Mayonnaise!

Why pay a lot of money for bad mayonnaise when you can make really gourmet mayonnaise in a few minutes at a fraction of the cost? Here's a simple recipe requiring no technique, commonly available ingredients, and my favorite kitchen power tool- the hand blender!

You'll need:

a widemouth jar of one half to one pint capacity

a cup of oil- any oil. I almost always use extra virgin olive oil, but canola is a good, healthy choice. Some people like half olive oil and half canola. Light olive oil is a good choice if you want a lighter flavor.

a half a large lemon, squeezed through a strainer (or 2 tablepoons prepared lemon juice)

a quarter teaspoon of salt

an egg

a half teaspoon (or more) of crushed garlic

a teaspoon of powdered mustard, or a tablespoon of prepared mustard, or a teaspoon or more of your favorite hot sauce. (Or, for those who like- yuck!- Miracle Whip, two teaspoons of sugar)

Step 1: Ingredients

Seperate the egg and put the yolk in the jar. Don't know how to separate an egg? Put in the whole egg. Really. Doesn't matter. I'll do an egg-separating Instructable later.

Step 2: More ingredients...

Add the rest of the ingredients EXCEPT the oil, and mix.

Step 3: Now comes the oil....

Add a QUARTER of the oil. No more.

Step 4: And now, the magic happens

Insert the hand blender, and mix, moving the blender around. It should first form a creamy paste, and then suddenly thicken up. If not, don't worry. Keep going...

Step 5: Uh, now the magic happens...

SLowly add the rest of the oil while you keep mixing. At some point the mix will thicken up abruptly. FInish adding the oil, give a final mix, shake off the blender...

Step 6: Et voila!

... and you should have a jar full of delicious, ready to use mayonnaise. Taste, and adjust the seasoning to your own preference.

On the left is the red-pepper flavored aioli we just made; on the right, a mustard flavored version. Both will keep in the fridge.

The hot peppered on in particular is great with seafood- that's what the French serve on the side with Boullibaise. Try it with fried fish, mussles, sardines, anything. The other is great with tuna, burgers, just experiment.

A note on food safety: Since this uses a raw egg, I only buy organic, vegetable fed eggs to help insure against salmonella.

Comments

[gfry]

WOW...I should have read this more carefully LOL. I put all the oil in my blender and then all the rest of the ingredients. Turned the blender on for 5 mins and got nothing but yellow runny oil. My bad. Complete failure. Trying it again when i get more eggs. To sum up...read the instructions b4 attempting :)

[Mutantflame]

Thanks! I tried this today and it worked great. No more shop bought stuff for us!

[richardsan]

looks like it's been awhile...can anyone comment on this process? a french chef/ bistro owner made his mayonnaise by using a slab of raw potato stuck on a fork, and stirring with that...?

[timbit1985]

Just because he's french, and owns a bistro doesn't make him not crazy.

[Computothought]

I love homemade mayo also. I usually mix it by hand to get some exercise.

1 large egg yolk
1/2 tsp cheap table mustard
1/4 tsp vinegar
1/4 tsp lemon juice
pinch each of salt, pepper, and onion powder.
1 cup salad oil (I like olive oil best, but cooking oil will do.)

Stir everything together well, but the oil. The add the oil sparingly at a time till all is incorporated. With a good whisk, it does not take that long.

[falafelcakes]

I attempted to make this but completely failed! I wanted to make a sesame mayonnaise, so I used 1/8 cup of sesame oil, 3/8 cup extra virgin olive oil, and 1/2 cup canola oil. I otherwise followed all instructions to a tee, but it never thickened up at all. Can anyone tell me what may have happened?

[wichcoan]

Seed oil and fruit oil do not always mix....you really need to infuse a lot of air.. in other words, if you're not using a good palm mixer in a jar only about 2x the mixer's diameter....it may not happen. You can try it again, waiting to add the sesame oil AFTER it does it's magic of thickening. Good luck, Bill

[misstake]

Be sure ALL your ingredients are at room temperature or ALL at ''frigde'' temperature (but some oils may ''freeze'')... Mayonnaise is quite mystic and capricious... Some people will do the exact steps but won't succeed some days and not other days...
Funny story, old french women told me, once, that women in their periods won't have any success at thickening the mayo. AHAHAHA I'd rather beleive the ''temperature'' factor.
Good luck!

[bcnr33skyline187]

how long before it goes bad

[EveMarie]

1 week

[thepsymaster]

Great instructable, it's inspired me to make more things myself, and I'll be sure to have a go making this. By the way if any fellow Brits are reading this, using eggs with the Lion Mark on them guarantees they will be Salmonella free. Make sure they're free-range as well of course :P

http://www.britegg.co.uk/lionquality05/startlionquality.html link

[sideways]

Nicely done instructable. I would disagree with the savings factor. Store mayo costs me $2/quart. A decent oil and the eggs to make a quart myself actually cost more than that. Also, home-made, because it doesn't have preservatives & is not pasteurized, spoils inside a few days. It is raw egg, after all. I have never used up my 1-cup batches of home-made before it spoils. But perhaps I use much less mayo than others. But home-made sure tastes better, and it's fun to experiment with different oils for different flavors. I use a blender or a food processor for mine but only because I don't have a hand blender. The hand blender is probably a lot easier to clean than a countertop blender.

[Mattrox]

also to help it not to spoil don't let crumbs or dirty fingers into the jar

[Mattrox]

if you want crap mayo 2.00 will do from the shop but if you want the nice you have to go up to 3.00 most people have both eggs and oil at there diposal

[sideways]

Well, I buy "crap" mayo because fresh homemade doesn't have anywhere near the shelf life. I might use 2 tablespoons of mayo a week, if that. I've made homemade and it tastes much better, but I have to throw away 80% because I don't use it up before it spoils. This isn't because of crumbs or dirty fingers. It's because it contains *raw eggs*.

[Mattrox]

make less then duh

[sideways]

There is a required ratio of egg/oil needed in order for the emulsion to form. It is one egg per cup of oil, give or take a bit on the oil. To "make less" still requires cracking open an entire egg, even tho only part of it will be used. The rest of the egg will spoil before it's needed for anything else, at least around my house. There is also the work/mess/time factor....I don't consider it efficient use of my time to make a tiny batch that requires just as much washing up as a large batch. The whole point of my original post was to point out that, while home-made usually tastes much better, the savings of doing it one's self may be negligible for some people. Even more so if one factors in the value of their time making it and then washing up afterwards.

[Mattrox]

Sorry about the above comment, I sound quite grumpy!

Anyway I live in a family of ten, so most food disappears within a day. So really I can't argue with you!

Wow! Three years ago. Talk about bringing up the past!

[mje]

There's always a trade off, isn't there? You can buy 99 cent burgers at the fast food drive through, or make your own. You can buy hothouse tomatoes that taste like tennis balls, or grow your own. You can get fish sticks or salmon fillets. Everyone has their own personal trade off between flavor and convenience. For me, there's simply no comparison between this homemade mayonnaise and the tasteless stuff in a jar.

[Mattrox]

i agree cuz what if your out of mayo and guests are coming over you could quickly whip up a batch and(if it tastes nice) you can tell them you made it. Also mje did you no you can make somthing called aioli. the same way, this is the recipe 4 large cloves of garlic 2 tablespoons of lemon juice 2 egg yolks 1 tablespoon of chopped parsley 1/2 teaspoon of salt freshly ground pepper to taste 1 cup of olive oil(or grapeseed oil but not extra virgin olive oil) place all ingredients except the oil in a food processor. Process until well mixed. While the processor is running add oil very slowly, only a teaspoon at a time, until all has been added. The mixture will be thick and creamy. Store in airtight container in the fridge.

[timbit1985]

To be frank sir...Aioli is made with extra virgin olive oil.

[Mattrox]

It doesn't have to be, and quite frankly I prefer plain old canola oil. Aioli is simply mayo with garlic.

[timbit1985]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aioli.

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/egg-recipes/aioli-1

[Tidnull]

Nevermind, I think I just added the oil too fast. Be sure to drizzle it in slowly as your are mixing.

[Tidnull]

Are you sure you don't put the egg white in? I put the yolk in and my mayo turned out to be yellow and mustardy.. Follow mje's directions to whoever is reading this because I probably messed something else up but it seems as though I followed everything correctly. I will have to experiment some more.

[komodo 3000]

well, im not TOO concerned about getting salmonella. You always have to take risks like that.

[chilla]

I just tried to make it using the hand blender, but it never thickened up, did not curdle, just never thickened, can it be fixed or should I start over?

[mje]

I've bene told you can start with another egg yolk and slowly beat in the failed mayonnaise, but I've never done that. Next time, don't add more than a quarter of the oil if it's doesn't thicken. And add it very slowly.

[Viddaric]

I haven't tryed this yet, but the ability to make mayonayse out of canolia or olive oil is great! I imagine that it's a lot healthier than the animal fat mayo in stores

[Parsolamew]

Just a quick note on olive oil in mayo. If you're doing this with an immersion blender or in your food processor, you'll want to not over-blend it. Olive oil will turn bitter if you beat it up too badly with a high powered blender. Doing it with a whisk on a mixer (or by hand, if you've got popeye forearms) will take longer, but keep the oil sweet.

[mje]

I wouldn't worry about that. Overbeating won't turn the oil bitter; what would do that is oxidation from heavy aerating. But the immersion blender, used this way, will not introduce much air into the oil. I have never had the resulting product turn bitter using this method.

[userman]

"Organic vegetable fed eggs" are no guarantee against salmonella. In fact salmonella is more likely to be found in organic flocks. Pasteurized eggs are the way to go if you're concerned about salmonella.

[not2far2drive]

Totally false, salmonella is much worse and thrives in cramped inhumane conditions, like major corporate chicken farms where the chickens are kept in a tiny box crammed next to one another for their whole lives. They are way better off outside in the sunshine where they can free roam on organic farms.

http://www.deliciousorganic.com/Controversies/eggsactly.htm

[mje]

Read Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma". Most "Free Range" chickens spend their entire life indoors. While brood hens are kept in boxes, most factory chickens are raised in indoor pens. The only difference between those birds and the ones labeled "free range" is that the "free range" birds get somewhat more room and a door they can use to go into an outdoor pen once they've passed a certain age- by which time they're conditioned to stay indoors! That's all the FDA rules require tor that label. A tiny fraction of the birds labeled "organic" and "free range" ever actually see the outdoors. To get one you need to buy your chickens right from a farm, or at a farmer's market.

[paul2006]

That's what I love about living in Lancaster County, PA. I bought some eggs a couple weeks ago from an Amish farm where I can see the chickens running around outside. At least I know where my eggs are coming from! :) I made the mayonnaise last night and it was quite good! Mine didn't thicken up a lot, but enough to be close to the right consistency. I tried Thomi's suggestion below about adding some commercial mayonnaise to thicken it up and that helped a bit. I was using a whisk by hand though, so that might have been my problem. Thanks for the good Instructable!

[85rocco]

For those of you concerned about salmonella risk using raw eggs, I've found that the yokes of soft boiled eggs work just as well as raw eggs for making mayo.

[mje]

I did a little research after reading this. In the UK a survey found no significant differences between barn, free-range, and organic eggs. A study by the Humane Society of the US found similar results. I'll keep buying organic, vegetable-fed eggs for the taste, and rely on the lemon juice to kill salmonella- which occurs in only one out of every 20,000 eggs.

[userman]

Did you see this study: http://library.wur.nl/ojs/index.php/njas/article/viewFile/346/65

[mje]

That comes from a small sample in Holland, and the numbers are very different from those in the US and UK studies. One problem with small samples and a fairly rare incidence is that it clusters- you don't find just one infected animal in a flock. Most of the infected birds came from just a few flocks.

[redragon]

IF you get the 1 in 20,000 infected eggs and IF it was handled improperly and IF you are using old eggs and IF you are young, old Nursing or have an immune problem then that's when to worry but for me that's A LOT of IFs. Yes you can get salmonella! but it is highly unlikely.