American Burger Sauce

A good American burger is always made better by a traditional burger sauce. It's a combo of creamy, sweet, acidic, spicy & umami. If you live in America you can buy good quality pickle relish easily and make this sauce in a jiffy. But if you live in The Netherlands, I find that a lot of the pickle relish which has recently been seen on the shelves of supermarkets doesn't quite make the mark for me. Some of them have a completely wrong flavor and others are way too sweet. BUT, If you like it, go ahead and make this sauce with a store bought version!

I made my burger sauce with a homemade cucumber pickle relish. I prefer a homemade recipe for the burger sauce because this relish isn't too sweet. In The Netherlands, the mayo is sweet enough anyway, so you don't need a super sweet relish and a sweet mayonnaise. Unless of course you're a really sour person....

Burger Sauce

100 g ketchup

100 g Mayonnaise

20 g french mustard

100 g cucumber pickle relish (recipe below)

First to make the cucumber pickle relish follow the instructions in the recipe below.

Once that has cooled you can mix all the ingredients together and keep the sauce cold in the fridge until needed.

Cucumber Pickle Relish Recipe

170 g finely diced cucumbers

65 g minced onions

1/4 t salt

30 g sugar

70 ml distilled vinegar

1/2 t cornstarch mixed with 1/2 t water

Cut your ingredients very fine. Mix the onions, cucumbers and salt. Set it in a strainer and let it sit and drain the excess liquid for 3 hours. Yes 3 hours is quite long to wait for deliciousness, but they say, patience is a virtue. After 3 hours, place the ingredients into a paper towel and squeeze out as much liquid as you can.

Then warm the sugar and vinegar together until the sugar is dissolved. Cook for another few minutes util it's reduced by about half. Add the veggies and let it simmer for 2 minutes while stirring the whole time. Mix the cornstarch and water and add it to the pan. Cook mixing for 1 more minute. Lastly, transfer to a bowl and leave in the fridge uncovered for and hour.

Now you can mix the rest of the ingredients for the burger sauce!