Yum Yum Sauce Recipe (2024)

Individual ingredients can be stored for long periods because they do not support bacterial growth for particular reasons, e.g. too acid, too dry, no nutrients, no carbohydrates, too salty, etc. When you combine ingredients the mixture may shift towards a happy medium and bacteria, mold and yeast can grow. Or it could be as simple as the mixture (emulsion) separates and look gross. Caveat, i'm an oceanographer not a food scientist.

Shelf life is limited by the addition of moisture to garlic powder. Almost all garlic contains clostridium botulinum spores (the cause of botulism poisoning). These spores cannot grow in a dehydrated state but will start to propagate when water is added to the environment.

I’d like to understand the five-day shelf life. When none of the individual ingredients have a shelf life of five days or less, why does combining them render consumption of the sauce ill-advised after five days? Anyone?

An alternative for the yum yum sauce is Jacques Pepin's red sauce (he plates the sauce with a crab cake set on top, very good), from Fast Food My Way: 1/3 c. mayo, 2 T ketchup, 1 t wasabi paste, 2 t lime juice, 1 T water, 2 t chopped chives. In a pinch, I've made it with first 3 ingredients only, still very good. Also goes well with fried green tomatoes, cold shrimp, fish.

Add Siracha

...to everything.

I’d recommend adding 1/4 tsp MSG, for the unafraid

Even better and easier: Gochujang plus mayo. Add about 1 t Rice vinegar to 1 t to 1 T Gochujang and stir thoroughly to a thin uniform paste. Add 1/4 to 1/2 c mayo and stir. After a few tries you'll learn to adjust the heat and acid to your taste. Substitute any acid from citrus to balsamic for the rice vinegar to match the dish. Sesame oil optional. More umami (more yum) than the original.

Thousand Island salad dressing by way of Japan! Cool.Japanese mayonaise (Kewpie) is more or less North American mayonaise with more sugar and a touch of MSG, so if you feel that this recipe is missing something you can add both to taste.

You left out five out of seven ingredients, including the Asian ones (rice vinegar, sesame oil), and added chili sauce - so you simply made a different sauce, usually called "Comeback Sauce." Huh.

Wet ingredients (such as mayonnaise and ketchup) are commercially sterilized before packaging and are thus shelf-stable. Dry ingredients are likely to contain spores that germinate once wet. When mixed, there is high likelihood of eventual bacterial and fungal growth. Even in the refrigerator, some bacteria (such as Listeria) can grow thus it's best to discard the mix after a few days.

I use a couple tablesppons of melted butter and it makes it taste quite a bit more like the restaurants

To store a little longer in the fridge, leave out the water and store in a scalded glass container. Add a little water when serving. The salt and vinegar will retard bacteria.

I prefer to make it with tomato paste, not ketchup, no vinegar, oil, or salt. Instead, a bit of melted butter, a dash of sugar, and some cayenne pepper. Goes amazingly on tacos, too.

Yep. Add Sriracha.

Gochujang!! MSG! So good.

This was by far the best recipe I’ve tried for yum yum sauce and much better than what I have bought from the grocery store. Next time I will add a bit more mayo just to mellow the flavor a bit for my kids, but we all still loved it as it was with our homemade sushi.

I followed the directions exactly and it's overwhelmingly ketchupy, like hard to taste anything but ketchup. I followed the link on the fried rice recipe to this one and I'm so glad I didn't pour it over my fried rice as directed. I can see it being good with fries or on a burger.

I thought this was a bit too strong on the ketchup flavor. Would use less ketchup in the future.

I made the recipe exactly as directed. It was delicious. I served it with the Shrimp Fried Rice recipe: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1023154-shrimp-fried-rice.

This is just like Utah fry sauce, except it tastes great! We had no trouble finding uses for the leftovers (on a sweet potato, on rice, as a dip for Ikea chicken meatballs.....).

Gochujang > ketchup

This was very good when freshly made (much better than I expected) but by the second day, the stale taste of garlic powder was taking over everything. I might try it using some cooked fresh garlic next time.

This is so good, it ruined me. I will never be able to enjoy the sub-par, far too sweet yum yum sauce at my go-to hibachi joint. I will be the person who brings their own sauce.

Add a dash of sriracha and a bit of salt and pepper. For a really nice sweet-and-smoky flavor, use smoked paprika and a pinch of sugar in place of sweet paprika.

Too garlicky.

Soy instead of water

Doesn't need the yum yum sauce. Could use gojuchang instead.

This is just another variation of Idaho fry sauce.

Back in the ‘60s a family friend used to make “dip” with half ketchup and half mayo and serve it with chips. We all loved it and thought it fairly exotic. This is much better, but clearly a descendant. “Yummy” is just a perfect description.