Dijonnaise Is the 2-Ingredient Condiment That Makes Everything I Eat Taste Fancy

My very least favorite meal of the day is lunch. I go to bed thinking about breakfast, and I look forward to sitting down to dinner every day but lunch… ugh. I truly could take it or leave it. I hate breaking up my workday to rummage through the fridge, and I rarely have the foresight to meal prep a few hearty options to grab on a whim throughout the week.

So 95% of what I consume at noon is my sliced sourdough or store-bought sandwich bread with toppings — I think you’d call that an open-faced sandwich. On goes hummus, leftover roasted veggies, sliced avocado, tomatoes, a few slices of deli turkey or cheese, or some strange combination depending on what I have in stock. There’s one thing that always ties the whole thing together, though, and makes these creations feel legit: Dijonnaise.

Sure, mayonnaise and mustard are all well and good on their own but truly they become their best selves when you join them together. Dijonnaise is nothing but a combination of mayo and Dijon mustard and yet it results in something so much more than that. Maybe it’s the fancy-sounding name but Dijonnaise actually makes everything it touches taste fancier. Swiped on the bread I use as the base of my lunch concoctions, suddenly these open-faced sandwiches become tartines — oh là là! It’s the best of both worlds in regards to a sandwich spread — tangy, spicy kick from the Dijon and creamy richness from mayo. Why did I ever choose just one at the deli in all my years past?

Dijonnaise is my standard spread for my daily open-faced sandwiches but it also has so many other marvelous uses. It’s obviously great on regular sandwiches (hello, BLTs!), but I also love it as a dipping sauce for baked chicken tenders or steak fries, on burgers, and even with grilled shrimp kebabs.

Truly, you don’t need a recipe to make Dijonniase. Plop a few spoonfuls of Dijon into a bowl, add a few spoonfuls of your favorite mayo (I am on Team Duke’s after living in the South), and mix them together. The ratio is roughly 1:1 but I often add more mustard because I love its bite. Sometime I even throw a bit of whole grain mustard in to add a bit of texture and prettiness. And if I am at my absolute laziest, I don’t even bother with the bowl and sort of just combine the two condiments on my bread. I swipe it with Dijon, then swipe it with mayo, and kind-of, sort-of mix them together on the bread with a butter knife. Is it embarrassing to admit this to you? Anyway, whichever route you chose, you’ll end up with Dijonnaise goodness.

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