I like to make my own honey-mustard sauce. Good not just on chicken but on potatoes and sausage patty sandwiches. If we get any frying squash I will use it on that, too.

I guess I need to expand my food horizons some more, as I don't usually use sauces, for dipping or otherwise. I'll put horseradish on roast beef, or cranberry sauce with turkey, but I don't dip chips or vegetables in anything. I occasionally mix mustard, yogurt and honey and make a sauce for salmon, but most of the time I don't. No tartar sauce with fish, I prefer cole slaw with fish or on a fish sandwich although sushi does get wasabi. Cannot stand any kind of sauce with wine, beer or alcohol in it, so no red wine sauce with beef either.

I occasionally use BBQ sauce on ribs and sometimes add a bit of Sleevendog's pickled mustard seed to meat but I don't like hollandaise at all and I don't think I've ever even eaten remoulade. I can chipotle catsup which mostly sits on the shelf.

Annie

Well, Annie, that doesn't surprise me at all. You generally don't care for the texture of goop and slime, and most sauces are in that realm. I like artichokes plain, too, but I've found with things like artichokes and salads, I can eat the same thing over and over if I can change the flavor of the sauce or dressing. :)

It depends on what's getting dipped! In general, I like ranch and comeback sauce.

I like a combination of yuzu juice, wasabi, and soy sauce.

Yuzu!!! Yummy....for steak! But as amylou says....depends on what I am saucing. To say IU have a favorite sauce is impossible. But for artichokes I do love lemon butter.

It does depend on what's being dipped but chimichurri and interesting aioli for most things.

I like home made cocktail sauce for fish, shrimp, fries, etc. I have a couple small beds of horseradish that I harvest in the fall and process and freeze it in 4 oz. jars. Honey mustard on chicken strips. Other than that I use various sauces and rubs on BBQ.

Carolina sauce! Just discovered it recently. We tried a recipe and it was good, but a little too sweet. We get it at a BBQ place about 15 miles away, so we buy 2-3 bottles at a time.

Plllog mentions harissa in the OP. Reminds me that a while back I bought a bottle of Sun Lion brand on sale, not knowing what it would be like. Loved it, haven’t found it locally again, available on Amazon, just wondering if anyone has another brand they’d recommend trying. I see TJ’s sells one, I think it’s been over five years since I last gave them a shot so maybe this will get me there.

Ttzatziki is a favorite for me. I can get some pretty strong cravings for it.

Chimichurri was mentioned...yes for that, too.

FOAS, I haven’t tried this recipe, but it sounds good without being melt your ears. Harissa really shouldn't be ear melting, but my pleasantly warm is another person’s poison. ;) BTW, TJ’s is very mild heat, but well balanced. Not as much flavor as fresh, but like many of their products, a decent, middling representation. I bought it out of curiosityand find the little jar convenient.

http://www.mymoroccanfood.com/home/harissa

Chloe, I was going to also say tzatziki!! Love it.

I bought a jar of harissa just for Dorie Greenspan’s Mediterrean Shepherd’s Pie. 🥵 Holy cow, that stuff is hot and/or I’m a weenie! I used half of the amount called for and it was still too much!!

I had a group over for football a year or two ago (won’t be doing that again anytime soon). We cooked and sliced a whole tenderloin for sandwiches. I tried to make a horseradish sauce but I never could get enough horseradish in it to have any bite.

Any Jezebel Sauce fans here? My aunt entertained often. Anytime she had ham, she served Jezebel Sauce.

I’m the anti-annie1992. I love almost any sauce. I’m happiest if my food is sauced. And I’m even happier if it is a good wine sauce. When I cook a steak sous-vide, I make Julia Child’s red wine sauce. After searing the steak, pour off the fat. De-glaze the pan with a glug of red wine. Let it cook down for a minute while scraping up the fond. Take the pan off heat, swirl in a knob of butter. Perfection!

I must be the only person on the face of the earth who doesn’t like ranch dressing. It isn’t the flavor. It’s the texture.

I love the cranberry Jezabel that Lindac shared.

LOL on the Ranch. I've had the authentic kind that has a lot of herbs and tangy buttermilk that was quite good--I agree on the texture. Drippy. But good for salad, not dipping. The kind for dipping, ubiquitous at restaurants, either isn't buttermilk based or has a bunch of gum in it and the only discernible flavors are onionish and salt.

I mix 1/2 & 1/2 good bottled Ranch Dressing and thick sour cream or plain yogurt, shake in a few drops of hot sauce and everyone dives into it when I take it to family get-togethers so it must taste all right. I always take a nice assortment of veggies to go with it. But the Ranch Dressing is full of alliums so I can't eat it.

Thanks, plllog. I actually don’t know exactly what defines harissa, so I was a little surprised to see such a short, spice-lacking, ingredient list. Maybe I’ll try homemade sometime.

Re ranch dressing, isn’t “authentic” Hidden Valley?

Don't have a favourite.....it depends what we're eating.

Harissa here is a fearsome fiery paste!

Y'see, harissa as I know it is fiery but not fearsome, and has bits of pepper in it rather than being a blended paste. Or, the Moroccan kind I'm familiar with. It looks like the Tunisian kind is more paste like. :)

There's a green Yemenite kind of a hot thing that's fearsome, but still delicious.

Hm... FOAS, the real deal harissa is way hotter than tabasco, but fruity, rather than chemical tasting. Homemade you can control the heat. You can also toast up and grind other spices, like cumin and coriander. Or whatever you like.

So I looked up Hidden Valley, which is the original. It doesn't look like what I remember either! It's all chemicals and made up with mayo. There's buttermilk already in it. I may be totally misremembering, but didn't it used to be made up with buttermilk and sour cream? It was really tangy. Never a favorite, but not the nasty stuff they have now....

I make Ranch Dressing with all fresh ingredients (nothing dried), and it includes homemade mayonnaise, fresh dill, fresh parsley, fresh garlic (you can omit this if you have to avoid alliums), freshly ground black pepper, and fresh lemon juice. Sometimes I add sour cream, but generally not buttermilk, although you could. I have served it as a dip for chips.

I also make several types of tartar sauce - most frequently with mayo, fresh dill, minced dill pickle, lemon juice, and black pepper. I also add minced green onion, if I have it, or fresh chives, which I always have in my back yard. I also make Molho Tártaro, a Brazilian tartar sauce that olives, capers, and pickled carrot, but no dill pickles.

That harissa recipe is somewhat similar to the smoked chocolate Habanero sauce that I make, but I grill the red bell peppers, chocolate Habanero chilies, and garlic over mesquite, for the smoky flavor.

I add this sauce

Lars, thanks! I will try your recipe adding Summer Savory for flavor since I can't have the garlic. Sounds WAY better than bottled chemicals!

"...but didn't it used to be made up with just buttermilk and sour cream?"

plllog, I remember the first time I had HV was when my MIL made some. Pretty sure she added buttermilk and mayo. Everyone kept commenting about the tasty salad dressing.

My favorite dipping sauce for artichoke leaves when I was growing up was Catalina salad dressing. They changed their formula in the 80s to make it sweeter and, frankly, awful. Both mother and I were repulsed and unhappy...

Way back when (well, 2014), I adapted a Catalina-copy cat recipe with a few minor changes, and made my own tasty derivative. https://goatsandgreens.wordpress.com/2014/03/05/homemade-catalina-style-dressing/

I link to the source recipe within my blog post, should you rather that.

^^^

Of course, best dipping sauces depend on what one is dipping!

Artemis, that does sound good! I don't know that I ever would have thought to put something like that on an artichoke. Totally with you about the comfort food. :)

As a child, it was my job to mix up the ranch dressing in an old mayonnaise jar using the powdered package and buttermilk and mayo (Hellmans, of course). We all loved it, so novel and new instead of vinaigrette or thousand island! Eventually but not long there was no need for buttermilk as the package then contained solids and regular milk was used.

I still remember that original though with the buttermilk and think that was the best ranch dressing ever. It wasn't as sharp as many are today and no comparison to the jarred stuff.

Thanks, Bumblebeez! We didn't have it at home, so my memory of it isn't solid.