Halal Guys White Sauce on some kebab meat and veggies, wrapped in a pita.
After all the speculation (and intentional misdirection) Halal Guys White Sauce proved surprisingly easy to copycat. It’s just mayonnaise with a bit of extra tartness and ground black pepper. Makes 1 cup.
Ingredients:
1 c mayonnaise (I use Hellman’s/Best Foods)
1 t white vinegar
1 t ground black pepper
1 T water*
An extreme closeup of original sauce, showing dots of pepper.
Method: thoroughly mix ingredients in a serving bowl. Allow flavors to develop and spices to soften for at least an hour, then taste. It should be ever so slightly tarter than plain mayo. For the authentic experience, transfer to a squeeze bottle and serve with rice and Middle Eastern-style kebabs or marinated grilled chicken.
Here’s an alternate ingredient list using Greek yogurt for richness, plus extra spices. Not as authentic, but I like it better:
Ingredients:
½ c mayonnaise
½ c unflavored Greek yogurt, full fat
2 t fresh squeezed lemon juice
½ t ground black pepper
½ t ground sumac
*Water makes the sauce more squirtable and doesn’t affect the flavor. Feel free to leave it out.
Does using xanthan gum help thicken the first recipe?
I’m not sure which other recipe you’re referring to. But yes, one of the alleged copycat recipes diluted the mayo with extra acid and then used xanthan gum to bring it back to mayo consistency.
How about the Thrillist recipe? They added ground Caraway and sumac to it. I’ll definitely try this recipe out though
Take a look at this post: https://burntmyfingers.com/2018/05/16/shenanigans-on-the-halal-guys-white-sauce-circuit/ . We tested that recipe and others and some were better than others but the Thrillist writer was definitely played by the Halal Guys when they supposedly shared the recipe.
The fat content alone in the sauce packet -which comes in at 36g for 2oz – indicates the number one ingredient is mayo or something else terribly high in fat content.
Hellmans regular has 10g in one tablespoon and a 2oz sauce packet is 4 tablespoons. Even if you were to cut it with full fat Greek yogurt it brings the total down for those 2oz to about 27g of fat or less. There could literally only be a smidge of the yogurt, if any.
The missing 4g could easily come from adding the water, lemon juice, and white vinegar.
Thanks for the detective work!
They used Admiration Mayo when it was just a 53rd&6th. (I miss the lamb)
Wouldn’t it be a chuckle if they were just using this foodservice brand straight out of the jar? I googled “Halal Guys Admiration Mayo” and came up with this reddit thread with similar comments: http://www.city-data.com/forum/new-york-city/2218325-halal-guys-53rd-6th-3.html
You have to understand how the owners of these carts think and where they get their supplies. They are looking for the least amount and CHEAPEST ingredients to get the job done and they are looking to get it in bulk. They aren’t using fancy spices or greek yogurts or non of that sh!t. These are immigrant hustlers looking to maximize the American Dream and make money, not be trendy. That being said, you nailed the mayo concept. And it is for a fact Admiration mayo. Before they “blew up” I have seen workers using the 5 gallon pails of Admiration branded mayo for other tasks. Prob going back 15 years now. If you ever tasted the white sauce when they still put it in small cups, you know it does not taste anything like the one in the packets. The reason for this IMO, is because whomever they use to make the sauce packets, does not have admiration mayo available to them locally.
Thanks. BTW Admiration Mayo is available on Amazon (affiliate link) at a not-bad price for those who want to try this at home.
You might be missing some mustard (powder?). My sauce packet here in Canada lists “spices (mustard)” as one of the ingredients.
Another lovable Canadian eccentricity! The mustard seems odd because this sauce is intentionally mild and soothing (and a distant cousin of tzadziki) to contrast with the Halal Guys’ fiery red sauce.
I was doing your alternate sauce recipe and something is throwing me off. Are both the “T” and “t” mean tablespoon or the big T is tablespoon and small t are tsp? I did the sauce assuming small t was also tablespoon and now I’m unsure.
T should always mean Tablespoon and t, teaspoon. We do get sloppy sometimes but do our best to follow that simple but important rubric.