Comeback sauce substitutes

Not a substitute but the recipe, listed first because it is made entirely of things most kitchens have and takes three minutes. Every part has a job: mayonnaise gives fat and body, chili sauce gives sweet tomato tang, the oil and lemon juice thin it to a pourable dressing, Worcestershire gives the savoury depth that makes it taste like more than pink mayonnaise, and the raw garlic and onion give the sharp aromatic edge. It should taste bright, garlicky and faintly sweet, and it should run off a spoon.

Best for

fried chicken, catfish and shrimp, saltine crackers before the meal, iceberg and wedge salads, french fries and onion rings, burgers and sandwiches

Make it a day ahead if you possibly can. Freshly mixed it tastes of raw garlic and separate ingredients; after a night in the fridge the garlic mellows and the whole thing tastes like one sauce, which is the difference between a decent dip and the real Jackson version. It keeps about a week refrigerated and improves for the first three days.

The closest cousin on the shelf, and structurally almost the same sauce - mayonnaise, paprika, mustard, garlic and hot sauce. The differences are thickness and emphasis: remoulade is thicker because it does not have the oil and lemon, it leans much harder on mustard, and many versions include horseradish and celery, which makes it sharper and greener-tasting. Thinned and used as a dip nobody would flag it. As a salad dressing, the extra mustard is noticeable.

Best for

fried seafood and shrimp, crab cakes, fried chicken, sandwiches and po'boys

If the remoulade contains horseradish, expect a sharper sauce and consider adding a pinch of sugar to soften it. A creole remoulade tinted red with paprika and cayenne is closer to comeback sauce than a pale French-style one, which is mayonnaise with capers, cornichons and herbs and tastes quite different.

Genuinely most of the way there, and the fastest route from a bare fridge. Mayonnaise plus ketchup is the same base, and the four additions supply what comeback sauce has that fry sauce does not - savoury depth from the Worcestershire, aromatic sharpness from the garlic, colour and warmth from the paprika, and the thin pourable body from the lemon and oil. Without those additions plain fry sauce tastes blander and much thicker by comparison, more like a spread than a dressing.

Best for

fries and onion rings, fried chicken, burgers, a quick approximation with no shopping

The oil and lemon juice matter more than they sound. Comeback sauce is meant to be thin enough to pour over shredded lettuce, and fry sauce as normally mixed is far too thick for that. Add them a teaspoon at a time until it ribbons off the spoon rather than mounding.

Close in family, different in detail. Both are pink mayonnaise-based sauces of roughly the right thinness, so the shape is right. What changes is the sugar and the pickle: Thousand Island contains sweet pickle relish and considerably more sugar, and comeback sauce contains neither, so the result is sweeter, flecked rather than smooth, and less garlicky. On a salad it is good. With saltines before dinner, where the sharp garlicky savour is the appeal, the sweetness reads wrong.

Best for

salads and wedge salads, burgers, a no-mixing emergency

Russian dressing is the better of the two here, being sharper and less sweet and often already containing horseradish or chilli. If your Thousand Island is very sugary, a squeeze of lemon and an extra dash of hot sauce pull it back toward savoury. Stirring in a spoonful of plain mayonnaise dilutes the sweetness and thickens it if it is very thin.

A workable pivot if ranch is what the fridge holds. It gets the creamy, pourable, savoury shape right immediately, and the chili sauce supplies the pink colour and the sweet tomato note. The unmistakable difference is buttermilk and dried herbs: ranch is tangy in a dairy way and carries dill, parsley and chive, so the sauce tastes herby and cool rather than sharp and garlic-forward. As a dip for fried chicken it is very good. As the house dressing on an iceberg salad, where comeback sauce belongs, it just tastes like ranch with ketchup in it.

Best for

fried chicken and chicken tenders, fries and wings, raw vegetables

Use a plain ranch rather than a peppercorn or chipotle version, which add flavours that pull further away. A grated garlic clove helps a lot here, since ranch's garlic is usually powdered and mild and comeback sauce's raw garlic bite is a defining feature.

The honest least-bad version, for when there is no chili sauce, no ketchup and no Worcestershire. It is recognisably in the right family - creamy, tangy, peppery, garlicky - and it is a pleasant dip. But it tastes noticeably flat and pale next to real comeback sauce, and the reason is specific: Worcestershire is what supplies the savoury, almost meaty depth that stops the sauce being just seasoned mayonnaise, and there is nothing else in a normal kitchen that does quite the same thing.

Best for

an emergency dip for fries or fried fish, sandwich spread, when the cupboard is genuinely bare

If you have soy sauce, fish sauce or even a little anchovy paste, half a teaspoon of any of them covers a good part of what the Worcestershire would have done, since all three bring the same fermented savoury depth. A pinch of sugar and an extra shake of paprika also help it read closer to the original.