Ranking The Best Seafood Dipping Sauces

Seafood cuisine is especially noteworthy for the world of inviting flavors that each dish brings to the table. But what happens when you desire something more from these dishes? Dipping sauces come to the rescue. They’ve long been a special part of seafood cuisine, especially in the case of clams and oysters. However, not all dipping sauces go with every seafood. So, how can you know which sauces pair best with each seafood? 

In this article, we rank our favorite seafood dipping sauces and what you can use them with.

The Best Seafood Dipping Sauces

Tartar Sauce

This is a creamy, white condiment that goes perfectly with seafood, especially fish sticks. Its major ingredients include mayonnaise, capers, and shallots. However, you can also throw in pickles, mustard, egg, lemon juice, garlic, or hot sauce to spice up its taste. Besides fish sticks, tartar sauce goes well with other fried seafood dishes such as fish and chips, calamari, fish sandwiches, and fried oysters. 

Mignonettte

This is another condiment that is also made from shallots but with an addition of vinegar and cracked black peppercorn. Originally, ‘Mignonette’ was a French term indicating a spice used to add flavor to liquids. But now, it is called cracked pepper, traditionally served with oysters or clams to enhance their flavors. Mignonette sauce also comes in various forms. These include spicy, classic, and fruit mignonette.  

Cocktail Sauce

Cocktail sauce, also known as seafood sauce, is an all-purpose condiment that pairs well with almost all types of seafood. These include crab, oysters, clams, and shrimp cocktails. The sauce is made from ketchup, horseradish, lemon juice, and hot sauce. You can also switch things up by using it as a shellfish condiment, in bloody Mary mixes, as a salad dressing, and in place of barbecue sauce. Therefore, if you’re looking for a dipping sauce that goes with all the seafood on your list, the cocktail sauce is your best bet.

Garlic Butter

Garlic butter, also known as beurre à la bourguignonne, is a butter that can be used as a flavoring or as a condiment. It is a combination of garlic and butter mixed into a paste to give an amazing buttery flavor. Garlic butter is also another versatile dipping sauce that can be used for all kinds of seafood. These include lobsters, shrimp, oysters, catfish, and roasted swordfish. Besides this, you can serve garlic butter warm in little bowls for dipping cooked crab or prawns. You could also combine it with pasta and pan-seared shrimp for a top-notch main course.

Conclusion

Despite the exquisite taste of seafood cuisine, you can throw in some dipping sauces to take that dish to the next level. Some of the best dipping sauces to use for seafood include mignonette, tartar, cocktail sauce, and garlic butter. You can also get the best and freshest seafood in Boston when you dine at AquaPazza in the North End. Make a reservation with us today to see the difference!