Name: Jiffy Tartar Sauce
Ingredients: 1 cup mayonnaise or salad dressing; ½ cup finely chopped sweet pickles; 1½ tbsp lemon juice; 1 tbsp grated onion

Why it works: Lemon and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,646 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Jiffy Tartar Sauce

Ingredients

1 cup mayonnaise or salad dressing
½ cup finely chopped sweet pickles
1½ tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp grated onion

Directions

Make the sauce

Mix mayonnaise or salad dressing, sweet pickles, lemon juice, and grated onion.
Chill to mix flavors.

Serve

Serve as a sauce for baked, broiled or fried fish or on a sandwich.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

134Calories

8 gProtein

5 gFat

14 gCarbs

Counts 3 of 4 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 3 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Lemon	juice of 1 lemon (48ml)	12
Salad Dressing	not in our table	0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Lemon + oniontop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,646 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Mayonnaise or salad dressing: Forms the creamy base that carries the other flavors.
Sweet pickles: Add sweetness and crunchy texture that balance the richness.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and cuts the richness of the mayonnaise.
Grated onion: Adds sharp aroma and savory bite to the sauce.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.