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Sauces & Dips

The part that makes the plate make sense. Everything from a chimichurri you'll remember to a hollandaise you'll stop fearing.

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🇷🇺RussiaEasy

Sauces and Dips

Khrenovina

A raw Siberian horseradish-and-tomato sauce, also called gorloder, known for its burning heat. Fresh tomatoes, horseradish root, garlic, and hot pepper are ground together uncooked and seasoned with salt. It is served with pelmeni, meat, fish, and on black bread.

20 min15 kcal20 serves

🌱Vegan🌾Gluten-free🌶️Spicy

🇱🇧LebanonMedium

Sauces and Dips

Labneh with Sizzled Tomatoes

Labneh is strained yogurt — drained overnight until it's thick, tangy, and spreadable. The tomatoes are the opposite: cooked fast in very hot oil with garlic and cumin until they blister and burst, then poured while still sizzling over the cold labneh. The contrast is the point. Cold and creamy against hot and jammy. You can buy labneh at most Middle Eastern grocery stores and save the overnight step, but making it yourself takes nothing except time.

30 min180 kcal4 serves

🌿Vegetarian🌾Gluten-free⚡Quick

🇱🇧LebanonMedium

Sauces and Dips

Muhammara

Muhammara comes from Aleppo, Syria, and the name is Arabic for 'reddened'. It's a roasted red pepper and walnut dip with a flavor unlike anything else in the mezze world: sweet from the peppers, tangy from pomegranate molasses, earthy from toasted walnuts, with a slow heat from Aleppo pepper. Breadcrumbs give it body and a slightly grainy texture that holds up on pita. The dip improves overnight — the flavors round out and the texture firms slightly. Unlike hummus, which can be polarising, muhammara tends to win over everyone who tries it.

20 min195 kcal6 serves

🌿Vegetarian🌱Vegan⚡Quick

🌍AzerbaijanMedium

Sauces and Dips

Narsharab

An Azerbaijani sauce of 100 percent pomegranate juice slowly reduced to a thick ruby syrup and seasoned with warm spices like cinnamon, coriander, and basil. Its name means pomegranate wine; traditionally unsweetened and tart, it is served with grilled meat and fish.

55 min35 kcal16 serves

🌱Vegan🌾Gluten-free

🇻🇳VietnamEasy

Sauces and Dips

Nuoc Cham

Nuoc cham is the essential Vietnamese dipping sauce — a bright, balanced mix of fish sauce, lime juice, sugar, garlic, and chili that ties together spring rolls, grilled meats, rice bowls, and noodle salads with sweet, sour, salty, and spicy notes in every drop.

5 min35 kcal4 serves

⚡Quick🌾Gluten-free🌶️Spicy

🇮🇹ItalyEasy

Sauces and Dips

Pesto

Pine nuts and garlic pounded with fresh basil, sharp Pecorino, and fruity olive oil into a vivid green sauce. Made properly in a mortar, the texture stays slightly coarse and the basil flavor stays bright, not bruised.

18 min570 kcal4 serves

🌿Vegetarian⚡Quick🥑Keto

Pesto al Limone (Ligurian Lemon Basil Pesto)

🇮🇹ItalyEasy

Sauces and Dips

Pesto al Limone (Ligurian Lemon Basil Pesto)

Pesto al limone is Genovese pesto with lemon zest and juice worked in: the acid lifts the basil and holds the sauce emerald green for days instead of hours. It comes from the Ligurian coast, where the basil is small-leaved and the olive oil is mild rather than peppery. Everything is pulsed cold and briefly, never blended smooth — the heat of a running motor is what turns pesto brown and bitter. Fifteen minutes of work, about 250 ml, enough sauce for 500 g of pasta or a week of sandwiches.

15 min210 kcal6 serves

🌿Vegetarian🌾Gluten-free⚡Quick

Pickle Dip (Creamy Dill Pickle Dip with Cream Cheese and Greek Yogurt)

🇺🇸USAAdvanced

Sauces and Dips

Pickle Dip (Creamy Dill Pickle Dip with Cream Cheese and Greek Yogurt)

Pickle dip is a creamy American party appetizer built on softened cream cheese, Greek yogurt, finely chopped refrigerator dill pickles, and fresh dill. The brine from the pickles cuts the richness of the cream cheese, the yogurt adds tang and lightness, and a cold rest in the fridge lets the flavours integrate into one smooth dip rather than separate notes. Serves eight from a single bowl with kettle chips, rye toasts, or vegetable sticks. The technique is simple, but two details matter: dice the pickles small (3 to 4 mm), and bring the cream cheese fully to room temperature before mixing.

75 min120 kcal8 serves

🌿Vegetarian🌾Gluten-free

🇪🇸SpainMedium

Sauces and Dips

Romesco Sauce

A thick, brick-red Catalan sauce of roasted red peppers, toasted almonds, garlic, tomato, stale bread, and sherry vinegar, pounded together into a rustic paste with smoked paprika and good olive oil. Romesco is one of those sauces that makes everything it touches better — grilled vegetables, fish, roasted chicken, even a fried egg. It originates from the fishermen of Tarragona who needed a bold sauce for their catch, and it has not changed much since.

25 min150 kcal6 serves

🌿Vegetarian⚡Quick

Rouille (Provençal Saffron Garlic Sauce for Bouillabaisse)

🇫🇷FranceMedium

Sauces and Dips

Rouille (Provençal Saffron Garlic Sauce for Bouillabaisse)

Rouille (literally 'rust' in French — for its rusty-red color) is the classic Provençal saffron and garlic sauce from Marseille, the inseparable partner of bouillabaisse. Technically an emulsion similar to aïoli but with three defining additions: saffron (the soul of the sauce, giving color and perfume), hot pepper (piment d'Espelette or cayenne for the warm bite), and soaked white bread (the traditional Marseille technique that gives rustic texture and stabilizes the emulsion). Spread on baguette croutons floating in fish soup, used as a dip for seafood, or as a sandwich spread. Vegetarian, quick, spicy. Active work 15 minutes plus 5 minutes for saffron infusion. Yields 250 ml, serves 8 with bouillabaisse, fish soup, or seafood.

20 min240 kcal8 serves

🌿Vegetarian⚡Quick🌶️Spicy

🇲🇽MexicoMedium

Sauces and Dips

Salsa Macha

Salsa macha is Mexico's chili oil — but denser, crunchier, and more complex than the Asian version most people know. It comes from Veracruz and Oaxaca, where dried chilies, raw peanuts, sesame seeds, and garlic are fried together in neutral oil, then roughly blended into a dark, chunky paste. The name comes from the Spanish word for 'brave' or 'bold', and the flavor earns it: smoky, nutty, fruity from the dried chilies, with a heat that lingers rather than spikes. One jar changes how you think about eggs, tacos, grilled meats, soups, and avocado toast. It keeps for a month in the fridge and gets better after a day.

25 min120 kcal10 serves

🌿Vegetarian🌱Vegan🌾Gluten-free

🇬🇪GeorgiaMedium

Sauces and Dips

Satsebeli

A Georgian tomato-and-walnut sauce whose name means for dunking. Ripe tomatoes are reduced and blended with walnuts, garlic, cilantro, basil, and Georgian spices like blue fenugreek into a tangy, pourable sauce served with grilled meat, potatoes, and bread.

30 min55 kcal12 serves

🌱Vegan🌾Gluten-free⚡Quick

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