Give Fish Sandwiches A German-Style Twist With These Toppings

The German fischbrötchen, or fish sandwich, can be added to the list of classic German dishes to try at least once. It's a highly customizable dish that can be made with many types of seafood, buns, and, very importantly, fantastically fresh, crunchy, and pickled toppings. Fischbrötchen can be made with pickled herring, smoked salmon, crab cakes, breaded fish filets — really whatever fishy base you want. You can put it on a hamburger bun or kaiser roll, a dinner roll, or a small baguette. But it's the fischbrötchen toppings that really allow your personality to shine and your tastebuds to go wild. 

Take a simple fish sandwich and transform it into German-style fischbrötchen by adding traditional toppings like onions, lettuce, remoulade sauce, and pickles. The onions can be pickled or raw, red or white. Use whatever lettuce you like to add a bright, light crunch. Green leaf lettuce is a favorite of some, but romaine, spinach, or even shaved cabbage work as well. Thinly sliced dill pickles or gherkins are another perfect addition. 

And fischbrötchen's signature sauce adds an extra layer of taste and authenticity. A German remoulade sauce closely resembles tartar sauce; it's a creamy, tangy, mixture of mayo, mustard, herbs, pickles, capers, Worcestershire sauce, and more. Tangy remoulade isn't a necessary ingredient for your fischbrötchen, but it is a traditional one, and it pairs especially well with warm and crispy fried fish.

Because fischbrötchen is a broad category under which many types of seafood sandwiches fall, your personal fischbrötchen preferences can be unique to you. Of course, there are many Redditors with strong feelings about what makes a perfect German fish sandwich. "A good fischbrötchen is amazing. Preferably just the bun, a large piece of fish and some onions," one person wrote. Another yearned, "I no longer eat fish, but a proper marinated herring with onions and pickles on a bun ... I miss it."

The amount of each topping you stuff into your fischbrötchen, too, is a personal thing. Some like a sandwich with more onion than fish. Other fischbrötchen are basically vessels for remoulade. Speaking of which, if remoulade feels like too much effort to make, you can skip it. Go for a schmear of mayo or butter and a dash of mustard, which gives you that simultaneously creamy, rich, and tangy experience that remoulade would, but with ingredients you almost certainly already have in your kitchen.

But if you want to put in the effort, a homemade remoulade recipe can make a world of difference. You can even customize it. There are recipes with lemon and dill or cayenne pepper. Give it an extra flavorful kick with the addition of pickled jalapeños. At least one remoulade recipe we saw includes a hard-boiled egg and chopped apple. The beautiful thing about fischbrötchen is that it can be almost whatever you want it to be, as long as it involves fish and bread.