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IHOP Tartar Sauce

High histamine

This tartar sauce is high in histamine, driven by lemon juice, capers, vinegar, and mustard.

Most of this is cooked to order, which is the best case for histamine. Even so, a restaurant kitchen preps ahead and holds things warm through a service, so freshness varies more than it would at home. The rating above comes from the chain's published ingredients. If a dish is borderline for you, asking how it is prepared tells you more than the menu does.

This is a creamy dip built on oil and egg yolk with relish, lemon juice, capers, mustard, and vinegar.

  • Lemon juice concentrate and capers — lemon is a classic liberator and capers run high, so these two alone push the sauce up.

  • Vinegar and mustard — both sit at moderate and the relish adds to the picture, so there is no single part carrying it.

Because several parts run high, this one is hard to lighten, so a plain sauce would be a better bet.

This rating comes from IHOP's own published ingredient statement, read on August 11, 2026. Restaurant recipes vary by location and change over time, so always check the current listing: source 1, source 2. How we rate foods →

IHOP Tartar Sauce and IHOP are trademarks of their respective owners. This page is an independent histamine reference and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the brand.

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References

  1. SIGHI Food Compatibility List — SIGHI (2026)
  2. Histamine and histamine intolerance — Maintz & Novak (2007)
  3. Histamine Intolerance: The Current State of the Art — Comas-Basté et al. (2020)
  4. Low-Histamine Diets: Is the Exclusion of Foods Justified by Their Histamine Content? — Sánchez-Pérez et al. (2021)
  5. Histamine Intolerance: Symptoms, Diagnosis, and Beyond — Jochum (2024)
  6. Guideline on management of suspected adverse reactions to ingested histamine — Reese et al. (2021)