Compare Condiments
How to choose between condiments, plus 3 side-by-side comparisons.
Condiments comparisons (3)
How to choose
Calorie density: flavor without the bill
Mustard, hot sauce, salsa, vinegar: 0-15 cal/tbsp. Soy sauce: 10. Ketchup, BBQ: 20-25. Honey, jam: 60. Mayo: 90. Tahini, olive oil: 90-120. Pick acid-based defaults and reserve the cream-based ones for use cases where they genuinely win.
Sodium content: small servings, big numbers
Soy sauce: 900mg/tbsp. Hot sauce, ranch, ketchup, fish sauce: all sodium-heavy. The 2,300mg daily target dies to a sandwich and a stir-fry. Low-sodium soy sauce drops to ~500mg and is nearly indistinguishable in a cooked dish.
Sugar content. Ketchup, BBQ, honey mustard are the offenders
Ketchup: ~4g sugar per tbsp (25% sugar by weight). BBQ sauce: 6-15g per tbsp. Honey mustard, sweet chili: similar. Sugar-free versions exist and are reasonable for daily users. The sweetness profile holds up in cooked applications.
Use-case fit: versatile vs. specialist
Mustard, hot sauce, vinegar, soy work on almost anything. Mayo, ranch, blue cheese have specific homes (sandwiches, wings, dips). Default to versatile and keep specialists for the jobs they actually do better.
About comparing condiments
Acid- and umami-based condiments (mustard, vinegar, hot sauce, soy, citrus) deliver flavor at near-zero calories. Cream- and oil-based ones (mayo, ranch, Caesar) charge a real premium. Mayo is 90 cal/tbsp, mustard is 3.
Nobody measures condiments, which is why they're the most overlooked calorie multiplier in the kitchen. Swap mayo for mustard on a daily sandwich and you save roughly 9 pounds a year.
Common mistakes
Pouring instead of measuring salad dressing
Restaurant salads come with 4-6 tbsp of dressing, 300-500 calories of vegetable oil and emulsifiers. Order it on the side, dip your fork, and you'll use a fraction of that. The single highest-leverage move at any sit-down meal.
Treating mayo as 'just a thin layer'
1 tbsp of mayo is 90 calories. The 'thin layer' on a sandwich is usually 2-3 tbsp = 180-270 calories. Mustard, hummus, mashed avocado, or Greek yogurt all give you mouthfeel at a fraction of the cost.
Ignoring restaurant condiments
Restaurant sauces and dressings come in portions 2-4x larger than home use. A 'salad' at a chain restaurant is regularly 1,000+ calories from dressing alone. Dressing-on-the-side is the highest-leverage restaurant fix you can make.
Frequently Asked Questions
Last updated: Apr 24, 2026