How to Make Thousand Island Dressing

You only need about 2 teaspoons of onion for the whole batch, so a small piece is plenty. Shave thin slivers off the onion with your knife, then lay them flat and rock the blade through the pile until the pieces are very fine. Because this is a dressing, you want the onion small enough that no one bites into a big chunk.

Keep running your knife through it, scooping the pile back together and chopping again, until it turns into a fine, even mince. If chopping onion isn't your thing, dried onion flakes work too. Use the same 2 teaspoons and the flavor still comes through.

Scoop the minced onion into a mixing bowl. Then add 1 cup of mayonnaise. Use real mayonnaise for this, not Miracle Whip, because that's what gives the dressing its rich, classic base. Miracle Whip is sweeter and tangier and will throw off the flavor.

The mayo is the backbone of the whole recipe, so it's worth measuring a full, level cup. Everything else builds on top of it from here.

Pour in 1/4 cup of ketchup, which gives thousand island its signature pinkish-orange color. Add 1 teaspoon of white vinegar for a little brightness. Then spoon in about 2 tablespoons of sweet pickle relish.

The relish is what makes it taste like thousand island rather than a plain pink sauce. It adds that sweet, tangy bite and little flecks of texture in every scoop. If you like it chunkier, you can nudge the relish up a touch.

Add 1/4 teaspoon of salt and 1/2 teaspoon of paprika. The paprika deepens the color and rounds out the flavor without adding any heat, so don't skip it even if you're not usually a paprika person.

These small amounts make a real difference, so measure them rather than eyeballing. A little seasoning is what takes the dressing from flat to full-flavored.

Stir everything together until the dressing turns an even, creamy pink with no streaks of plain mayo left. A whisk does a thorough job, but a spatula works fine too since there's nothing here that needs beating.

Scrape around the sides and bottom of the bowl so the ketchup and relish get fully worked in. Give it a quick taste and adjust the salt if you like. That's it, the dressing is basically done.

Cover the bowl and chill the dressing for one to two hours. This lets all the flavors settle in together and gets it cold, the way thousand island is meant to be served. It thickens as it rests, so give it a quick stir before you use it.

Drizzle it over a fresh salad, or spread it on a burger or wrap. A lot of restaurant burger sauces are basically thousand island, so use it anywhere you'd want that creamy, tangy hit. Store leftovers in an airtight jar in the fridge for about a week.