Why I Turned Cocktail Sauce into Russian Ukranian Dressing, and How!

Here’s one thing you don’t often read about in a cookbook or recipe: what to do with leftovers, and/or leftover ingredients. For me, leftovers are why God invented lunch. And the microwave. Why “leftover” has a bad connotation, I don’t know.

Leftover ingredients, however, are often like a ticking time bomb. You need to use them up before they pass their prime. In my house, that’s what salads are for. We have salad for dinner at least three times a week, and it is anything but boring. I will throw all kinds of things into a salad, from leftover undressed penne pasta to deboned, roughly chopped BBQ chicken wings. Leftover cooked veggies, raw corn, meat, cheese, fresh or dried herbs, nuts, dried or fresh fruits, pretzels, crushed Doritos, leftover boiled potatoes (cold), raw turnips, cooked grains, beet greens … they’ve all commingled in one of my orgiastic salads at one time or another. You just give some thought to color, texture, flavor, and you can make all kinds of combinations work.

A leftover ingredient might tempt you to find another recipe that uses it … but that dish will inevitably require more ingredients that will then be leftover, and a vicious, never-ending cycle begins. I would rather use up that ingredient in a terminal act that relies on other staples I already have. This Russian Ukranian dressing was inspired by my desire to use up some cocktail sauce that was leftover from a recent stay-at-home shrimpfest. “I’m not sure which I like more: shrimp, or cocktail sauce,” is what I can hear myself saying, although I’d eat a sauceless shrimp any day, but would never eat a spoonful of cocktail sauce on its own. But what else can you do with cocktail sauce?

Russian Ukranian dressing! You know what I almost always have on hand? Mayo and onion. Combine that with cocktail sauce, and – surprise, surprise – you get a dressing so good, Dr. Zhivago would walk through the snow for days just to have a little taste. The amount of cocktail sauce you use – as well as whether or not (or how much) to use horseradish, chili powder, tabasco, or sriracha – will depend on how much of a bite the cocktail sauce has on its own. Russian Ukranian dressing is supposed to be bold and spicy, so go for it.

You Will Need:

1 cup mayonnaise
¼-½ cup cocktail sauce (or ketchup)
1 Tbs drained horseradish (optional)
1 tsp minced onion

Likely Additions:

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
¼-½ tsp sweet paprika
½ tsp fresh lemon juice

Possible Additions:

Hot chili powder, tabasco, or sriracha, to taste
2 Tbs pickle relish
1 Tbs parsley
1 clove garlic, minced

How To Do It:

Uh … you pretty much just mix everything together. Then you taste it and go, “Hmm, I wonder if I could get away with using a bit more horseradish.”

Yield: between 1¼ and 1½ cups

Toss your salad with a gutsy Russian Ukranian dressing, and that’s a salad that you serve with a beer. Slather your corned beef sandwich on marbled rye with Russian Ukranian dressing, and that’s a sandwich you eat with a beer. Looks like one way or another, you’re having a beer. You’re welcome.

Credit for images on this page: Tchaikovsky: Britannica. All others: Make It Like a Man! Hover over images and/or green text for pop-up info. Click for joy.

This content was not solicited, nor written in exchange for anything. Putin Zelenskyy did not ask Obama to convince me to promote Russian Ukranian dressing in exchange for my cousin’s admission to the Moscow Conservatory.

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