cheese sandwiches.

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