Thousand Island Dressing

One of my favorite junk foods growing up was the Big Mac. It was the special sauce that sold me on it. It's creamy, sweet, salty, and crunchy. However, as an adult, I find this iconic sandwich somewhat lacking--to get the sauce, I have to have the dehydrated onions and the thin, beef-ish patties, too? No thanks. Instead, I learned to make the sauce at home so I could add it to any burger I pleased. And you can use for many different things! Top a salad with it, or pour it into a small bowl and use it to dip your fries. Let's see just how easy it is, shall we?

This is how easy it is! Six ingredients easy.

Plop some mayo in a bowl.

Add a few squirts of ketchup.

 Add a splash of vinegar. I was going to use white vinegar, but all our white vineger is for cleaning and in huge gallon jugs. I didn't feel like trying to pour a tablespoon of vinegar out of a huge gallon-sized jug. Plus, I like cider vinegar better anyway.

A sprinkling of sugar makes it sweet.

On to the cutting stuff. I cut myself a ring of onion.

Then I chopped it up fine.

Yeah, I did the "lazy" cut. But uniform dices weren't really the goal here (or, so I tell myself to justify cutting it this way.) I just needed little bits of onion.

Check out these great pickles. I was talked into buying these little baby cucumbers at the market last month. I love the sweet pickles called cornichons, and a friend in culinary school happened to have a great recipe for them. They're so crunchy and sweet, I love them! Of course, my favorite way to eat them is on top of a piece of crusty bread smothered with pate.

Pick out a few pickles. If you don't have cornichons, sweet pickles or even relish is fine here. And if you use relish, you don't even have to mince them.

Since I used whole pickles, I did have to mince.

The pickles and onions went into the bowl of mayonnaise. And I remembered to use salt and pepper.

Ah, there it is. That familiar pink-ish dressing that adorns the most famous burger in the world.

Only this is a hundred times better.

I slathered some sauce onto my burger bun.

Mmmm.
















Use this dressing as a salad dressing, on a burger, or even as a french fry dip. Change it up to suit your personality--use sour pickles instead of sweet, or add some heat with a jalapeno pepper. Use sriracha or cocktail sauce instead of ketchup. For a slightly healthier idea, try Greek yogurt instead of mayo, and use fresh cucumbers instead of pickles.

Recipe: Thousand Island Dressing

1/2 c. mayonnaise
3 tbsp. ketchup
1 tbsp. vinegar
2 tsp. sugar
3 tbsp. relish or chopped sweet pickle
1 tsp. minced onion
salt and pepper, to taste

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl; stir to combine. Let sit at least an hour for flavors to blend.