If you make this homemade cocktail sauce and dip just one shrimp into it, you will never buy prepared cocktail sauce from the store again!
I love cocktail sauce on shrimp, but you have to go easy on the horseradish. One night many moons ago, when David and I lived in Virginia Beach, we lived only a few miles from a steakhouse we use to frequent. One night we ordered some shrimp that came with cocktail sauce. I’m not sure what happened in the kitchen, but I was NOT prepared for the amount of horseradish I was about to consume. It was as if they had ground up a whole root of horseradish and put it in the cocktail sauce. I popped a shrimp into my mouth. Immediately my eyes began to water, my sinuses shut down and I could not breathe for what seemed like 3 minutes, gasping for air. I think the horseradish in that cocktail sauce burned out every nose hair inside my nose. It was spicy hot!!
You’d think I would have been traumatized by the whole incident, but I wasn’t. I still love it, especially when David makes this homemade cocktail sauce. He started making homemade cocktail years later after we couldn’t find our usual brand at the store. It is really amazing how much better homemade cocktail sauce is versus the stuff you buy in the store. It’s so fresh and you can control the flavor and the amount of spice from the horseradish.
This homemade cocktail sauce is a fresh, slightly spicy mixture of chili sauce, prepared horseradish, lemon juice, and Worcestershire sauce.
The recipe is below. Enjoy, but watch out for that horseradish or you could lose some nose hairs!!
Homemade Cocktail Sauce
Ingredients
- ¾ cup bottled chili sauce
- 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon prepared horseradish
- 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
Instructions
- In a mixing bowl whisk together all the ingredients to combine. Make ahead of time and chill in the refrigerator until needed.
Sherri Parker Thompson says
Wow. Learned something new. I have always made cocktail sauce like Mama did…start with ketchup and add refrigerated horseradish to taste….we like it so hot that you sweat and it leaves a burn. The spicier the better.
Debbie Spivey says
I can’t do too much horseradish. It takes my breath! I do like spicy though.