Recipes

Recipes · Condiment

Sauce, Mississippi Comeback

Condiment · Quick & Easy · Sauces

Sauce, Mississippi Comeback
Prep 10 min
Serves Yield: about 4 to 6 servings

Ingredients

  • 1/4 cup of olive oil
  • 1/4 cup of chili sauce
  • 1/4 cup of ketchup
  • 1/2 to 1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce, or to taste
  • 1 teaspoon of spicy mustard
  • 1 cup of mayonnaise
  • 1/4 teaspoon of freshly cracked black pepper, or to taste

Couple dashes of hot sauce

  • 1/4 teaspoon of Cajun seasoning (like Slap Ya Mama), or to taste
  • 1/2 teaspoon of onion powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder
  • The juice of 1/2 of a lemon

Directions

  1. Put all of the ingredients in a blender and process until well mixed. Taste and adjust for seasonings. Store in fridge for about a week. Use on everything!

Notes

Cook’s Note: Worcestershire sauce can be a strong flavor for some. Start with 1/2 teaspoon and increase up to a full tablespoon, or more, to taste. For an extra spicy kick, substitute Sriracha chili sauce for the regular chili sauce. Storage time will depend on the freshness of the mayonnaise, but try to use this up in about a week or so generally. Be sure to store it in the fridge a tightly closed container, like a Mason jar if you have one and remember you can use it as a sandwich spread, on a salad, on hamburgers, as a dipping sauce for French fries and other fried foods, and it’ll be gone before you know it!

Comeback Sauce, which also has some, shall we say, rather interesting alternative spellings, was birthed in the 1930s at a Greek restaurant, The Rotisserie, located in Jackson, Mississippi. Known back then as simply their house dressing, it very quickly caught on and has earned fame, spreading across the city to other restaurants and eventually across the south. Comeback Sauce is truly the queen mother of all Mississippi condiments.

Completely versatile, Comeback Sauce can be used as a burger condiment, as a sandwich spread {it is super duper yummy good on a fried baloney sandwich with caramelized onions on Whitewheat bread, oh my…}, smeared alone on simple plain saltines, or preferably, Captains Wafers, used as a salad dressing, as a dip for crudités, fried green tomatoes, boiled shrimp, fried shrimp, raw, steamed or fried oysters, fried pickles, fried mushrooms, onion rings, french fries, well, just about anything really! It’s a basic all around sauce that once you try, I’m sure you’ll fall in love with.

Though ingredients now vary a bit from region to region, most contain some mix of mayonnaise, ketchup, chili sauce, Worcestershire sauce, onion and garlic … to start. From there, it is your own creation really, so feel free to experiment and decrease, increase or add ingredients that sound good to you. With all due respect to those who author the recipes containing only mayonnaise, ketchup and a lot of black pepper, that is not a true Comeback Sauce. It’s a decent fry sauce, but it’s not Comeback Sauce!

Mississippi Comeback Sauce has a more intense, layered profile and has a little bit more to it than those three ingredients! I prefer my sauce smooth, so I use garlic and onion powder, but feel free to exchange that for fresh if you prefer. Just be sure to mix it up ahead of time and give it time for the flavors to marry in the fridge, because it only gets better. Aptly named, it really is so good you’ll “comeback for more.”