Horseradish Sauce – Easy Recipes with Fresh Horseradish
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Homemade horseradish sauce is surprisingly easy to make with fresh horseradish root, vinegar, salt, and a little sugar. Once you taste fresh horseradish, it’s hard to go back to the store bought stuff.
We’ll show you how to make classic prepared horseradish, plus creamy horseradish sauce and an easy homemade cocktail sauce. You’ll also learn how to adjust the heat, store your horseradish, and put it to good use.
If you like your horseradish hot, there’s one important trick: grind the root first and wait a few minutes before adding the vinegar. Just be prepared for the fumes. Freshly ground horseradish can clear your sinuses in a hurry.
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Table of Contents
How to Make Horseradish Sauce Hotter or Milder
Fresh horseradish gets its characteristic heat when the root is cut or crushed. Breaking open the plant cells allows naturally occurring compounds to react and produce the pungent mustard oils that give horseradish its kick.
Vinegar slows down this reaction.
For milder horseradish: Add the vinegar shortly after grinding.
For hotter horseradish: Grind the root and let it sit for several minutes before adding the vinegar. Around 3 to 5 minutes is a good starting point.
How hot a particular root gets can vary, so don’t expect every batch to be exactly the same.
A word of warning: Don’t lean over the food processor when you take the lid off. Freshly ground horseradish fumes are powerful.
I learned this the watery-eyed way. I’ve chopped plenty of onions without a problem, but freshly ground horseradish cleared sinuses I didn’t know I had. Good ventilation is your friend.
Easy Horseradish Sauce Recipe
This is the basic prepared horseradish recipe we use at home. You can serve it as is or use it as the base for creamy horseradish sauce and cocktail sauce.
Ingredients
- 1 cup horseradish, peeled and cut into 1/2″ cubes
- 1/2 cup white vinegar
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
Directions
Place the horseradish in a food processor and process until finely chopped.
- For a hotter sauce, wait 3 to 5 minutes before adding the vinegar. For a milder sauce, add the vinegar right away.
Add the vinegar, sugar, and salt. Process again until you reach the consistency you prefer. Transfer the prepared horseradish to a clean jar, cover, and refrigerate.
If you want to mix up the flavor, try adding a bit of lemon juice and reducing the vinegar by the same amount.
Note: Fresh horseradish is potent. Work in a well-ventilated area and keep your face away from the food processor when you remove the lid.
Horseradish Cream Sauce
For a creamy sauce that’s wonderful with roast beef, prime rib, sandwiches, or grilled meats, mix:
- 2 tablespoons prepared horseradish sauce
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise or sour cream
- 1 tablespoons Dijon mustard
- Salt and pepper to taste
Stir everything together and refrigerate until serving. You can adjust the amount of horseradish to suit your taste.
Serve with beef, standing rib roast, burgers, seafood – wherever you can use a little kick.
Easy Homemade Cocktail Sauce
Once you have prepared horseradish in the refrigerator, homemade cocktail sauce takes about a minute.
Start with:
- 1/2 cup ketchup
- 1 to 2 tablespoons prepared horseradish
Mix well and taste. Add more horseradish if you want extra kick. That’s it. This is my sons’ favorite way to eat horseradish.
If you already make your own ketchup, this is another easy way to turn one homemade staple into another.
Ways to Use Horseradish Sauce
Horseradish and roast beef are a classic combination, but there’s no reason to stop there.
Try prepared or creamy horseradish with:
- Roast beef or prime rib
- Beef tenderloin
- Beef tongue (learn how to cook it here)
- Roast beef sandwiches
- Burgers
- Ham
- Deviled eggs
- Chicken or ham salad
- Macaroni and cheese
- Mashed potatoes
- Seafood, mixed with ketchup as cocktail sauce
- Mayonnaise or sour cream for sandwich spreads and dips
My boys have even been known to mix horseradish into macaroni and cheese. Once you have a jar in the refrigerator, you’ll probably find your own favorite uses.
How to Store Homemade Horseradish Sauce
Keep homemade prepared horseradish in a tightly covered container in the refrigerator.
The flavor and heat are strongest when it’s fresh and gradually fade during storage. If you have more fresh horseradish than you can reasonably use, freezing is a better choice for longer storage.
Can You Can Horseradish Sauce?
Don’t can this recipe. There is no tested home-canning process for this homemade horseradish sauce. Keep it refrigerated or freeze horseradish for longer storage.
Horseradish is a good reminder that the best preservation method depends on the food. Some foods are well suited to canning, while others keep better frozen, dried, fermented, refrigerated, or stored fresh.
For an overview of the different methods we use, see Food Preservation Methods – 11 Ways to Preserve Food at Home.
How This Horseradish Recipe Came to Our Kitchen
Our horseradish plants and this recipe both came from my youngest son’s former piano teacher, Miss Betty. Betty and her husband had grown horseradish for years, and she was kind enough to share some roots with us so we could start our own patch.
Horseradish is a hardy perennial, and once it’s happy in a spot, it’s generally quite determined to stay there. That’s a useful trait when you want a dependable food plant, although it’s worth choosing your planting location carefully. Harvesting it can also turn into more of a workout than you might expect.
Warning – horseradish roots can be deep and strong!
While attempting to muscle the roots out of the ground, my son managed to bend the handle of our steel garden fork. The horseradish was unimpressed.
Fortunately, you don’t need to remove every bit of root when harvesting. Pieces left in the soil generally produce the next crop.
If you’d like to add horseradish to your garden, see How to Grow Horseradish for Food, Pest Control, & More for planting, growing, harvesting, and storage tips.
More Than a Condiment
Horseradish has a long history of use as both food and traditional medicine. The same compounds responsible for its distinctive heat have attracted interest for other uses, too.
Historically, it’s been used to fight bacterial and fungal infections, improve breathing issues, detoxify the liver, and more. Rather than trying to cover all of that in a recipe article, we’ve put the details in Horseradish Medicinal Benefits, including traditional uses and precautions.
A Note on Horseradish
Betty and I were talking about how few people make homemade horseradish sauce anymore, even when they have access to a horseradish patch. I wonder if that’s partly because modern grocery stores give us such an abundance of choices, including fresh produce and favorite flavors year-round.
In the old days, that wasn’t the case. After months of relying on stored winter foods, the sharp zip of horseradish must have been a welcome change. The same may be true of the heavily spiced cakes and cookies traditionally served during the colder months, when fresh fruit and other bright flavors were harder to come by.
I’ve noticed that older folks often seem especially fond of those traditional flavors, while younger people may be more accustomed to familiar favorites like chocolate and vanilla.
There’s certainly nothing wrong with chocolate or vanilla—I enjoy both. But there’s something satisfying about keeping these older flavors and food traditions alive, too.
Growing, making, and eating a wider variety of foods gives us more than something to put on the table. It gives us more to experience and enjoy.
That’s part of living abundantly in your own kitchen.
Grow It, Make It, Use It
One of my favorite things about growing our own food is seeing how one skill naturally leads to another. You grow a plant, learn when and how to harvest it, figure out how to preserve it, and turn it into something your family can use and enjoy.
Horseradish is just one small example, but those practical skills add up. They help us waste less, make better use of what we have, and become a little more resilient along the way.
That’s what we focus on at Common Sense Home—practical recipes, gardening, food preservation, preparedness, and old-fashioned know-how that works in the real world.
If that sounds like your kind of thing, join us for the Good News Letter and get new articles, seasonal tips, and practical ideas delivered to your inbox.
PrintEasy Horseradish Sauce
Simple recipes for homemade horseradish sauce – plain or cream style – made with fresh horseradish root.
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Total Time: 5 minutes
- Yield: 1.5 cups 1x
- Category: Condiment
Ingredients
- For basic sauce:
- 1 cup horseradish, peeled and cut into 1/2″ cubes
- 1/2 cup white vinegar
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- For creamed sauce:
- 2 tablespoons prepared horseradish sauce
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise or sour cream
- 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
- Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- For Basic Sauce:
- Put all ingredients into a blender or food processor at high speed. Blend until creamy. Put in a jar and store in the refrigerator.
- For Creamed Sauce:
- In a small bowl, blend all ingredients. Makes about 1 cup. Store in refrigerator.
Notes
- If you don’t have a food processor or blender, grate the horseradish root as finely as possible and blend with other ingredients for the basic sauce. For a hotter sauce, grind horseradish separately. Wait 3 to 5 minutes before adding the rest of the ingredients. For a milder sauce, blend as directed.
For homemade cocktail sauce, start with:
-
1/2 cup ketchup
-
1 to 2 tablespoons prepared horseradish
Mix well and taste. Add more horseradish if you want extra kick.
This article is written by Laurie Neverman, author of Common Sense Preparedness and Never Buy Bread Again. Laurie grew up cooking and baking alongside her momma and, at age 15, helped start Irene’s Custom Cakes & Catering with her mom and two sisters. She has more than 40 years of hands-on experience cooking, baking, gardening, and preserving food, and has shared tested recipes and practical food-storage techniques with Common Sense Home readers since 2011.
Originally posted in 2016, last updated in 2026.
This is our first go at making homemade horseradish. It was planted in the fall of 2021 and has never been dug. My grandpa always processed horseradish in the spring. It doesn’t sound like the preferred time but is it ok to harvest at this time of year? Also when prepping to freeze….should it be peeled First?
Thanks!
Yes, it’s okay to harvest in early spring, before the roots put too much energy into growing greens. Spring harvested roots will be a little sweeter. If freezing whole roots, I’d leave the peelings on to protect the roots.
Aged, mellow horse radish can be achieved with this recipe, a freezer and patience.
Since there have been freezers, I was always taught to never fill the jar too full. Keep the liquid over the raw horseradish, but a keep pinky finger, about 1/4 inch, of liquid from touching the top of the jar at minimum.
The liquid expands in the cold, and you do not want the jar to break. Put the jar in a bag also if you worry about it expanding and overflowing (I always do). In a deep freezer, a 3/8 inch or 1/2 gap is great. Always clean the top of the jar with hot water before you put the lid on, even during use. A tight seal is essential for horseradish flavor to keep in the jar and not in the air of the freezer or fridge.
Make your chosen simple vinegar based ground horseradish recipe. The finer it is ground, the “hotter” it will be.
As the jars in the deep freeze age, the hot flavor becomes a lot more mellow and the earthy flavor starts to arise. In a deep freezer, between 15 and -5 degrees F, label the date the jar went in. Fresh or less than 5-6 freezer months is a great for stand out flavor dishes, shrimp cocktail and other tomato sauces. 9 months becomes great for adding to stews, chilis and hearty dishes that require less fluid in the mix.
After 1 year or more, your NEVER OPENED frozen year old jar with look a bit golden, because it is. Use this as your taste buds desire. Patience pays off. Keep this cycle going and after 1 year you will have every flavor of horseradish for your food and your health. It may not seem easy, as I learned from my grandfather, because at first it, it is not. The true reward comes later, like most special things in life.
For horseradish to be used with beef, I like the Mayo/sour cream combo half and half, with fresh grated horseradish. I add a bit of Dijon mustard, white wine vinegar, kosher salt, and freshly ground pepper. This may sound unorthodox, but I add a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce which I don’t use on anything but it worked here. Garnish with chopped chives.
For cocktail sauce I prefer Heinz Chili Sauce, rather than ketchup. Add grated fresh horseradish and a splash of fresh lemon juice.
Great thread! I have canned in water bath and kept in fridge. Adding some fruit fresh to preserve the color. I have limited freezer space so I am going to try to dry some. Thanks for the good idea. I am also going to try and freeze a few whole roots. My patch didn’t get harvested last year, so this year some was split and woody but still plenty to use. I love mustards and horseradish. My favorite is on a BLT! [who can afford prime rib! ] I also have extra of fresh garlic and I am going to add some to my horseradish for a try. Not all batches but some. I will also gift some away to family and friends. I have broken food processors with horseradish root, good ones too! Waiting for a hard freeze or two helps the flavor too. I have used my Nana’s meat grinder too. I am going to try and use a new one. I’d love to find the patch in Northern MN! Yum
My creamy horseradish sauce uses 1/4 c of each mayonnaise and sour cream. My recipe for cocktail sauce includes 1/4 tsp lemon juice.
Horseradish is far too invasive for a patch. I grow it in pots. When I want to harvest about a year’s worth, I’ll choice to repot it in a larger pot or divide it. No more breaking my fork.
I grow ginger and turmeric the same way.
I want to grow horseradish this year, do you have any words of wisdom or advice for starting a container plant?
Hello, love all these comments as well as the recipe. Can you tell me if it is possible to freeze the horseradish cream? I have a ton of it!. Thanks, Sue
It’s likely to separate, and the flavor may mellow, but it should still be usable as long as you’re okay with a texture change.
I have read that you can freeze the roots and grate as needed. I have never tried to freeze the horseradish cream after I’ve made it. I doubt that it would be as pungent as freshly made.
My husband loves this recipe! Thanks, I didn’t have a clue how to make it.
Glad we were able to help, Shirley.
With freezer space limited, I dry a lot of produce. Last year I dried some of the extra root and then ground it to a powder in my spice grinder. I reconstitute it, in small batches, with white wine vinegar, add sugar and salt and voila! “Fresh” horseradish sauce. Pungent and great for adding to casseroles, etc.
Is it extremely fragrant while drying, or not too bad?
Some folks say out of the kitchen when doing industrial quantities of this stuff, esp. around Easter time. Peel, chop and mix in the garage with the door open. It can get pretty toxic.
I won’t probably ever make this, it is too easy to purchase prepared product for two people. I will note that real Wasabe is very expensive and what we buy reasonably in the supermarket for Wasabe is colored horse radish product. Not bad, just not real Wasabe. I love it all. My mouth is watering just typing this.
I watched a video of one of the traditional wasabi makers – such time and care involved. If you’re only making for two people, you could whip it up quite fast with minimal discomfort. It was only as we worked through the bin of roots (and I leaned over the grinder) that things became more pungent.
Love your website! For storing horseradish, my Granny always filled a deep long box with dry sand and buried the harvested roots in that. You then keep the box in a dry, cool, dark spot, like the basement or crawl. They keep very well right into the next harvest. We have ‘fresh’ roots all year that way.
Thanks, Karen.
I tried this method last fall with a few roots and just looked at them the other I actually forgot about them and they were in pretty good shape, So this year I will put bigger size roots in the sand.
Another question why does the ground up root that you froze lose allot of it’s heat when you defrost it?
Thanks Marcie
It’s basic food chemistry. The compounds in the root that make it hot react to air and start breaking down when you grind it. So if you grind it, freeze it, and thaw it, there’s a fair amount of time for that reaction to happen, and you lose heat. It would be better to freeze roots whole, or freeze the sauce with vinegar.
From the horseradish people at horseradish.org:
Thank you so much for the great info.
You’re welcome.
Oh I forgot to mention dig horseradish in a month that has an R in it. Don’t know why but my Mom told me that years ago. So I only dig it up in the fall usually September.
Marcie
Yes, you don’t want to dig the roots during the growing season, because the plant pulls up energy out of the root for foliage.
Thanks for the reply. I often wondered why the digging exclusions. But it makes sense like removing foliage of tulip bulbs etc…. I planted the crowns that I cut off the root so I can have my own patch.
We use an old fashion meat grinder for our horseradish and freeze it in small jars that I save during the year. One cup jelly jars work good also. We like a little on pizza. Mix it with ketchup for a good shrimp sauce.
I never thought of horseradish on pizza. Thanks for the tip.
I take my food processor outside and set up my horseradish making on the picnic table. The first time I made horseradish, I was in the kitchen and the fumes were so strong I had tears streaming down my face. My husband thought it was hilarious!
My family loves fresh horseradish!
Nice to know that the roots can be kept in the refrigerator until you need them.
I bet your sinuses were clear for the rest of the day. 😉
I made horse radish sauce today for the first time. I read, somewhere, that letting the shredded horse radish chill in the frig for 30 minutes before adding vinegar would maximize ‘heat’. So I tried that. We’ll see!!!!
I know that letting garlic or onions sit, chopped, intensifies their flavor/odor, so it wouldn’t surprise me if the same thing works for horseradish.
The first time I made fresh horseradish sauce, I had to hold a towel over my face while I was processing it. The tears were streaming down my face! Now I take all my equipment, my food processor, and extension cord outside to my picnic table when making horseradish. I usually make about a dozen pints at a time because everyone in the family wants some.
First time I grated horseradish was in Cyprus. An ancient island near Lebanon and Israel, Cyprus is a natural home for one of the “bitter herbs” in the Seder plate. Because the sun is strong in Cyprus, so is the horseradish! When I grated my first root I was literally forced out of the kitchen by the pungent aroma. I returned with my scuba mask on and all was well.
Good potency on those roots. 🙂
Yes the smell makes your nostrils swell your eyes run and your nose runs!!!!
But God is it good!!!
I started a patch 2 yrs ago when I moved to a new location so a month that has an R in it so it is my time to dig some to see how its going under ground!!!!!
This sounds great! I love horseradish, but don’t always like the sauces I buy in the store. Great idea for making your own. I’ve never seen horseradish in the grocery store, but then again, I’ve never looked. I’m sure I can find it somewhere!
Hi I live in Northern MN and there is a huge natural peat bog in an area where I live and a Wisconsin company comes and loads semi’s up with the horseradish root and takes them back to WI for processing. The name of the horseradish in the stores is called Silver Springs and it is an excellent product. You may not have it in your area but if you do it is very good. I do process my own when I can find the roots.
I’m gonna try to make horseradish that taste like Silver Spring Applewood Smoke flavored Horseradish sauce.
I’m addicted to it.
I grow my own horseradish and now I want cranberry flavor too. Wish me luck.
I live 1 1/2 north of Eau Clair WI
If you find the flavor you like, share the recipe!
Ask someone where it is located – I can find it in my stores in Dallas, but so many of them have so many additives, I won’t buy them. The best (read the label) ingredients for horseradish are these: horseradish, vinegar, salt. That’s it. When they start putting cream, mayonnaise, etc., in the ingredients it defeats the whole purpose of just having horseradish in my opinion. Hope you find it in a store near you! Marilyn Lee @cantstopcooking
I agree 100%. Thank you!
Whole Foods on Amazon does deliver horseradish roots
I read that to keep your horseradish under control you were to only plant as much as you could eat in a year. I have horseradish and I love it. I am going to try to can 1 half cup jar this year. If it works then next year I will see if I can get my in-laws patch under control. I love the the old spices and try to grow as many of my own herbs and crush them when I need them. It makes such a big difference in flavor.
The planting only as much as you need is a good theory, but can be hard to implement in real life. Any bit of root left behind can and usually will grow into a whole new plant. I’m sure the neighbors didn’t start with a 12 foot long patch of horseradish, but after numerous decades, they now could keep the whole township supplied.
You are absolutely right on the flavor of fresh and properly preserved herbs versus most of what’s in the supermarkets. It’s like night and day.
Try a bit of horseradish in ham and bean soup.
Grandma suggested this and WOW it is excellent, give it a try.
Grandma’s rule: only harvest horseradish in months that end with R.
Search – Horseradish superfood – more science will expand and confirm this, in my small opinion.
This sounds yummy! I love the flavor of horseradish, but I’ve never tried processing it myself. How long does the sauce keep? Is it better to make a bunch at once, or does the root store well enough to make a new batch as you finish the old batch? Thanks!
I’ve kept the basic sauce for several months in the fridge. It discolors slightly over time. I haven’t tested how long the root keeps, but I would keep it in a crisper drawer or some other damp, cool location to keep it from wilting. Once ground, the flavor does slowly start to fade, so for maximum kick, I would make it in small batches. If my fridge wasn’t already packed with other harvest goodies, I may have tried keep some fresh root. Since it was our first time doing this, I had no idea how much finished product we would end up with – now I know! (And everyone’s getting horseradish!)
I’ve stored whole roots in the freezer for months and it hasn’t affected the taste or hotness when I’ve taken them out to use. I read somewhere ages ago that the roots only release their flavour when they’re chopped up or grated. Don’t know how true it is as I’ve only frozen whole roots.
Given that the roots are very firm, and that I was able to see and breath just fine until we started grinding them, I would suspect that you’re correct.
I have canned my horseradish, seal jars in a water bath. Kept for 3 years.
How did you can this?
Typical processing time for relishes and such is 10-15 minutes with quarter inch headspace.
Did you can using a water bath canner or pressure canner? I would love to can my horseradish and have it be shelf stable…
Typical processing time for relishes is 10-15 minutes in a water bath canner with quarter inch headspace.
I store whole horseradish roots in the refrigerator for a year at a time. I peel and grate only what I need for immediate use. The key to making horseradish hot, and I mean HOT, people, is when to finish it off with the next ingredient — vinegar. Vinegar stabilizes the flavor and when you add it, will affect the spicy outcome. If you add the vinegar too soon, the horseradish will be milder in flavor. For “knock your socks off” spicy, be sure to wait three minutes before adding 2 to 3 tablespoons of (5% strength) white distilled vinegar and ½ teaspoon salt for each cup of grated root.
That makes sense, as leaving onions and garlic sitting after chopping will also intensify the flavor.