Fry Sauce - in The United States

In The United States

The Utah-based Arctic Circle restaurant chain claims to have invented fry sauce around 1948. However, a recipe for Thousand Island dressing dating from 1900 has mayonnaise and ketchup and pickles as the only ingredients, albeit in a 1:1 ratio.. Arctic Circle serves fry sauce in its restaurants in the western United States. Many other fast-food restaurants and family restaurants in the region, such as Carl's Jr, Crown Burgers, Apollo Burger, Astro Burger and Hires Big H, also offer their own versions of the sauce. Some variations include chopped pickles, chopped onions, and shredded cabbage. Utah franchise locations of McDonald's also carried fry sauce until 1997. Many other national fast food restaurants in Utah and nearby states serve fry sauce.

In Idaho and the Pacific Northwest, fry sauce is also popular and is found at many local restaurants as well as chains such as Dairy Queen and Sonic.

In the 2008 film Step Brothers, there is a scene in which the main characters referred to a home-made sauce of ketchup and mayonnaise as "fancy sauce".

In early 2010, Stephen's Gourmet began distributing a bottled, shelf-stable traditional fry sauce to grocery store and mass merchandise chains throughout the United States. It hit the shelves in Utah and the Pacific Northwest in May 2010. Prior to that, a company bottled fry sauce sold mainly in Utah called "Some Dude's Fry Sauce." Similar to Stephen's variety, it is also shelf stable and sold in grocery chains throughout Utah and parts of Idaho. The Utah-based Arctic Circle also now sells their fry sauce in bottles at most of their locations.