13 Delicious Sauces for Fried Fish That Aren’t Tartar Sauce

Whether you’re eating store-bought fish sticks or sitting down to a huge plate of homemade fish and chips, you’re going to need sauce for your fried fish to make it as delicious as possible. On its own, fried fish can be somewhat bland, albeit crispy, and it serves as a carrier for your sauce of choice. That sauce is what infuses the meal with all that flavor you’re craving. Perhaps the most iconic sauce for fried fish is tartar sauce, with its creamy tanginess that offers both a texture and a flavor component to your dish. But if you don’t have any store-bought tartar sauce on hand and simply don’t feel like making your own, or you’re just craving a different kind of flavor profile, what kind of sauce should you choose to pair with your fried fish?

There are actually quite a few sauces that taste particularly good with fish, and we’ve compiled a list of them here. Some are more herbal, while others pack plenty of heat. There are sauces that are all about acid, while others really double down on rich, fatty oil. Give a few of these different sauces a try, and you may find some new flavors to work into your fried fish routine.

Yes, tartar sauce is a classic seafood sauce, but so is cocktail sauce. Ketchup makes up the bulk of this sauce, so you might assume that it’s pretty sweet, but that’s not necessarily the case. By combining that ketchup with Worcestershire sauce and bold, spicy horseradish — among a few other ingredients — you get a deeply savory and well-balanced sauce with just a touch of sweetness to keep things interesting. If you’re making your own cocktail sauce, you can control the amount of horseradish you want to include. For those who prefer spicier sauces, an extra dollop of horseradish can provide just the flavor you want. However, if you have a more sensitive palate, you can stick to just a small amount of the ingredient to avoid overpowering the other, more delicate ingredients. And, of course, you can always snag some grocery store cocktail sauce if you don’t want to make it yourself.

Although cocktail sauce is often served with shrimp, it can work well with fried fish, too. Just spoon some of the sauce onto your plate and use it as a dipping sauce, or place it directly on your fried fish so you get some extra flavor with every bite.

Fried fish, like any fried food, is naturally kind of heavy, despite the fact that fish itself tends to be on the lighter end of the spectrum. Because this heaviness is so prominent, it just makes sense to pair your fried fish with a sauce that’s lighter and more vegetal, helping to bring balance to the completed dish. That’s one of the reasons we love using romesco sauce with fried fish. 

This veggie-heavy sauce calls for red bell peppers and tomatoes to form the base of the recipe, creating a savory red palate for the flavorful seasonings you’ll also add to the mix. Garlic, smoked paprika, and sherry vinegar give the sauce flavor, while almonds and olive oil give it some richness and depth, which allows it to hold up to the fattiness of the fried fish.

Although this may not be a super common combo, it’s one that absolutely works. That relative lightness from the sauce plays well with fried fish, and its ultra-flavorful list of ingredients brings a basic fish recipe to life. You can always just dip the fish into the sauce if that sounds good to you, but if you want to make things look really fancy, spread some of that romesco sauce onto your plate before adding your fried fish on top. Then, whenever you flake off some of that fish, you can drag it through the sauce before eating it.

Wasabi is one of those ingredients that can automatically add a burst of flavor to just about any dish. And since it’s something that you already eat with fish when you have sushi, it just makes sense that it would work with fried fish, too. However, you don’t have to invest in a ton of wasabi just to make sure you have a taste in every mouthful of your fried fish. Rather, you can create your own sauce with that wasabi to make it pair more successfully with fish and chips or even fish sticks: Just combine it with mayonnaise.

Real wasabi can be pricey and difficult to find, but if you can manage to get your hands on some, it’ll make the best possible wasabi mayo. On the other hand, some cheaper “fake” wasabi will also do the trick if you’re in a pinch. Start with a small amount of the wasabi and add a generous portion of a good-quality mayonnaise of your choice. (We like Kewpie.) Taste as you go to make sure that you can taste the wasabi but that it doesn’t completely overwhelm your palate. 

When you’ve reached your desired flavor, use it as a dipping sauce for your fried fish. Tartar sauce may even start to taste too bland to you.

If you’re familiar with Vietnamese food, you’ve probably come across nước mắm pha, a multi-purpose, fish-sauce-based dipping sauce used with a wide variety of dishes. What you may not know, though, is that it pairs beautifully with fried fish. Fish sauce is the primary ingredient in this sauce, which is responsible for giving it its intense saltiness and umami flavor. Fish sauce is incredibly flavorful on its own, but when you add the other ingredients, like lime juice, sugar, garlic, and Thai chilies, to the mix, you’ll get an even more pronounced, intense flavor. The lime juice provides acidity, which is balanced by the sugar. Garlic provides an extra layer of savory flavor, while the Thai chilies offer an intense heat that really brings the sauce all together. Luckily, making your own nước mắm pha at home is surprisingly easy.

This is a rather watery sauce, so it’s best used for dipping. Otherwise, it could make the breading on your fried fish quite soggy. Just take a piece of your fried fish, swirl it around the bowl with your nước mắm pha, and take a bite — and you’ll notice a bold, spicy flavor that’s hard not to love.

Although tartar sauce is a popular condiment for fish and chips, it’s not a classic in quite the same way as malt vinegar is, at least in the UK. This is another classic sauce pairing, and it’s one that just works. As previously mentioned, fried fish isn’t super flavorful all by itself, considering that the fish used for fried fish tends to be rather neutral and the extra layer of breading is all about crispness, not really flavor. Therefore, you need something bold and acidic to cut through that crispy, fatty exterior, and that’s just what malt vinegar provides. It’s acidic, yes, but also features a complexity that you might not get with plain white distilled vinegar, for instance.

Grab a bottle of malt vinegar, and sprinkle some over your fried fish (and accompanying fries, if you have them on your plate). Take a bite, and you’ll understand what all the hype is about. Because this sauce is so acidic, you’ll want to start slowly and add more to your plate if or when you feel like you need more.

If you love the creaminess of tartar sauce but are looking for a sauce that’s going to provide your fried fish with a bit more flavor, you may want to try some chipotle aioli. This creamy, mayo-based sauce still has that richness and fattiness you crave (and that pairs so well with fried fish), but it also has a complex smokiness to it, along with just the slightest bit of heat. It’s a great option for those who like some spice but can’t handle a lot of it, since that heat is somewhat tempered by the creaminess of mayonnaise.

Chipotle aioli can work with any type of fried fish with which you want to pair it, but we think it works especially well with fish tacos, where it brings a whole new level of flavor (and also that signature creamy texture) to the fish. Add in some slaw and a few raw vegetables of your choice, and you have deeply flavorful fried fish tacos you’ll want to make on repeat.

Just because you’re craving a sauce that has some nice fattiness to it doesn’t mean that you have to choose something that’s creamy or mayo-based. Instead, you can opt for a thinner oil-based sauce that offers a bold, intense flavor without the creaminess. Chili oil is a great option. It offers your fried fish a complex heat that’s spicy, yes, but that also packs a combination of flavors that takes a piece of fried fish from average and somewhat boring to the star of your meal. To incorporate chili oil into your fried fish dish, just drizzle some on top, tasting as you go to make sure you’re not making the fish too spicy.

There are different types of chili oil from which you can choose. Simpler varieties offer some heat and richness but don’t give your fish much in terms of texture. Other varieties, like chili crisp, provide a layer of texture, as well, with a crunchiness that really helps elevate already-crisp fried fish. This may not be a sauce addition you’ll see at most American fish and chips joints, but it’s one you absolutely have to try if you already love chili oil.

If you’re not from the South, you may not have ever come across Alabama white sauce before, but it’s one you should absolutely have in your wheelhouse if you love super creamy, super flavorful sauces. It’s typically used as a barbecue sauce, but it’s a far cry from the sticky, sweet, tomato-based barbecue sauces you’ve come across. Instead, this sauce starts with mayonnaise, to which you’ll add apple cider vinegar (or distilled white vinegar), lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, and hot sauce, along with salt, pepper, and a pinch of sugar to balance all that acidity.

The result is a creamy but surprisingly thin sauce that you can easily drizzle all over your fried fish, although dunking is also an option. You can adjust the amount of hot sauce you choose to use depending on your tolerance of heat. Regardless of how much spice you add to the mix, though, you might just find that this mayo-based sauce makes for a more delicious fish fry than tartar sauce ever could.

Remoulade sauce hails from France, but it’s quite a popular condiment in New Orleans, as well. But you don’t have to be in the Big Easy to take advantage of these delicious flavors in your fried fish dish. This is another mayonnaise-based recipe, which also calls for whole-grain mustard — this gives the sauce a complexity that makes it more interesting than a lot of other mayo-based sauces out there. Louisiana hot sauce is another flavorful addition, as is Worcestershire sauce, paprika, and cayenne pepper, along with a host of other seasonings. You’ll get a deeply flavorful, reddish sauce that can give white fish the oomph it needs while simultaneously standing up to the thick, fried breading.

We happen to think that homemade remoulade sauce is best, if you have the time to whip it up at home. However, if you don’t want to go through the trouble of making your own sauce, you can easily buy the bottled stuff at the grocery store instead to make dinnertime a bit easier.

Old Bay is a classic seasoning for seafood, but what if we told you that it doesn’t have to actually season the fish itself? By adding some of that bold seasoning to mayonnaise, you can create the perfect mayo-based seafood sauce that offers a less-tangy flavor profile than tartar sauce. Of course, you can add some of that mouthwatering tang back in by squeezing a bit of lemon juice into the sauce, which helps thin it out a bit while adding a burst of acidity.

Because this sauce only calls for a few ingredients you probably already have at home, it’s a good option for when you don’t have any other good seafood sauces on hand. It might just make you think about all the different ways you can use that Old Bay seasoning you have hanging out in your spice pantry that go beyond simply seasoning your seafood directly.

For those who pour hot sauce on just about anything, the idea of adding it to fried fish probably isn’t a wild suggestion. After all, hot sauce can go on just about anything, right? For those who are a bit more spice-shy, however, it might seem like an unconventional combo. But believe us when we say that it works. Most hot sauces are quite acidic, which helps balance out the richness from the fried breading. And since fried fish can be sort of bland, that extra touch of heat makes a big difference in the overall flavor of the dish.

You can choose any hot sauce, but for dishes as neutral as fried fish, we think one that’s on the more complex end of the spectrum works especially well. Look at the ingredients list of any hot sauces you have on hand, and try to pick one that has a longer list of (recognizable) ingredients, instead of ones that just include chilies and vinegar, for the most delicious results.

Chimichurri is like pesto’s more interesting, more delicious older sister, and although it may not typically be paired with fried fish, we happen to think it’s a particularly tasty combo. Cilantro and parsley make up the bulk of this sauce, but garlic also plays an important role, giving the sauce its bold, intense flavor. Olive oil and lemon juice thin it out, while honey balances out the acidity from the lemon juice. Cumin, salt, and pepper give it an extra touch of flavor to keep things interesting. Keep in mind that if you want to make your chimichurri from scratch, you’ll need to use a food processor — but you can also buy store-bought chimichurri (although it doesn’t taste as fresh as its homemade counterpart).

Chimichurri can be drizzled over your fried fish for a more herbal flavor profile, really making the dish pop in an unexpected way. Sprinkle on some red chili flakes for an even more dynamic meal.

When you’re craving a creamy dressing that doesn’t require any mayonnaise at all, whip up some hollandaise sauce. This creamy, lemony dressing is neutral enough that it can be added to a wide variety of dishes, including fried fish. That bright flavor from the lemon, though, works especially well with fried foods, since it gives rich dishes the burst of brightness they need. In addition to lemon juice, you’ll need egg yolks, unsalted butter, and cayenne pepper to make this easy sauce. Pour it on top of your fried fish (or dip the fish into the sauce), and it might just become a staple on fish fry nights.

Since this sauce is so easy to make on your own once you pick up the required ingredients, we suggest preparing it fresh. Some stores may carry a jarred version, but whether it’s available at your local grocery store depends on where you’re shopping.