Five-Minute Condiments

It’s probably no surprise that sometimes my opinion on certain foods clashes with the public. The most obvious example is ketchup. While Americans consume 1 Billion tons of ketchup a year (a stat I made up), I just don’t like the stuff. I’ll use it as an ingredient, but really don’t like it as a condiment.

This doesn’t go for every version of ketchup though, just the standard. Many (many) years ago, I wrote a defense of ketchup for another blog where I made a delicious homemade version. It was a huge process though and the sad truth is that I’ve never made it since then.

The same is true for mayonnaise. I don’t love the store-bought stuff. It doesn’t have a lot of flavor, but I love homemade mayo. It’s much faster to make though and I do make that a lot.

Then there’s mustard. In my opinion, the perfect condiment. Mustard is where I buck the trend. I love mustard of all types: cheap, expensive, yellow, brown, Dijon, honey… you get the idea. I’ve made a homemade version of mustard that is easy, but requires at least a day of prep.

So where does that leave me in condiment land? I basically either use mustard, homemade mayo, or nothing. It’s a sad state of affairs.

Then I started playing with a few ways to simplify these recipes and I thought I would put them all together for you all in one big post.

In short, each of these versions takes just five minutes to make. If that doesn’t slather your bun, I’m not sure what will.

Five-Minute Ketchup, Mustard, and Mayo

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4.10 from 10 votes

Author: Nick Evans

Servings: 16 Servings

Prep Time: 5 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes minutes

Total Time: 15 minutes minutes

Homemade condiments don’t have to be an all day process. Here’s my version for homemade ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise that take about five minutes each!

Equipment

• 1 Immersion Blender

Ingredients 

Five-Minute Ketchup:

• 6 oz. tomato paste
• ½ cup apple cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• ½ teaspoon kosher salt
• ½ teaspoon black pepper
• ¼ teaspoon dried oregano
• ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
• ¼ teaspoon onion powder
• Pinch celery salt
• Pinch ground allspice

Five-Minute Mustard:

• 1 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk
• ⅓ cup apple cider vinegar
• ⅓ cup ground mustard
• 1 tablespoon turmeric
• Pinch of salt

Five-Minute Mayonnaise:

• 2 egg yolks
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• ½ lemon, juice only
• Pinch of salt
• Pinch of cayenne pepper
• 1 cup neutral oil, sunflower or vegetable

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Instructions

• For ketchup, stir together ingredients until well combined! Store in the fridge for up to two weeks.
• For mustard, grind mustard seeds (or start with ground mustard). Combine ingredients and taste. Adjust spice level to your liking. Store in the fridge for up to two weeks.
• For Mayo, combine all ingredients in a large mason jar. Stick an immersion blender in the jar so it’s all the way at the bottom. Start blending and slowly raise the immersion blender to the top. As it goes up, it will emulsify the mayo. By the time it reaches the top of the ingredients, you should have a creamy, smooth mayo. Store in the fridge for 3-4 days in an airtight container.

Notes

Mustard adapted from a Food.com recipe.

Course: Appetizers, Pantry Staples, Side Dishes

Cuisine: American

Five-Minute Ketchup

The long version of ketchup is a lot of work. Peeling tomatoes, cooking them down, cooking them down more, and cooking them down even more!

But let’s not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Turns out you can start with tomato paste and apple cider vinegar, add a good variety of spices and come out with something that will blow store-bought ketchup out of the water.

It has actual flavor!

Five-Minute Mustard

This quick mustard has a secret ingredient:

Turns out that sweetened condensed milk (plus some vinegar) ends up having a perfect mustard consistency and a nice balance of tangy and sweet. Now we just need the mustard!

You could just use ground mustard, but I went the extra mile and ground up some fresh mustard seeds.

This still takes under five minutes to make and look at that color! Plus I love the texture it gives since I didn’t completely grind up the seeds.

Stir this all together with some turmeric and you have one delicious mustard.

This quick mustard would be great on my California Turkey burgers!

Five-Minute Mayo

This is the only quick condiment in this post that requires a special piece of equipment. To make mayo in under five minutes, you need an immersion blender. Keep in mind that making it by hand with a whisk takes maybe 10 minutes so it’s still doable, but if you have a stick blender, it’s dumb simple.

The part that gets people with mayo is the emulsion part. You have to start adding the oil very slowly, a drop at a time.

If you’re using a stick blender, you don’t have to do this. Just add all the ingredients to a large mason jar. The eggs and mustard will sink to the bottom.

This mayo would be great on my easy Fried Chicken Sandwiches!

Stick the immersion blender in the jar and turn it on high! Keep it all the way on the bottom until the mixture starts to thicken. You’ll see it happen almost instantly. I would guess it takes 5-10 seconds of blending.

Then, slowly, pull the stick blender up through the oil. As it goes up, it will emulsify the rest of the oil into the mayo.

It’s a fun and impressive kitchen trick!

There ya go!

Three condiments, all very good, in less than five minutes each.

Top your burgers with good stuff this summer!