Thousand Island Dressing Recipe

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This homemade Thousand Island Dressing Recipe comes together in 5 minutes with just 5 ingredients. It’s thick, delicious, and perfect on your next salad.

Thousand Island dressing in a clear bowl on a countertop with pickles and lettuce in the background.


 

This Thousand Island salad dressing is a fantastic sauce with so many uses. And everyone has their version. It might be “burger sauce,” “secret sauce,” or “house sauce,” but it’s pretty much always the same thing: an addictive blend of mayo and ketchup with pieces of vegetables like pickles, red onion, dill relish, or some other element with tang stirred in.

This homemade salad dressing is great on salads like Garden Salads or a Wedge Salad – anything with a crunchy green that can stand up to the thick texture. It’s also delicious smeared on a Cheeseburger or Reuben Sandwich and is also an essential element in Hot Rebuen Dip. And, it’s the perfect dipping sauce for French fries. Animal style, anyone?

Recipe ingredients

Labeled ingredients for thousand island dressing.

At a Glance: Here is a quick snapshot of what ingredients are in this recipe.
Please see the recipe card below for specific quantities.

Ingredient notes

  • Pickles: Sweet pickle relish sounds like an easy substitute, but it’s too heavy and wet in this dressing. To cut the sweetness, substitute dill pickles.
  • Ketchup: Some recipes use chili sauce (such as Heinz chili sauce), so feel free to substitute that if you prefer.

Step-by-step instructions

  1. In a small bowl or mason jar, add together mayonnaise, pickles, ketchup, lemon juice, garlic, and salt to taste (I like ½ teaspoon). Whisk or shake to combine.
Thousand Island dressing in a clear bowl on a countertop.
  1. Use immediately or refrigerate up to 4 days.
A salad with thousand island dressing on it.

Recipe tips and variations

  • Yield: This recipe makes 1 ½ cups homemade dressing or 12 servings, 2 tablespoons each.
  • Storage: Store covered in the fridge for up to 4 days.
  • More mix-ins: If you love an extra-chunky dressing, stir in 4 minced green olives (with pimientos) and/or 2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley.
  • Less sweet: To tone down the sweetness, use dill pickle relish instead of the sweet. To remove sugar entirely, choose a no-sugar ketchup.
  • Spicy flavor: Turn up the heat in your dressing with hot sauce, fresh horseradish, sriracha, or cayenne pepper. A pinch of black pepper can go a long way, too.
  • More salad dressing recipes: DIY dressings are always better than store-bought. Make your own Ranch Dressing, Blue Cheese Dressing, Creamy Cilantro-Lime dressing (made with Greek yogurt), Red Wine Vinaigrette, Balsamic Vinaigrette, or French dressing (which is a lot like Russian dressing).
A reuben sandwich on a cutting board surrounded by chips and a pickle spear.
This grilled Reuben Sandwich is made with Corned Beef, Swiss Cheese, Sauerkraut, and Thousand Island Dressing on Marble Rye Bread.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Thousand Island sauce made of?

The fundamental components of Thousand Island dressing are mayonnaise, ketchup, and pickles, but everyone has their own special twist on this classic.

What is the legendary Thousand Island dressing?

The original Thousand Island dressing was created at by a chef from Boldt Castle. The chef, Oscar Tschirky, forgot a salad dressing for his employer, and improvised with a quick mixture of mayonnaise, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, pickle relish, and a hard-boiled egg.

Put your dressing to work

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Thousand Island dressing in a clear bowl on a countertop with pickles and lettuce in the background.

Thousand Island Dressing Recipe

This homemade Thousand Island Dressing Recipe comes together in 5 minutes with just 5 ingredients. It's thick, delicious, and perfect on your next salad.
Prep Time 1 minute
Cook Time 1 minute
Total Time 2 minutes
Servings 12 servings (2 tbsp each)
Course Pantry
Cuisine American
Calories 136
4.94 from 32 votes

Ingredients 

  • 1 cup mayonnaise
  • 1/4 cup bread and butter pickles finely chopped (see note 1)
  • 1/4 cup ketchup (see note 2)
  • 2 teaspoons lemon juice (from 1 lemon) or white vinegar
  • 1 clove garlic minced
  • Salt optional

Instructions 

  • In a small bowl, whisk together mayonnaise, pickles, ketchup, lemon juice, garlic, and salt to taste (I like ½ teaspoon). Use immediately or refrigerate up to 4 days.

Notes

  1. Pickles: Sweet pickle relish sounds like an easy substitute, but it’s too heavy and wet in this dressing. Not recommended.
  2. Ketchup: Some recipes use chili sauce (such as Heinz chili sauce), so feel free to substitute that if you prefer.
  3. Yield: This recipe makes 1 ½ cups dressing or 12 servings, 2 tablespoons each.
  4. Storage: Store covered in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.

Nutrition

Serving: 2 tbspCalories: 136kcalCarbohydrates: 2gProtein: 1gFat: 14gSaturated Fat: 2gTrans Fat: 1gCholesterol: 8mgSodium: 179mgPotassium: 25mgFiber: 1gSugar: 2gVitamin A: 62IUVitamin C: 1mgCalcium: 5mgIron: 1mg
Did you make this recipe?Tag @culinaryhill on Instagram so we can admire your masterpiece! #culinaryhill
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Meggan Hill is a classically-trained chef and professional writer. Her meticulously-tested recipes and detailed tutorials bring confidence and success to home cooks everywhere. Meggan has been featured on NPR, HuffPost, FoxNews, LA Times, and more.

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Comments

  1. The acid in properly prepared mayonnaise and the pickles will certainly allow it to be stored for much longer than four days . The foods at picnics do not spoil because of mayonnaise but rather the foods they are served with.

  2. My mom made Thousand Island dressing using mayo, ketchup, sweet pickle relish, finely chopped onion, chopped boiled egg and salt and pepper to taste. It was delicious!

  3. How do restaurants keep their lettuce so crisp? In many steakhouses they serve a “mixed” salad, the ingredients are chopped finely…what ingredients would you suggest to make this type of salad?

    1. Hi Barclay! So in some restaurants, they keep cut Romaine in water in the walk-in fridge and bring out smaller amounts for service. At home I just rinse, pat dry, and store in a ziplock with a paper towel. If it’s in a container, I put a damp paper towel in there. Hope this helps! – Meggan

  4. I’d almost forgotten about Thousand Island dressing, seems it used to be way more popular than now, but anyway, needed some for St. Patrick’s Day reubens I’m making, so tried this, and it was better than any I remember tasting in the past. I’d not have thought to put it on burgers, but I have some left, so will try that next. Thanks for a great recipe.5 stars

  5. Mayonnaise has eggs ls  there a substitute for This ingredient
    Or is there a mayo egg free on the market or a recipe where I can make my own. So happy you have this amazing web site. I prefer to make mine fresh due to sugar content thank you 

    1. Hi Patty! First of all, thank you so much for your kind words. Secondly, yes! They do make egg-free mayo. You just have to look for the mayo at the store labeled vegan, and it will be egg-free. I know they definitely carry it at Target, but you can probably find it at most grocery stores.

  6. I made this for Shrimp Louie.  Extra garlic, combo lemon juice and vinegar, added finely chopped red onion.  Wonderful.  Thanks!  Definitely try it on burgers, and will do the taco salad innovation!5 stars

  7. My mom used to make a lot of her own salad dressings. She was a food preparer for a restaurant. She passed away 12 years ago and I lost her recipe book! Finding your blog page has been great, now I can make the dressings for my family! Thank you!!!  Now, I have a question, have you ever made a recipe that was mashed potatoes with chopped beats in it? My mom used to say it was a Norweig Potato salad!! If you have, could you please post the recipe for it? I would truly love to have it!!!! Thank you!!!5 stars

  8. Mmmm. I just can’t wait to make this dressing. And I’m stealing David’s ^^^ idea for taco salad as well. 

    Thanks Meggan!

    1. That number represents the total time it takes to make the recipe. It’s called cooking time but that is a misnomer. There is no way for me to change what the field is called. So sorry for the confusion. A correct title would be something like “recipe assembly time.” Thanks and sorry again.

    1. Dana dingies berry kidding right 😂 can you say thanks for the recipe I’m surprised you count what do you do for a encore lol….. Thank you for your recipe really appreciate you sharing it with us

    1. Hi Betty, I have never heard of this. But it sounds AMAZING! I’ll see if I can dig anything up on it. Thanks for the question!

  9. You know, we could just make enough for the salad and not have to worry about shelf life? I got really good at single serving sized dressings with some practice…

    1. Yes Chemen! There’s actually a serving slider on the recipe card so you can drag it to 1 serving and it will do all the math conversions for you on ingredients. So that’s a really good idea! :D

    2. Meggan’s recipe really got me started on small batch dressing. For quick cole slaw dressing, a bit of mayo and sour cream, cider vinegar and sugar. Bingo. No bottle to deal with.

  10. It’s a great base. I’ve been mixing in sour cream and chipotle in adobo sauce(Embassa brand) for taco salad.

  11. I’m not one to usually comment when I’ve altered a recipe, however the basics are from your recipe and I’m thrilled!  Somehow I didn’t have fresh garlic or lemon juice and I wanted to try this NOW…  so I used apple cider vinegar and dried garlic… I decided to throw in some dried onion flakes as well and I’m very pleased!! I did use sugar free pickles and ketchup, but with our lifestyle, wouldn’t be noticeable whatsoever!! Beautiful addition to our week of lunches, thank you!!! 5 stars

  12. Hi Meggan!  Just a quick update that I tried your sauce tonight and oh my goodness!  It absolutely made the cheeseburgers!  I never would have thought to try lemon juice, but it was exactly the ingredient (that acid touch!) that made this sing.  Didn’t have garlic but will try that next time– still delicious without it, so I can only imagine what it would be with it.  I used chile sauce and sweet pickle relish as that is what I had, left out the salt (due to dietary considerations–there was salt in my burger marinade), but those were small differences and it was still such a winner.  Next time will try the ketchup and garlic just to see, but either way, this is most definitely a winner. Thanks so much!  5 stars

  13. To answer the question about how long this sauce will last, it’s the fresh garlic that would be of the greatest concern, as it can actually become toxic after a few days.  Using garlic powder as a sub would take care of that risk.  The lemon juice is also something I’d be a bit leary about– any fresh citrus juice is really only good for a couple of days as well. I imagine using another more stable acid, like white or apple cider vinegar, might remove that as a risk, but since it’s such a simple recipe it seems easy enough to mix this in small quantities that I’ll use up quickly. Thanks for doing the homework on this recipe, Meggan.  Trying it with burgers tonight!

    1. Thank you, Marcia! And yes to garlic/botulism. I appreciate your insights on this. I didn’t realize something like white vinegar would be more stable than lemon juice, but now that you say it, it sounds os obvious. So grateful for your knowledge on this subject!

  14. I like this recipe. Tired of buying a bottle and then just throw it out. Tonight I made a creamy garlic recipe I got from Allrecipes. This thousand island recipe covers the base flavors which is what I was looking for. Thanks Meggan.

    1. That’s so nice David, thank you! You made my day. Glad you enjoyed it. Take care! :)

  15. Sorry for being a jerk-face. I reread my comment and I was out of line. I think that would last quite a bit longer than 4 days is all, probably months, being that the ingredients are packaged and not fresh. If the ingredients were homemade the life would be shortened for sure.

    1. Totally fine, it’s all good. I would agree with you if the garlic and lemon juice weren’t fresh, but they are so that might complicate things. I’ve had this for a week in my fridge and separation occurs at that point. It started to look really watery. I never went back and tried to fix it or assess it and I cannot say for sure whether it was dangerous (probably not) or just unappetizing (to me, yes).

  16. Why refrigerate for “up to 4 days?” Did you pull that number out of your ass? You’re taking ingredients with an incredible shelf life and giving them 4 days. Dumb.

    1. Thanks, Nick. Geez. I’m going by the guidelines for leftovers from the National Restaurant Association and the CDC. Didn’t pull the number out of my ass. Once you mix all that stuff together without preservatives, it doesn’t exactly last forever. But please, show me your Food Safety Manager Certification and tell me I’m wrong.

    2. I was really taken aback as well when I first read this comment, but very pleased to see that Nick apologized further down.  Way too many people don’t do that when they’ve been called out on a mistake– and doing it publicly is even rarer– so I’m letting Nick off the hook on this one.  

      You handled the situation very well yourself, Meggan. 

    3. That’s nice of you to say, Marcia. Although, I probably shouldn’t have said as much as I did. I could have communicated the information without the attitude. I just don’t get many negative comments on my blog (because hey! It’s just a food blog!) so I think I was surprised more than anything. But yes, he apologized, and it’s all good. Thanks for the thoughtful comment.