Dozens of teams enter. A few will reign supreme.

Consistently voted the Best Local Charity Event in New Orleans, Hogs For The Cause is a festival and BBQ competition described as “a sweet, savory blend of all the things that are amazing in life: music, an incredible cause, family and friends, and the most delicious (and often over-the-top!) pork dishes on Earth.”

Blue Plate Mayo & Luzianne Tea at Hogs 2021

At the Blue Plate Mayo and Luzianne Tea Sponsor Tent, Blue Plate is featuring a new Creole Tomato and Cucumber Salad with Feta Dressing recipe along with a refreshing Peach Tea drink created by Luzianne Tea specially to go with BBQ! Get tickets to Hogs For The Cause.

Winning Sides to Make at Home

As many as 90 teams compete in categories such as Ribs, Whole Hog, Pork Shoulder and ‘Porkpourri’, and fest-goers get to try every dish (washed down with local beer), judge for themselves which is their favorite, and then burn it off dancing to the sounds of local New Orleans and national musical acts.

What’s more, there’s a Best BBQ Sides competition proudly sponsored by the BBQ lovers here at Blue Plate Mayonnaise! Wow the friends and fam at your next cookout with these winning sides recipes from past Hogs For The Cause competitions:

Smoky “Elote” (Smoked Corn)

Anytime the smoker is fired up is the time to make Mexican-style whole corn, wrapped in husks and seasoned with chili powder, lime and other Tex-Mex flavors. This recipe by Team “Bacon Rouge” made the winners lineup in the Best Side Dish competition.

Spicy Kimchi Potato Salad

Team “Sweet Swine of Mine” created some winning Bacon Pinwheels at Hogs 2019, and they used this unique potato salad. To make the pinwheels, spread a layer of the potato salad on strips of bacon basted with Blue Plate Mayonnaise, roll them up into pinwheels, dip in Panko bread crumbs, pan-fry in avocado oil until golden and crispy and serve with Gochujan Mayo Sauce.

Spicy Crab Shooters

This party-size tray of spicy sushi-grade crab served in clever cucumber cups was created by the “Swine Spectators” team and won first place in the Best Side Dish category in 2016. For smaller gatherings like game day at home or a dinner party, just halve the recipe.

Mexican Street Corn

In 2016, this recipe from Team “Chew Forks Farm” team made the winning lineup in the Best Side Dish category. Based on the tradition of corn sold by street vendors at festivals and events in Mexico and the Southwest, it’s a great twist on favorite flavors.

A staple at Southern summer get-togethers like picnics, barbecues, and cookouts, Blue Plate Mayo really shines in this collection of the best coleslaws, potato salads, and pasta salads around. Make your Memorial Day and summertime gatherings more delicious with these side-dish recipes made with Blue Plate – That’s the good stuff!

Coleslaws

An essential for summer, coleslaw adds cool and crunchy flavor alongside your favorite grilled meats, plus an extra layer of goodness when piled high on burgers, hot dogs, and sandwiches. Try these varieties, and find your favorite.

• Traditional Coleslaw – This well balanced slaw is based on an old Southern family recipe.
• Tangy Collard Green Coleslaw – The unexpected combination of shredded collards and a tangy dressing creates a slaw full of color, nutrition and flavor.
• Buttermilk Coleslaw – Buttermilk adds a tangy bite to creamy, crunchy classic slaw – and no spring or summer cookout, picnic, smoked meat feast or fish fry is complete without it.
• Ugly Dog Slaw – There’s a BBQ joint in New Orleans called the Ugly Dog Saloon, known for slow-cooked pulled pork, smoked brisket and made-from-scratch sides like their unusual and tangy slaw.
• Slaw Dogs – The crunch of cabbage and creamy dressing of slaw are the perfect complement to a grilled frank.

Potato Salads

Potato salad is a must-have summer side that’s practically legendary in the South. Here are the recipes that top our most-requested list.

• Cajun Potato Salad – Look for round white potatoes, such as Yukon Gold, for this salad enhanced with bacon.
• Southern Potato Salad – Every Southern family has a potato salad recipe – each one different but always delicious!

Pasta Salads

Easy to make and enjoy, pasta salads are portable, perfect for potlucks, and always appreciated. Great flavors abound here!

• Muffuletta Pasta Salad – Pickled veggies, olives and Italian cured meats and cheese are tossed in pasta with a light, creamy dressing, bringing together all the flavors of the classic New Orleans muffuletta sandwich.
• Traditional Pasta Salad – This classic salad is a tasty combination of crunchy vegetables, macaroni noodles and light, creamy dressing.
• Aunt Viv’s Chicken Pasta Salad – Diced gherkins and olives add sweet and salty flavor to this easy salad.

In honor of Mother’s Day and mamas everywhere, let’s celebrate the comfort foods of childhood that always make us feel loved. You know the ones – the simple favorites you make for yourself and your family, whether tucked into lunchboxes, served as an after school snack, enjoyed on a lazy Saturday, or made for pretend tea parties. They’re the little indulgences that quietly say, “I love you.” Enjoy these delicious home cooked comfort foods, made with Blue Plate Mayo – That’s the good stuff!

Tomato Sandwich

When tomato season rolls around, create something simple yet magical. Add Blue Plate Mayo and sliced, juicy ripe tomatoes to soft sandwich bread for a classic Southern treat.

Deviled Eggs

There are about as many ways to make deviled eggs as there are mothers. No matter how you make them, this classic is always appreciated. Whip up these creamy stuffed eggs and watch them disappear.

BLTs

What could be more timeless than a BLT? Crispy bacon, ripe tomatoes, fresh lettuce, Blue Plate Mayo, and hearty bread. It’s a sandwich stuffed with love and you can customize it any number of ways. Get the whole family in on it with a BLT bar.

Fried Green Tomatoes

Green tomatoes are firm, tart and slightly sweet. In the South we fry them up nice and crispy and top them with homemade Garlic Herb Mayo. Eat them on their own, or on top of a traditional BLT sandwich.

Mac and Cheese

Your friends and family all tell you your Mom’s macaroni and cheese is the best they’ve ever eaten. It’s that good. Her little secret is Blue Plate Mayonnaise.

Southern Style Tuna Salad

Classic tuna salad sandwiches are a forever lunchbox favorite. This particular recipe features sweet pickle relish, which adds a nice little crunch and an extra burst of flavor.

Southern Drop Biscuits

Making fluffy homemade biscuits is easier than you think and a great way to make a Saturday mornings feel special, with a little help from Blue Plate Mayo.

Perfect Grilled Cheese

For kids and adults alike, the perfect grilled cheese brings ooey-gooey satisfaction. Mom’s tip: spread mayo on the outside of each slice of bread to make them golden brown and crispy without burning them (because mayo has a higher smoke point than butter).

 

 

From Spicy Cilantro Chicken Tacos and Fish Tacos with Corn Salsa, to Marinated Steak Tacos and Mexican Street Corn, there are so many reasons to love celebrating Cinco de Mayo. Pick your protein, and a delicious, homemade taco recipe awaits! Featuring authentic spices and fresh flavors, these Mexican-inspired dishes are just what your crowd needs to have a good time.

Pulled Spicy Cilantro Chicken Tacos

Fish Tacos with Corn Salsa

Spicy Shrimp Tacos with Chipotle Lime Slaw

Mexican Street Corn Salad

Mexican Street Corn

Mexican Chipotle Chicken Rice Bowl

Chipotle Marinated Steak

 

Springtime in South Louisiana is festival season – when people get outside in the warm sunshine, eat some good food, listen to great music and pass a good time. When it comes to the biggest festival, known as Jazz Fest, you can “fest in place” at home in the backyard or on the front porch and listen to the fun and the music live onWWOZ.org, all while digging into your favorite foods and drinks. These Louisiana festival-style recipes will inspire you to slap together a classic po-boy, bake some crawfish bread and spike your iced tea with festival flavor – whatever you need to be your “fest” self!

Fried Shrimp Po-boy

Cochon De Lait Po-boy

Grilled Sausages, Peppers and Onions with Creole Mustard Sauce

Crabmeat Beignets

Crawfish Pasta

New Orleans Crawfish Bread

Luzianne Pitcher of Classic Iced Tea

Iced Sweet Tea Mule with Sugared Blackberries

The Gulf Coast is so abundant with fresh seafood that we’ve built our food traditions around it – starting with the classic Friday fish fry, served up during Lent with hushpuppies and coleslaw. And whether we’re cooking fish, shrimp, oysters, crabs or crawfish, we use bold seasoning and tasty dipping sauces to complete a seafood feast. Blue Plate Mayo is the ingredient that brings local flavor to the next level, as a baste or marinade locking in moisture and flavor, in spice rubs and batter mixes to create a golden and crispy fried crust, and for rich ’n creamy dipping sauces and delicious side dishes like slaw and mac ‘n cheese. Explore our seafood and sides recipes, all made extra tasty with Blue Plate – That’s the good stuff!

Fried Fish with Remoulade Sauce

 

Shrimp Patty Sandwiches

Fish Fry Sides

• Buttermilk & Sweet Onion Hushpuppies – No Southern fish fry is complete without cornbread hushpuppies. These are served with a creamy remoulade sauce.
• Buttermilk Coleslaw – Tangy, creamy, and perfect alongside crispy fried fish.
• Traditional Coleslaw –  A well-balanced slaw that hails from an old Southern recipe.
• Crab Boil Potato Salad – Tastes just like the potato salad that Maw-maw makes with leftover potatoes from a seafood boil – spicy, zesty and unapologetically full of classic Louisiana flavor.

Seafood Salads & Specialties

• Shrimp Remoulade Salad – This is a French or classic white remoulade with cornichons, capers, lemons and herbs to give it a bright, tangy flavor, perfect with Gulf shrimp.
• Fancy Cajun Crab Dip – A rich and creamy appetizer featuring succulent crab meat. Serve as a dip with crackers, pita chips or veggies.
• Creole Shrimp Cocktail – Blue Plate Creamy Cocktail Sauce has a zesty horseradish kick that makes it the perfect dipping sauce for shrimp cocktail, the classic Southern appetizer and light luncheon dish that never goes out of style.
• Crawfish Hand Pies – So tasty, there are songs written about them. Filled with spicy crawfish tails in a creamy Creole sauce, they’re a taste of the bayou that can be made ahead of time and frozen.
• Grilled Blackened Shrimp Skewers – Plump Gulf shrimp are a classic on the grill, and these are full of Louisiana’s Cajun and Creole flavors. Serve them with chilled coleslaw for an easy family meal.
• Crawfish Fritters with Spicy Comeback Sauce – Springtime is both crawfish season and festival season in Louisiana, which is why hot, crispy fritters stuffed with crawfish are a mainstay.

Seafood Po-Boys

• Shrimp Salad Po-Boy – Shrimp salad is served on French bread in the style of po-boy sandwiches, dressed with lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise and dill pickle.
• Fried Shrimp Po-Boy – Fresh jumbo Gulf shrimp fried crispy and piled on French bread, dressed with mayonnaise, lettuce, tomato and sliced pickle.
• Catfish Po-Boy – A classic! Or forego the French bread, add a squeeze of lemon, and start dipping your fried catfish.\
• Fried Crawfish Po-Boys with Remoulade Sauce – Light, flaky French bread stuffed with spicy fried crawfish, dressed with shredded lettuce, tomato and a tart French-style remoulade sauce.

Dipping Sauces

Southerners know every seafood feast needs the perfect dip. Whether fried, boiled, or grilled, it’s all about the sauce. Blue Plate Creamy Cocktail and Tartar Sauces and Hot & Spicy Mayo are ready to go anytime, or use Blue Plate Mayo as a base to create your own signature sauces!

• Tartar Sauce – Quick and easy, this sauce offers a hint of cayenne, making it perfect for dipping fried fish or dressing a po-boy.
• Pink Fry Sauce – A close cousin to Sriracha Comeback Sauce, this one features Blue Plate mayo, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce and seasonings.
• Sriracha Comeback Sauce – A Mississippi favorite for dipping boiled or fried seafood, this Comeback sauce doubles as a great salad dressing.
• Louisiana Style Remoulade Sauce – In Louisiana, remoulade is a staple at any fish fry or seafood meal.

Whether they’re hitting the streets or staying in and hosting their own “Yardi Gras,” New Orleanians make their own fun, from decorating their front porches to look like Mardi Gras parade floats to serving up the best home-cooked food in the world. Here are some top recipes to help everyone pass a good time during Carnival on the porch, on the patios or in the yard. And they’re all made extra rich and tasty with Blue Plate Mayo – That’s the good stuff! Happy Mardi Gras, y’all.

Ham and Swiss Po-Boy

A simple ham and cheese po-boy wrapped in foil is synonymous in New Orleans with family get-togethers (however large or small) and carnival parades (even if it’s a parade of homes!). Serve the ham thin-sliced (we used a local NOLA brand, Chisesi’s Pride® Ham) on flaky New Orleans-style French bread dressed with mayonnaise, a swipe of yellow mustard, ripe tomatoes and plenty of lettuce.

French Fry Po-Boy

New Orleanians love their po-boy sandwiches – locally baked French bread stuffed with any number of cold cuts or fried seafood – but the simple french-fry po-boy still reigns as the original comfort food meal. It’s traditionally dressed with lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise and pickle with the option to be drenched in brown gravy.

Spicy Marinated Chicken Wings with Creamy BBQ Dipping Sauce

Crispy and bursting with spicy, sweet & sour flavor, these wings are dangerously addictive! Marinate them overnight and serve with our Alabama-Style White BBQ Sauce or your favorite dipping sauce.

Pork Chop Po-Boy

Pan-fried pork chops on French bread are a corner-store special, found on the menu in small neighborhood groceries and convenience stores across New Orleans. They make an easy lunch, dinner or snack to go – a traditional food to fill up on for a big day at work or play.

Bacon and Pimento Cheese Deviled Eggs

Pimento cheese and deviled eggs are two down-home favorites, now combined into one delicious easy-to-make appetizer that will be the hit of any gathering.

Crispy Chicken Fingers with Sriracha Comeback Sauce

Always a crowd-pleasing favorite, crispy chicken fingers are an easy Yardi Gras win. Combine with  Sriracha Comeback Sauce 0r pink fry sauce, for the kids, they’ll keep coming back for more.

Pimento or pimiento? No matter what you call it, this Southern favorite is a staple spread and crowd-pleasing dip. You can serve with crackers, celery or carrot sticks or your favorite sturdy chips, and customize to your liking with Blue Plate for the perfect pimento party.

These easy-to-make recipes will be a hit anytime. 

Pimiento Cheese Dip

Bacon Pimento Cheese Dip

Bacon and Pimento Cheese Deviled Eggs

Grilled Pimiento Cheese Sandwiches

Jalapeno Pimento Cheese Dip

Pimento Cheese Patty Melt

Pulled Pork and Pimento Cheese Sandwich

Ham Mousse and Pimento Cheese on Saltines

The iconic New Orleans sandwich – call it “poboy” or “poor boy” (and that depends on who’s asked) – has more than one origin story, but well-accepted is the legend of the 1929 New Orleans streetcar strike, when the Martin brothers, owners of a small coffee stand and restaurant, fed the strikers free French-bread sandwiches. Today it’s served citywide on the same New Orleans style French bread, with all sorts of fillings from sliced ham to fried seafood, sausage, French fries, or roast beef. And when they ask if you want it “dressed,” most locals agree that if you say “yes,” your sandwich is likely to receive generous portions of the four essentials: shredded lettuce, sliced tomato, mayonnaise and sliced pickle. Innovative new poboy recipes are created every day across New Orleans, but here are five that have become New Orleans poboy classics:

New Orleans Style Roast Beef Debris Poboy

Debris (pronounced day-bree) is all of the tiny, tasty bits of beef that fall off a roast while it’s cooking, smothered in rich beef gravy.

Fried Shrimp Poboy

Plump, fresh Gulf shrimp, fried crispy and golden, make this sandwich a local favorite. It’s found on just about every po-boy shop menu in town, but it’s easy to make at home, too.

Vietnamese Spicy Cilantro Pork Poboy (Banh Mi)

This delicious fusion of New Orleans and Vietnamese cuisines features marinated roast pork, creamy mayonnaise and a garnish of fresh cucumber, cilantro and sweet-tart pickled vegetables – all loaded onto airy French bread.

Meatball & Onion Gravy Poboy

Bring on the napkins, because they’ll be needed for this messy po-boy. Use toasted, thick-sliced bread or a French loaf and enjoy the knockout flavor combination of beefy meatballs, bread, mayonnaise, gravy and onions.

New Orleans Crawfish Bread

This popular take on the famous New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival Crawfish Bread features Louisiana crawfish tails tossed in a generously seasoned, cheesy cream sauce, all piled on French bread and baked in the oven.

 

When the weather warms up, it’s time to fire up the grill. But no matter how much oil you use, there’s always that moment when your delicate fish, perfect pork chop or beautifully marbled beef burgers flare up and stick to the grill. Why? Oil and water don’t mix, so when foods are cooking on the grill, the oil runs off and often causes flaming. Those flare-ups also cause delicate proteins to dry out and stick to the grill. 

The Non-Stick Power of Blue Plate Mayo

Try using a thin layer of Blue Plate Mayo spread evenly over your fish, chicken or beef. Here’s why it works:

• Blue Plate Mayo has a high smoking point, so it will not burn like butter or smoke like oil.

• Blue Plate Mayo is made with only the egg yolks, oil and vinegar, forming a delicious emulsion that adheres well to food, allowing it to grill without sticking.

• Blue Plate Mayo encapsulates the foods you’re cooking, sealing in flavorful juices and helping to prevent food from sticking or getting dry. 

A vehicle for flavor – Now that’s the good stuff!

Think of Blue Plate Mayonnaise as a vehicle for flavor. Add any number of spices, herbs or citrus (finely grated peel or juice) to a couple tablespoons of Blue Plate Mayonnaise, infusing it with flavor. Coat the meat, fish or vegetables with the mayo mixture before grilling. As the liquid from the coating evaporates, the flavor condenses and the juices are sealed in. It is a win-win-win situation for keeping foods from sticking, adding flavor to your foods and grilling like a pro. 

Grilled Artichokes with Lemon Caper Aioli

 

Perfectly Grilled Rib-Eyes with Tarragon Mayonnaise

Grilled Red Snapper with Avocado Mayonnaise and Salsa Verde