How to Make Olive Oil Mayonnaise
I hate mayonnaise. I hate how it tastes. I hate how it smells.
There, I said it. So, why did I go to the trouble of making it from scratch? It was more like a means to an end. Let me back up a bit.
I really like buttermilk ranch dressing. My favorite? The little packets of seasoning that you use to make it yourself. Mmm… heaven. Until I realized those little packets are full of monosodium glutamate (MSG). No wonder it tastes like heaven.
So what does this have to do with mayonnaise? Mayonnaise and buttermilk are key ingredients in making homemade ranch dressing. As I tested out different recipes, I substituted plain yogurt for the mayonnaise, but it never tasted right to me. Mayonnaise was the missing ingredient. Bummer. But because I had gone to great lengths to avoid the “MSG packets” as my husband calls them, it would make sense to go further and avoid the nasty oils and junk in commercial mayonnaise. Even the “olive oil” types of mayonnaise still contain mostly soybean oil.
Oh, it goes one more step, folks.
Mayonnaise is basically an emulsion of egg yolks and oil (with seasonings). Making mayonnaise from scratch means eating raw egg yolks, so using high-quality free-range eggs is important. (“cage-free” is not the same thing as “free-range”)
When we moved to Reno, I searched on Craigslist to see if anyone was selling eggs from chickens they raised in their own backyard. (You probably think I’m completely nuts. Or a complete hippie.) I found a woman who lives a mile and a half from me who sells me the eggs from her “girls”. (The eggs in the photo above… aren’t they pretty? And yes, that one in the middle is light green. I had no idea eggs came in light green.)
When you get fresh eggs, they come in all different sizes and a few different colors. The color of the egg has to do with the breed of chicken. Brown eggs aren’t any more nutritious or better tasting than white eggs, despite how “fancy” they look in the grocery store.
You’ll also notice that the yolks from fresh may be darker. Fresh eggs taste better, too. I won’t go into the nutritional differences between fresh and commercial eggs. Let’s just say that whatever you put into the chicken is what comes out in the egg. Feed the chickens a healthy diet (what they’re genetically designed to eat) and you get healthy chickens (and healthy eggs). Feed the chickens garbage and. . . well, you can figure out the rest. The same principle is true with animals. And humans.
K, back to the mayonnaise. Using an immersion blender make this a piece of cake, but you can also use a blender. (You might end up with more mayo stuck inside the blender, though.)
Put all the ingredients except for the oil into a bowl or a large plastic cup. Buzz it for a minute or so until it gets creamy, then gradually add the oil in a small drizzle while blending.
Keep blending. And blending. And blending. When you wonder why it’s not getting thick, you suddenly realize you put in the whole eggs instead of just the yolks. Hold back a curse word (because your 3-year-old is sitting next to you), dump the mixture down the sink, and start over.
New bowl. New ingredients. See what a lovely yellow that is? I swear I didn’t mess with the color saturation. It’s really that bright. (Thank you, fresh egg yolks!) When you drizzle in the oil and blend it for a minute or two . . .
it gets thick! It’s not as thick as regular mayonnaise yet (it will thicken after it sits in the fridge), but you can go ahead and use it. Because you used olive oil, it’s going to taste like olive oil. (Huh. Imagine that.) You can tamper with the seasonings, adding salt or more vinegar if you like it more tangy. (I do.)
Keep it in an airtight jar in the fridge and it will keep for two weeks. Next time I’ll have a recipe for buttermilk ranch dressing that will be almost as yellow as this lovely mayo.
P.S. I still don’t like mayonnaise, but it sure makes buttermilk dressing taste good. :)
Homemade Olive Oil Mayonnaise
Yield: about 1 cup
Ingredients:
2-4 egg yolks (fresh, free-range eggs if possible)
1/2 tsp mustard
2 T lemon juice
1 1/2 T vinegar (I like balsamic)
3/4 tsp sea salt
3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil (grapeseed would be good neutral-flavored oil to use if you don't like olive)Directions:
In a medium-sized bowl (or a large plastic cup) combine all the ingredients except for the oil. Insert immersion blender and give it a quick buzz until it's creamy. Still continue to blend as you add the oil in a slow drizzle. The mixture should thicken after a minute or two. If you're using a cup, use up and down motions to bring the emulsion together.
Adjust seasonings if necessary and store in an air-tight container for 2 weeks.
adapted from The Nourishing Gourmet
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Janssen — March 4, 2011 @ 4:08 am
I love mayonnaise. Like, lick the knife love. I've got to try making it myself!
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Jolene - EverydayFoodie — March 4, 2011 @ 5:05 am
Grocery store eggs freak me out!!! You are totally right – they are nothing like farm eggs (I remember gathering eggs in the morning as a kid :-))
Thanks for high-lighting the differences in this post. This is also a great reminder for me to get to my local (indoor for the winter) farmer's market for some fresh, organic eggs.
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gwen — March 4, 2011 @ 3:27 pm
I don't like the kind in a jar, but I love homemade mayonnaise! I didn't realize the ranch from the packet was full of MSG – for the first time in a long time, I just made a batch this week and am practically addicted. Uh-oh… :)
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Joanne — March 4, 2011 @ 6:22 pm
I'm glad to see that I'm not the only food blogger out there who gags at the thought of mayo. Yeah, really. The thought is enough to do it.
I think I could get down with homemade mayo though. Especially if olive oil were stuck in there so it didn't smell so…mayo-y.
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Jodi — March 4, 2011 @ 7:07 pm
I love mayo! (Sorry but its a taste I acquired 2 pregnancies ago and have never lost.) Anyway, cool post! I've been wanting to make my own mayo and all my eggs come from my sister's chickens at my dad's farm. Sweet, eh?
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Lauren's Latest — March 4, 2011 @ 8:16 pm
I buy farm fresh eggs too! And, i'm with you about mayonnaise. I really don't like it very much at all, but use it occasionally. And don't get me started on MSG and other preservatives.
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miss — March 5, 2011 @ 5:01 am
What a great post! Growing up my grandmother always gave us eggs from her chickens. I was used to the country eggs and once declared at someone else's house that I wouldn't eat store bought, white eggs. I am dying to get some chickens, I just gotta build a coup!
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Natalie @ Perrys' Plate — March 5, 2011 @ 5:16 am
Janssen – You just gave me shudders.
Gwen – I still eat the stuff like crazy when I go visit my family. I figure once or twice a year won't kill me. :)
I love how so many people are using fresh eggs! I really thing having chickens in your backyard is borderline trendy. @Miss – I'm dying to get some chickens, too!
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Lindsey — May 4, 2012 @ 2:40 pm
Okay, so my husband hates mayo (I never tell him if something has it in it or he won’t eat it), but I do have some recipes that call for mayo…and I have to admit that I like it in those things. So…I’m starting to try to switch us over to more of a whole foods approach (I’m embarrassed to say because of your philosophy which is shared by so many readers that I bought my first free range eggs last week)…anyway, I have a LONG way to go, but I guess now that I have a little one I’m extra motivated to be more careful as to what goes into his precious little body. Ours are quite contaminated, but his is not. So I guess what I’m asking is can I use this mayo as a pretty equal substitute for mayo in most recipes in general? So now for a completely unrelated question, but something I’ve been wondering about lately. I’m guessing you make your own baby food, which I’ve done so far (not to hard to just puree fruits, veggies, etc.), but now that we’re introducing non-pureed foods and a few spices, our little guy is sort of anti purees. I have some cook books for babies (that have some good stuff), but I don’t feel as comfortable in the spice department or in making more like the stage 3/transitioning to just regular food areas. Any chance you may want to share some info. on that topic?
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Natalie replied: — May 4th, 2012 @ 11:17 pm
Hey girl!
1. Congrats on the eggs!! I think no matter where we are in the transition, we all feel like we have a long way to go. There’s always more to improve on! :)
2. Yes. Use this exactly how you would use store-bought mayo.
3. With baby #1 I made her food and she loved it. When she started getting enough teeth to eat regular food, I just gave her what we ate ourselves, just cut or mushed up a bit if needed. I wasn’t worried about spices (aside from things being spicy-hot). With baby #2, she just wanted to nurse instead of eating real food. At around 9 months was when she started to warm up to solids, but she hated the plain purees. So… i just gave her what we ate (obviously not all at once… starting with vegetables and protein and held off on wheat and dairy until later). One problem was she didn’t get her first tooth until 12 months, so I couldn’t just feed her off my plate most of the time. I used this website a lot: http://wholesomebabyfood.momtastic.com/ It seems to be taken over by someone called “momtastic” since I visited last, but they had some great charts for when to introduce what type of food. I never made any of the recipes, though. Just used the charts. I hope that helps! (And I hope this was coherent. I really need to go to bed. :))
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K.C. — April 22, 2013 @ 6:57 pm
I just made this and it tasted salty and lemony. Seems like a 1/4 tsp probably would have been more than enough. One tblsp seems like it might have been enough too on the lemon. I think I would try to find a really mellow olive oil to use also.
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