5 Creative Twists to Elevate Your Mayo for the Ultimate Fry-Dipping Experience

There is some pretty fierce debate over whether french fries were invented in France or Belgium, but one thing is certain: You’ll never get a serving of naked fries in either country. In France, you’ll often see steak frites on menus, featuring fries soaked in the delicious, savory juices of a delicious cut of beef. While Belgium’s national dish, Moules Frites, features crispy fries served along sweet and briny mussels, providing the ultimate sauce-mopping (edible) utensil. All this to say, as perfect as a basket of piping hot french fries is, the potatoes always feel lacking without a dollop of your favorite dipping sauce sitting atop their golden crowns.

As hotly contested as the origin of fries is, there is another french-fry-centric debate that’s been raging on the internet: Mayo vs. ketchup. In Belgium, you’ll often see healthy servings of mayo-based sauces on top of their fries, whereas in the U.S., it’s more common to dip your fries in ketchup. We’re very much of the “Why not mix them together?” mindset, but if pressed to pick one, the tangy, creaminess of mayonnaise is a better potato pairing in our humble opinion. With that in mind, we’ve cooked up five wildly simple mayo dipping sauce recipes to add a little kick to your next basket of fries.

Adding sriracha to mayo is a family favorite combo in my home. After a fated visit to a since-shuttered Asian fusion restaurant in the Chicagoland area, my mother really wanted to re-create the delicious dipping sauce which was served with a basket of breaded shrimp. When we came home, my mom turned the kitchen into a mini lab, mixing a variety of condiments until zeroing in on the three main flavors: mayo, sriracha, and soy sauce. We’ve been tweaking the recipe ever since, and it’s become a favorite for french fries.

We should preface that all these recipes are best made to taste, so you can tweak amounts based on your preferences, or even by what you have available in your pantry. But as a starting point, you always want mayonnaise to be the base ingredient. We find that a 1:16 hot sauce to mayo ratio is a good balance, but if you like a little more heat, feel free to add more. Begin with ¼ cup of mayo, Kewpie Japanese mayo is our favorite when using other Asian ingredients, and then add a tablespoon of Sriracha for heat, and a splash of soy sauce to introduce an umami kick. If you have lime on hand, it kicks up the tanginess to a lovely citrusy level but it’s not necessary if limes are out of season or you don’t want to make a special trip to the grocery store.

This killer combo was created when I was craving the spicy umami mayo my mom began making in the early 2000s, only to realize I was out of Sriracha. Remember the great Sriracha shortage of 2022? Yup. I had to get my spiced rocks off in another way and to be honest, I now make this mayo dip more often than the previously mentioned one. For this dip, the spicy star is Frank’s RedHot Buffalo Wings Sauce. Psst…if you’re looking for a cheaper version, Aldi has a pretty decent copycat cayenne hot sauce that’s cheaper than Frank’s.

This recipe is just as easy as the spicy umami mayo, yet it delivers a wildly different flavor profile. Start with your quarter cup of mayo again, and add a tablespoon or so of Frank’s RedHot. You can skip the soy sauce if you want, and swap out lime for lemon, which works better with Frank’s acidity. Because Frank’s Redhot is often used on chicken wings, I’ve sometimes added blue cheese crumbles to the mayo dip for an added funky twist. It’s best to use the smaller crumbles, or as I call it blue cheese dust, in the bottom of your tub for a fry-specific dipping sauce, that way they’re more likely to stick to the fry.

Horseradish is almost as divisive of an ingredient as the decision between dipping your fries in ketchup or mayo. To reiterate: We still don’t know why people are choosing between two iconic and equally delicious condiments. However, even the most horseradish-averse individuals, are willing to down gallons of Horsey Sauce, initially made popular by fast food sandwich chain, Arby’s. Forrest Raffel, who founded Arby’s with his brother in the mid-1960s, invented the sauce after adding some mayonnaise and a sweetener to make it more palatable for fast food fare.

Horseradish is a great way to add a kick of heat to dips because the root vegetable delivers the same spicy intensity as traditional spice enhancers like chili pepper or cayenne seasoning, but the spiciness doesn’t build on the tongue. Instead, it dissipates, allowing other flavors to shine through the heat. This sauce is easy to make, but even easier to overdo. We recommend starting out with a cup of mayo, and then adding a tablespoon of horseradish at a time (we wouldn’t add more than four tablespoons), until you feel like there’s a good balance between tangy and spicy. To balance out the strong flavors, we recommend mixing in a tablespoon of ketchup for some sweetness. You can do a tablespoon of sugar instead, but we find ketchup gives you a nice acidic kick from the tomato and jives with the other ingredients better.

When you think of what to pair with a dairy item like mayo, fermented cabbage is not typically top of mind, but we highly encourage you to reconsider. Kimchi is a powerhouse staple ingredient that is as versatile in execution as it is in content. While there are many types of Kimchi ranging from radish to green onion, we are partial to the most popular version featuring napa cabbage. While no two kimchi recipes are quite alike, most feature gochugaru, also known as Korean chili pepper powder, which adds just the right amount of spice for your french fry dipping needs.

This recipe might be the easiest one yet, but as we said with some of the others, we highly recommend you experiment with your ratios and add-ons. You can get a very tasty kimchi mayo dip by simply mixing in ½ cup of finely diced cabbage kimchi (don’t forget to add the flavor-fused juice too) with ½ cup of mayonnaise. Voila! You have yourself a flavorful and unique fry dip. However, we encourage you to try out a splash of Worcestershire sauce to up the fermented flavor. Good Worcestershire sauce has anchovies in it which will give you a subtle umami twist, without any overt fishy flavor.

Aioli may just seem like a fancier way of saying mayonnaise, but the truth is, it’s a very different dipping sauce, at least in its original iteration. Unlike mayo which is made with oil, egg yolks, salt, and lemon juice, authentic Aioli is only made with garlic, oil, and salt. However it wasn’t long before people discovered the absolute flavor enhancer that is adding egg yolk to your dip, and nowadays aioli really is more of a fancy, garlic-flavored mayonnaise. If you’d like to make your own version of aioli for this dip, check out our favorite 5-minute garlic aioli recipe, but if you want to keep the simple dip train rolling, you can just use whatever mayo you have in your fridge and add a pressed clove of garlic.

When it comes to adding your spice-enhancer, i.e. the chipotle, you have a few options depending on what’s in your pantry. You can either go the powdered spice route and add ⅛ teaspoon of chipotle powder to your ¼ cup of garlic aioli, or use a teaspoon of adobo sauce from the can. If you’re one of those daredevils with a gut of steel who likes to sweat at every meal, up the spice by adding one, finely diced chipotle pepper to your aioli mix.