Burger Sauce, Trail Version
Shelf-stable copycat burger sauce mixed in the bag, no cooler needed.
- calories
- 180
- weight
- 1.2 oz
- cal / oz
- 150
- protein
- 1 g
- serves
- 4, scales
- prep
- 5 min
- cook
- 0 min
- total time
- 5 min
- water
- 15 ml cold
- cost
- $
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Snack
- No cook
- Car camping
- Backpacking
- Bikepacking
- Basecamp
- Canoe / raft
- Vegetarian
- Gluten free
- Nut free
- Eat in the bag
- Grab and go
- Shelf stable
- Dump and stir
Ingredients
| Single-serve mayonnaise packets | 1/2 cup total | about 8 packets; they keep unrefrigerated until opened |
|---|---|---|
| Ketchup packets | 2 tbsp | |
| Yellow mustard packets | 1 tsp | |
| White vinegar | 1 tsp | carried in a small dropper bottle |
| Sweet pickle relish | 2 tbsp | relish packets, or dried minced onion plus 1 tsp sugar rehydrated in 1 tbsp water |
| Salt | 1/8 tsp | |
| Black pepper | 1/8 tsp |
Method
- If you are using the dried substitute for relish, soak the minced onion and sugar in a tablespoon of cold water for ten minutes first.
- Squeeze the mayo, ketchup, and mustard into a quart freezer bag or a small screw-top jar.
- Add the vinegar, relish, salt, and pepper.
- Press the air out, seal, and work it with your fingers until the color is even orange with no white streaks.
- Let it sit twenty minutes if you can. The vinegar and mustard need time to spread out.
- Snip a corner of the bag to squeeze it onto burgers, potatoes, or fried food.
This is a diner burger sauce built out of things that do not need a cooler. Mayonnaise packets are the whole trick: sealed single-serves are shelf-stable, so the fridge step the home version depends on disappears. Everything else already lives at room temperature.
The original chills it for half an hour, which is about hydration and not temperature. The vinegar and mustard have to move through the mayo before it tastes like one thing instead of three. Twenty minutes in a warm pack does the same work. Mix it in the bag and the cleanup is a bag.
Once a packet is opened it is on the clock like any other opened condiment. Mix what you will eat that night.
Packing
Condiment packets ride loose in a zip bag and survive a pack better than any squeeze bottle. Count them at home so you are not guessing at camp. Mix in the bag you will serve from and there is nothing to wash.
Variations
- Half a teaspoon of smoked paprika or chipotle powder makes it a different sauce entirely.
- Dried minced onion soaked in the vinegar covers the relish if you cannot find packets.
- Stir a spoonful into instant potatoes or a foil packet of tuna to use up the leftovers.
https://domesticsuperhero.com/web-stories/secret-recipe-copycat-in-n-out-sauce-with-only-3-steps