How To Store Homemade Yum Yum Sauce So It Stays Fresh

Smooth, tangy, rich, and luscious — we could only be talking about yum yum sauce. The pink-orange condiment is just as versatile as it is quick to assemble...but, once you whip up a big batch, how long does it stay fresh? Stored in an airtight container in the fridge, homemade yum yum sauce will last for one week. It tastes even better with each passing day, as the flavors have been allowed to meld and chill. But, for foodies playing the long game, start checking on your batch after the seven day mark (that is, if there are any leftovers remaining by then). If your sauce smells at all "off" or has begun to separate, toss it out.

Marking the tub with a piece of masking tape with the prep date written on it can be a helpful gauge of time passed. Also, to minimize excess oxygen exposure (aka oxidation, one of the main culprits of food spoilage), store your sauce in as small of a container as possible; the less empty air space between the sauce and the walls of the container, the better.

Pulled straight out of the fridge, that tub of chilled yum yum sauce makes a fantastic dipping sauce for raw crudite veggies like cauliflower florets, baby carrots, celery stalks, and matchsticked bell peppers. You could even use the thick chilled sauce for dipping crispy chicken nuggets, sushi rolls, fries, or buffalo wings (hello, elevated movie night snack).

Not to be confused with spicy mayo, yum yum sauce is made from a mayo base, but also adds melted butter, sweet mirin, soy sauce, miso paste, tomato paste, and paprika. Some preparations also add other ingredients like rice vinegar, ketchup, garlic, and onion powder into the mix; our homemade yum yum sauce recipe adds sriracha for a kick of heat.

Happily, the condiment's base ingredients (butter, mayo, ketchup, and hot sauce) hold up notably well in the fridge, making yum yum sauce a fairly durable staple fixture to stock at all times. The acidic lemon and/or vinegar in the mayo naturally deters bacterial growth, ultra-acidic ketchup and hot sauce don't even need to be refrigerated at all, and butter can be left covered at room temperature for a couple days before turning. Thanks to these hardy elements, yum yum sauce can go the distance. Still, to be safe, give it the sniff test after a week has passed.

If you're in the clear, feel free to add a smear of yum yum sauce to the sesame bun on your next kimchi burger, or use it as the moisture component on your go-to sandwiches. Yum yum sauce would be especially delicious on a chicken katsu cutlet sando with pickled cabbage slaw, a cold BLAT (bacon, lettuce, artichoke, tomato), or even on a classic grilled cheese in place of regular mayo.