10 popular sauces and dips for grilling

There is no more classic sauce for grilled food: Barbecue (or BBQ) sauce gives a smoky, spicy aroma and also has a seductively delicate sweetness. It tastes best with meat, for example spare ribs or chicken wings. It gets its special taste from paprika powder, chilli and pepper. You can also easily prepare the sauce yourself and give it your own twist – for example with a pinch of cinnamon, mustard or a dash of whiskey. Our great BBQ sauce recipe ensures the dip will be a hit at your barbecue party.

Mayonnaise serves as a creamy base for many sauces and dressings, for example it is the basis for tartare sauce or the dressing for Caesar salad. But the sauce also tastes great with meat and fish. Mayonnaise essentially consists of egg yolks and oil, which are mixed together. Admittedly: It’s not that easy to make yourself. The oil and the egg yolk should be at the same temperature, not too cold, so that they combine well. You should also make sure to only use fresh organic eggs and to chill the mayonnaise well. For summer days, we have created a recipe for temptingly fresh lime mayonnaise. If you add at least two cloves of garlic to your mayonnaise, you will get the Spanish garlic mayonnaise aioli, which goes perfectly with grilled food.

A sauce for real connoisseurs: The American Thousand Islands sauce is a salad dressing that only began its culinary triumph a little over a hundred years ago. Since then, the sauce has been found in many variations and, in addition to salads, also refines sandwiches and hamburgers. If you want to serve guests a delicious dip that is also easy to prepare, it is best to put a Thousand Islands sauce on the table. It gets its sweet and spicy taste by adding some yogurt, ketchup, chilli sauce as well as chopped shallots and paprika powder to mayonnaise. Everything is seasoned with salt and pepper – your trip to American cuisine is ready.

Anyone who loves Argentine cuisine with its steaks and asado (grilled meat) is probably familiar with chimichurri – everyone else is in for a delicious surprise! The name refers to a typical Argentinian sauce, which, with its fresh taste and delicate spiciness, is also perfect as a dip or marinade for your barbecue. To make chimichurri, parsley, oregano and bay leaf are mixed with spices and mixed with oil and vinegar – we also have a recipe for homemade chimichurri sauce for you. You have to try it!

With the satay sauce you prepare a typical Southeast Asian, vegan sauce that has many fans with its spicy, peanutty taste. It goes particularly well with skewers of chicken or pork, which you can put on the grill. Based on our recipe for satay sauce, we swear that you can also add a touch of spiciness to the sauce with ginger or chilli. Our tip: Satay sauce tastes sensational with grilled cheese and summer rolls.

The highlight of every movie night is also a popular dip when grilling: guacamole. It is creamy, subtly spicy and makes tortilla chips in particular a delicious experience. For a tasty snack after grilling, you can place these chips in an aluminium cup on the still warm grill and sprinkle with a little cheese. There are countless variations of guacamole. Some love it in the Mediterranean style with basil and garlic, others swear by the particularly creamy version with Greek yogurt. We refine our favourite guacamole with a little garlic, tomatoes and a pinch of chilli: creamy garlic guacamole.

Chutney provides a very special taste: the Indian, fruity-spicy jam goes wonderfully with meat dishes, (grilled) cheese and fish. When preparing chutneys, you can have fun in the kitchen – you can add all kinds of spices to the basic recipe and conjure up your very own favourite chutney. Fruits serve as the basis for this, for example mango, plums or pumpkin (yes, that is a fruit!). They are caramelized, refined with spices such as garlic, ginger or mustard seeds and boiled down. Chutneys can be stored in jars for several weeks. Our delicately spicy pumpkin chutney with orange jam is a great recipe that you can prepare in under an hour.

Light pink, sweet and slightly spicy, cocktail sauce tastes great not only with shrimp, but also with meat, fish and vegetables. The basis for the classic is mayonnaise, which is mixed with crème fraîche (or sour cream), a little ketchup, sugar, garlic and – especially important – a dash of cognac. The mild taste of the cocktail sauce is a European peculiarity: in the USA, it tastes much more intense with chilli and horseradish. The sauce is also ideal as a dressing if you mix it with yogurt and a little orange juice.

Last, but not least, we come to the classic among the classics: No dipping sauce is as popular as ketchup. Did you know that the name actually comes from an Asian fish sauce? This is called Kê-tsiap, American immigrants modified the sauce and created the dip that we value so much today. Cooking ketchup yourself isn’t all that difficult. Traditional ketchup contains tomatoes, sugar, vinegar and spices such as allspice, nutmeg and cloves. Depending on your taste, you can also experiment with cinnamon, chilli or curry. We have composed a particularly aromatic spice ketchup that tastes excellent with potatoes. Our tip: If you fill your homemade ketchup into bottles, your guests at the table will definitely be wide-eyed.

We hope you’ve got a taste for it and are inspired by our sauce ideas. We have also collected great barbecue hacks for your perfect barbecue. Have a look!