Homemade Mayonnaise

I use a blender set on low to medium instead of a whisk.

When you go to open your bottle of oil don't take the little foil seal off. Just poke a tiny hole in it with a toothpick. This way you can squirt a fine stream of oil into the blender while it it running.

Here is my OP (olive oil parmesan) dressing.

In a blender put
1 egg
3 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
3 tablespoons of soysauce
pinch of fresh ground black pepper

Continue to blend these

Slowly add olive oil with a fine stream
until you get your desired viscosity

Add some shredded parmesan (to taste).
I like to leave some texture with the cheese
so don't over blend.


You can, of course, add some more olive oil while blending
until it has the consistancy of a mayonnaise spread.

This doesn't make much so you may want to double the recipe.

concerning color, if you make mayonnaise without lemon, adding vinegar in the end make it white(more white) (with lemon, I have no idea of the taste)

My grandmother used to make mayonnaise without the lemon juice, but with a tablespoon (or two) of mustard. The mustard is added at the beginning, though, and mixed with the egg yolks before the oil is poured in.

There's a type of mustard sold here (I live in Flanders, the northern region of Belgium) where the mustard seeds appear to be grinded only slightly and the 'skin' is still visible. This makes the mayonnaise look quite nice.

Adding finely chopped fresh herbs (e.g. basil) also works great for adding a visual touch...

As for oil: we use maize oil. Experiments with olive oil were not so successful, but we probably used a variety with more flavour to it. I will surely try your suggestion of extra light olive oil...

Cuisinart pushers have a small hole in the bottom that drips the oil in a just the right rate, and the combination of the motor and the cutter blades are just right for lazy me. Using essentially the same recipe you use (I add a touch of cayenne) the process became so automatic that I put my then-6-year-old son in charge!

a slight variation on the same theme: start of with mustard, egg yolks, a bit of vinegar and a pinch of salt. Mix in the (flavourless) oil to make your mayonaise. Then, to make (cold) tartar sauce, you can add finely chopped capers and pickles, and if you like garalic, you can add that too.
Enjoy!

Hello,
I just wanted to share a little tip for mayonnaise that separates. I doesn't always work but if you put your separated mayonnaise into a food processor and whilst it is whizzing around, add a slug of hot water it usually fixes the problem.

I don't know why this works but it does.

I'll have to try it. The family receipe I usually use for mayonnaise is close to yours. But it uses white vinegar instead of lemon juice (2tbsp) and one whole egg instead of 2 yolks. We also put dry mustard to the starting mixture, and use half olive oil/half canola oil. That gives a much whiter mayo. It seems that the emulsion is easier to loose (separates when you stir too much) if we use less olive oil.

a nice and very simple way of making a mayo, but I would like to ask if instead of lemon juice can I use calamansi juice? and instead of olive oil can I use regular cooking oil? because I would to share this to my ate who sell a hamburger,and I thought maybe its a little bit helpful if she makes her own mayo using cheap ingridients.

re: ingredient substitution

Any vegetable oil can be used to make mayonnaise. I prefer oils with little flavor (canola or light olive) as opposed to oils with a stronger flavors (corn oil, peanut oil).

Calamansi juice will probably work. Generally, I find most people use vinegars or lemon juice. Calamansi might not be as acidic as either, but could produce a nice flavor unique to your homemade mayonnaise.

Experiment and have fun!

Michael

I use whole eggs which I heat to a temp of 160 degrees and set off stove for two minutes (gauge with candy thermometer) This will kill any potential harmful bacteria, thus extending the keeping time. I then put all ingredients in a pint jar and fill with peanut oil. Place a "Stick blender" all the way to the bottom of the jar and slowly blend back to the top about 5 seconds. Instant mayo!

My first try at mayonnaise turned out to be a runny liquid. Shouldn't it get thicker, like mayonnaise out of the jar? I used a small electric mixer

re: runny mayo

Did you add the oil very, very slowly? Add a few drop and whisk. The oil should be completely suspended in the liquid before applying more oil. Too much too fast can break the emulsion and it'll be runny no matter what you do. (not quite true, but you might as well start over - it's easier)

After the emulsion starts to hold and you add a tad more oil, it'll start to become more solid. If the emulsion has broken, then it'll separate. Only when you've got an ample amount of oil suspended, can you start drizzling.

re: runny mayonnaise

I finally tried to make it in a food processor so that I could maintain constant movement but I honestly think that my problem was that I gave up too soon and there wasn't a high enough ratio of oil to the egg/lemon mixture for it to thicken. Anyway, this batch worked---not exactly perfect but I'm sure with experimentation I'll get it down, maybe even with doing with a hand whisk. Thanks for your posting, pictures and directions. Great site!

is there any need to cook the eggs or the final product, is it safe to eat say a sandwich with this mayonase on it, since it has raw eggs in it?

Of course eating raw eggs is a risk. In the United States, a small percentage of eggs are contaminated with salmonella (an often quoted statistic is 1 in 30,000 eggs are contaminated; risk increases a bit if eating eggs in a restaurant due to handling, etc.). Eggs are generally laid with salmonella from sick birds - You can reduce your risk by purchasing eggs from health conscious producers such as organic eggs as generally the chicken population is watched with more concern. Regardless of the type of egg you purchase, examine the eggs you plan to use. Use the freshest eggs you can get for this recipe. Don't use eggs with cracks in the shell (you can place the egg in a salted cold water bath and look for a stream of bubbles). When you extract the yolk, pay attention to the whites. They should be gel like and not watery. Also, the yolks should not break easily.

Keeping these things in mind reduces your risk of food poisoning from the raw egg yolk drastically. (Remember, randomly grabbing an egg is a 1 in 30,000 chance; in other words, you need to eat 20,800 random eggs in order to have a 50-50 chance of having selected a salmonella infected one. Picking and choosing reduces this risk and it's unlikely the average person will be eating this many raw eggs in their lifetime [about one a day]) If you are immune deficient or generally susceptible to illness, obviously do not consume raw eggs or raw egg products. Otherwise, if your eggs are fresh, healthy and refrigerated (refrigeration has more to do with freshness than anything else - eggs age slower in refrigerators than at room temperature), it should be safe to eat.

If you would like to cook the eggs, simply whisk the yolks with the lemon juice and then heat slowly (very slowly) while stirring until it reaches 160°F (about when the mixture coats the back of a metal spoon and the yolk starts producing a few bubbles). Heating too fast will result in scrambled eggs. Place the pan into ice water to stop the cooking and stir until the egg yolk cools down (try not to get water into the pan). then proceed with the recipe as before (add salt, pepper, oil).

The beauty of a well-made mayonnaise is a wonderful thing.

There is great difference between the perfectly hand whisked variety, produced with great focus and concentration, for immediate service, and the Commercially Engineered feat of a glass-canned Hellmans. Both have their place.

The perfect hand whisked is analagous to a fine freshly whipped cream, where gloss and the folding of the peak show the perfect suspension of air to fat. In mayo, the hand whisked has a gloss and tip fold that Hellmans can never touch.

Yet Hellmans has its place in the real world kitchen. Let those among us who never use jarred mayonnaise cast the first stone. The Commercially Engineered Hellmans is a marvel in its own way. Engineers have studied the process of emulsion/suspension and provided a safe and shelf stable product, consistently replicatable with each production run in the factory. Can we hand-whippers claim that same consistency?

The quest for the perfect mayo can draw to common ground both the esthete and the engineer. Thomas Keller, the featured saint/iconic chef in Mark Ruleman's "The Soul of a Chef" talks about his daily quest in his formative years for the perfect hollandaise. Well folks, a hollandaise ain't nuthin' but a hot mayo made from butter. The quest is the same. I've been trying mayos for 30 years in every conceivable vessel that has a moving blade, enjoying the nuances of differences that each machine (including wrist) can produce, and also sheepishly disposing of some lamentable failures.

What really got me to thinking was the post by "anonymous guest', earlier in this string: "Place a "Stick blender" all the way to the bottom of the jar and slowly blend back to the top about 5 seconds. Instant mayo!"

Wow! Something clicked in engineering lobe of the brain: A jar is a cylinder, and has different equations for volume determination than has a sphere ( or functionally in the kitchen, a Hemi-sphere: a bowl). The food processor "bowl" is likewise a cylinder, and the blender vase a hybrid of the two.

So then I wondered: what do the real food engineers in the "Food Industry" do? How do they make mayo? Is it a hemispheric kettle with a rotating blade and a calibrated drizzle? A cylinder churn with a later piston extrusion to remove product to jar? My quick and paltry Google attempts did not get me to their production process. Several questions/ideas arise:

1) Any Hellmans' engineers want to share the process? Or, academicians in emulsion sciences?

2) Has anyone tried the jar and stick blender? The logarithmic timing of oil input in the "traditional" methods can be intimidating and also difficult to repeat the same way each time. It seems that the timing of the "raising of the stick blender" would be equivalently problematic.

3) The jar method could be very attractive from the standpoint of fewer vessels/quicker cleanup, and storage of product in fabricating vessel.

4) I haven't tried jar method yet (still have mayo from last week), but will soon do so, and would like to challenge those of us who are so inclined to also try and report results.

5) Variables would be:

a) Height and especially Width of jar;
b) diameter of blade area of blender;
c) displacement value of stick blender;
d) total volume of non-oil materials (egg, acid, others), also expressed as vertical inches in jar;
e) total volume of oil, also expressed as inches in jar. Ratio of "perfect cylinder" could thus be developed from a thru e.
f) description of timing/up-drawing.
g) others?

This could be fun. For those of us who were not permanently scarred by bad teachers requiring stultifying lab reports a' la nuns with rulers on knuckles, let's have a go at it.

Several asides:
1) If you don't yet have a "stick blender", get one. They retail from $25 on up, and are regularly available in your local thrift store as $5 discards from them who don't want to take new chances. Stick blenders eliminate the "transfer soup/etc to blender" step, and give total control over the puree process, and clean up with a zip in a glass of water.

2) Here are the results that I marked from my google search. May be helpful for "mayonados" ( = mayonnaise afficiandos)

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2005/07/13/FDGLIDLQ2S1.DTL

http://www.wisc.edu/foodsci/courses/fs532/01mayonnaise.html

http://www.hi-tm.com/Documents/Mayonnaise.html

3) Finally, not to start a war on "which brand of commercial mayo is best", just know that each year when I travel to the piedmont region of North and South Carolina, I return home with a case of "Dukes" brand mayo. See Sauer's brand website for equivalency. Piedmont Carolina is, however, also the epicenter of distribution for the dreaded/beloved "liver mush".... a whole 'nother story for another thread. :)

Rather than treating the eggs, you can also let the finished product sit out for 4-8 hours. This allows the acid in the lemon juice or vinegar make the environment acidic enough to kill the bacteria.

Salmonella typhimurium (the main Salmonella species that causes gastroenteritis and in rare cases sepsis) has an acid tolerance response, it has been found to be able to survive a pH as low as 3 for an extended time. Not sure the pH of mayo but I'm thinking it is more than that of the stomach which the bacteria have to be able to pass through in order to cause disease in the intestine so it makes sense that they could and would survive in your mayo. Letting your mayo sit out at room temp can only help the potential pathogens, immediate refridgeration is highly recommended. Heating it to 160 F seems like a very good idea, not just for pathogens but for spoilers as well.

Source: [u:de189a5d92]Bacterial Pathogenesis: A Molecular Approach[/u:de189a5d92] 2nd Ed. by Abigail Salyers and Dixie Whitt (Best book ever until the 3rd Ed. comes out)

There is a severe mustartd allergy in my family- I will have to leave out the mustard. Will that compromise the flavour?

Adding mustard changes the desired flavor of the recipe. A basic mayonnaise doesn't contain mustard, but if you want mustard flavored mayonnaise (which is a very popular variant), then leaving out the mustard is a bad idea. :)

Since you're allergic to mustard, I'd stick with the basic mayonnaise recipe (as shown, skipping the optional mention of mustard; you can try other variantions by adding garlic powder or another herb or seasoning of your choice instead if you want something more interesting than a basic mayonnaise).

When I wrote this article, it was my practice to drop in some Dijon mustard while making the mayonnaise, but now I just make a batch of plain mayonnaise and mix add-ins (depending on what food was being prepared) at the time of usage. The plain mayonnaise is very good by itself and adding flavoring later gives a lot of flexibility.

Hi everyone,

I tried the above recipe but my mayo came out runny, as if the ingradients never combined to make the mayo as intended.

Any ideas why this might have happened? I followed the directions as posted and used the same ingredients

Thanks,
Harley

When you whisked the oil with the liquid, did you make sure it was suspended in emulsion before adding additional oil? This is very important as too much oil too quickly will result in a mixture that will never enter emulsion.

I'm in too much of a hurry to read through every comment to check nobody said so earlier, but in order to get an emulsion quickly you need to have all your ingredients at the same temperature (especially yolk/oil).

My quest is for a pleasant, sweet, thick edible emulsion that will not spoil if unrefridgerated. (this might be the way that marshmallow creme is made commercially!)

This would seem to preclude egg yolks.

Would commercial lecithin, a mild oil, water, icing (confectioners) sugar and vanilla essence achieve this?

What are the factors that affect the separation of the emulsion?

Health risks of real Mayo is very low, raw eggs are sometimes contaminated with salmonella that is easily killed with a little acid - the lemon juice or the vinegar as it needs an alkaline environment to survive.

I find having all the ingredients at room temperature before I start helps greatly in getting a good firm Mayo.

Why make your own - You have total control over the flavor - if you start with a good base it can become whatever you imagination can dream up and top bragging rights if it works out well.

Nice variation -
for a light fluffy mayo - whip the egg whites and fold in -

Variations rarely seen nowadays
- Wonderful if used with the right dish -
Grated truffles folded in just before serving
Sesame oil in with the v light olive oil
Almond four stired through
ground Anchovies
freshly roaster Black Pepper stired in 3 or 4 hors before needed.
coconut cream beaten in

I have just double checked my assertion that salmonella is killed by the presence of acid....

what I have been taught so long ago is wrong, It is tolerant of acid.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&...act

I am assured that if you are worried you can add any commercially available preservatives that will dispatch the little horrors.

Very-very cool instructions worked perfectly first time

No need for egg yolks gang. I've been teaching a version that uses extra egg whites and, ready, for $6 at the vitamin shop, you buy some lecithin granules (actually you’ll laugh when you see how inexpensive it is). Grind em' in a coffee grinder and add to the mix. When you use 95% or higher direct lecithin, the mayo will never break. I use lecithin in the kitchen for many "scientific" approaches to sauces, emulsions & aerations. harryotto(at)rhmservices.net

Dateline - 29 January 2006
Location - Toronto Canada
Situation - Critical
Four egg yolks have been seriously beaten and dosed with lemon juice and vinegar. The remains then were dribbled with corn oil, resulting in a gooey mess. The victims have been bled. What once was a timesaving and cost effective way of keeping my butt in the house and avoiding a trip to the store has turned into what can only be described as a horrifying massacre, sparring no souls.
It was Fidel Castro that once said "... every man must beat his own egg sometimes..." and I believe that is what has happened here today. What possible beneficial outcome can be derived from this, this senseless slaughter of beautiful eggs in their prime can only measured be the deranged minds that perpetrated this atrocity.
May the Lord have mercy upon us all.

i decided to make some mayonnaise one home ec lesson, and after hearing my mum's dreadful storys about how NOT to make mayonnaise i checked out this receipe and it worked perfectly! Cheers!

Hi!
I always use whole eggs in my mayo and it NEVER failed. I actually wonder why the cook books are full of hints how to "save" your mayo... ;-)
My mum used her blender. The European blenders have a dripping hole in the cover, so the oil will definitely just drop in...
I use the "blender stick" and a rather narrow and high measuring cup (about 1 quart volume). I put the egg, some lemon juice or vinegar, salt, pepper and mustard in the cup. I mix until everything combines, then add the oil (I use sunflower seed) rather slowly. I have no clue how much oil is needed as I simply add oil until the desired consistency is reached.
My mum would sometimes make her own tartar sauce. With the blender still running, add pickles, onions and whatever you like. Voila!
As for using raw eggs - I eat eggs, even raw ones, since my childhood. I used different eggs, from "cage" to organic, and never had problems. Actually, my aunt working in a hotel got salmonella (and other guests) form a pasteurised, packed whole eggs! So much for the theory of heating the eggs to kill the bacteria...
PS-great page! I tried the bacon-in-the-oven-method and will use only this one from now on! Thanks!

ok, much have been said about mayonnaise, but anyone ever tried to do it with milk instead of eggs? I´ve learned this in a cooking class and let me say that is really good too! And have the advantage: you never have the risk of salmonela, because uses no eggs!

I make it sometimes, and tastes great. Instead of using yolks use about half cup of milk. I heat 1/4 of the milk a little bit and then add the lemon juice, after that mix the rest of the milk and start doing the oil emulsion. Basically the same process as with the egg yolks.

What do you think?

I'll try that, but isn't that like an oiled, blended farmers' cheese? Isn't it homogenized, acid curdled milk with oil?

I've never liked the taste of flaxseed oil, so I decided to use it for my mayo experiment. It tasted wonderful! I didn't even use egg yolks, I used egg whites and some mustard to emulsify. Added some onion powder, lemon juice, salt, apple cider vinager and a touch of agave syrup for sweetness.

Second time I tried it, the eggwhites wouldn't stiffen. I threw out 3 batches, including one where I had already begun to add the (expensive) flax oil. It was just too watery. I think the problem was that my wire wisk was coming apart and the wisk was rotating on the stem, this slowed the beating action. I threw the mix into the cuisinart instead, still the eggwhites wouldn't stiffen, but I decided to start adding some cheap olive oil to the mix and suddenly it began to emulsify and thicken. Once again I achieved a perfect, tasty mayo.

mixed with a few herbs, this is very tasty on grilled salmon. spread a layer on before grilling, it forms a nice tangy crust. then use it as a dip after grilling.

BTW, thanks for all the great tips, especially about the pusher on the cuisinart. I'll have to try that.

i tired something similar to this some time ago and was never able to develop any 'head' so i knew this was going to be an abysmal failure - but that certainly wasn't @ to stop me from trying !

i failed miserably as expected but had to admit that my whisk was LAME-O. So with so much imprtance beingbeing placed on blending and emusifying 'well'..... i went off to 'Linen and things' and promptly bought myself a proper whisk

things certainly looked different using my new whisk but i got exhausted whisking and had to take a break to open a bottle of tylenol as well due to the clanging of my new and improved whisk against the bowl, giving me a rippin' good headache and all. and it made me wonder

it made me wonder how long this ridiculous recipe has to take to dutifully prepare. the instructions and hints offered to other posters who have failed is ONE DROP At A TIME until the 1st 1/3cup of oil is used.

so how long (in actual time increments) is one supposed to whisk between DROPS of oil? even if it's 10seconds..... how many drops of oil are in 1/3cup of oil X 10 seconds?

should this article have been written with the warning DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS WITHOUT A WICKED NICE MIXER AND A WELL PAID ELECTRIC BILL ?

and finally, since much ado has been made @ ading oil too quicly and that your whole project is lost should you add too much oil too quickly - is there a way to know when that has actually 'happened' so we can get a clue as to when to toss it in the trash and begin hopefull anew instead of chasing our aching whisking muscles straight into a fruitless carpal tunnel syndrome?

Whisk until the oil is incorporated into the mixture. For me, that's about 8 strokes or so with the whisk - about two seconds. The unincorporated oil that you drop in looks like a clear glob where ever you drop it into the mixture. After whisking, the globs of clear liquid should no longer exist. If you're a fast whisker, this should not take very long. If it does, add a little less oil next time. If you can't get even a single drop of oil to incorporate, then the recipe has failed.


It has failed when you whisk and the oil sloshes around and won't magically disappear into the yellow mixture.

first of all, i'm sooooo glad to have found a site to discuss cooking with intelligent people.

i made my first batch 2 nights ago for chicken salad. went with the whole egg approach. (1 egg, 1 cup oil, 2 T white vin., 1/2 t salt) since i was planning on feeding the salad to my little one, i heated it to 160 first. used veg. oil, and followed your directions, using a whisk. that got to be much too tedious, so i poured all the oil in my mixing bowl, and used my immersion (stick) blender (which by the wy was $20 US at kohl's).

came out FABULOUS!!!!! added some mustard, more salt, a lil pepper, and some garlic powder.

***add some diced chicken and onions for a great chicken salad!***

my point is this: spend the twenty bucks, and the oil process is vitually foolproof--and, cleanup's a snap!

Mayonaise is so easy to prepare that one often wonders why commericial is made. There is a good reason----raw eggs can be dangerous. In certain parts of the country chickens lay salmonella infected eggs. This is normally no problem if the eggs are cooked as the toxins are cooked off and the organism killed. The late 20th century has shown that we can not trust our food supply as we could in the 1940s because some people are not as hygenic as they once were. Spoled mayonaise can kill.

If you prepare your own mayonaise---first make sure the eggs that you are using are salmonella free. Next Never leave homemade mayonaise out of the refrigerator long. Just about any kind of oil can be used but classic mayonaise is always made with Olive Oil. The fastest method is the blender or mixer method into which the eggs are beaten and the oiled drizzled into them. Never omit vinegar---it acts as a preservative and discourages growth of bacteria and salmonella.

If you add Garlic to it while making the mayonaise---it becomes the classic haute cuisine Aioli.

Egg safety has nothing to do with people's hygiene, and everything to do with factory farming. Whoever posted above about reducing your risk with organic eggs was right, and also the person who pointed out that Salmonella is very rare is also right. If you buy your eggs from a local organic farmer as I do, and have visited the farm and see happy clean chickens running around pecking in the grass instead of smashed into cages in a factory farm as I have, you will undoubtedly learn a lot and feel a lot better about eating your mayonnaise raw. If you cook the eggs to 160 you lose a lot of valuable enzymes and nutrients, so it's better to buy your eggs from a trusted source and then just make mayo as it has always been made. Add some whey and leave it out for 7 hours to allow the lactobaccilli (the same beneficial bacteria found in yogurt) to culture, thus preserving the mayo and its enzymes. See Sally Fallon's cookbook, "Nourishing Traditions", for more nutritional and lactofermentation info, including how to get whey from yogurt. Incidentally, her blender mayo recipe does not work as well as that of the Joy of Cooking, so I take a hybrid approach--NT ingredients following the JoC methodology.

here's a lightning fast mayonnaise that's aqlso healthier, lower calorie blah blah blah....

- mix plain yogurth with mustard

yes that's all... give it a try the result is surprising and approximates mayonnaise quite accurately. Perfect for lobsters, eggs ...

I usually prepare my mayonaise with Dijon, but lemon or vinegar work well. If you add some garlic, parmesan and Worcestershire sauce you get a classic caesar dressing.
Adding just garlic with yield you Aïoli, which is great with cruditées. For an interesting twist you can also add some ginger along with the garlic.

this is different from store bought mayonaisse. it tastes lemony, tastes like i'm drinking oil a bit, i just hope refrigeration thickens it more and improving the flavor.

i don't want to say i like the canned stuff better referring to jellied cranberry, but i'm still open.

i ran out of mayonaisse. what am i to do? i'm glad i had lemons and eggs and oil. oh yeah, i did drop in some tabasco and sugar from looking at other recipes.

so far it's pretty good!

I make mayonnaise regularly, using a Bamix immersion blender, which has the advantage of rotating at 15,000 RPM -- faster, I believe, than most inexpensive immersion blenders (but I don't know if that makes a difference with mayo, since I have never made it with any other sort of immersion blender). There is absolutely no comparison between homemade mayonnaise and commercial mayonnaise, even the consistently excellent Best Foods (Hellmans to you eastern intellectual snobs). Also, homemade is much cheaper.

I make the mayonnaise in the beaker/container that came with the blender; it is rather tall and narrow, and fits the blender quite well -- as you might assume would be the case. After considerable experimentation, here's the method I use: Put into the beaker 1 whole large egg, 1 tsp dry mustard, 1 tsp lemon or lime juice, 1 tsp vinegar (white, rice, apple cider are all good, but balsamic is too sweet), and 1/2 tsp salt. These ingredients together total about 2 fluid ounces, depending on the size of the egg. (I know this because the beaker is graduated in English and metric units.) Add enough extra-virgin olive oil to bring the total to 4 fluid ounces, then enough tasteless oil (I prefer canola or safflower) to bring the total to 12 fluid ounces. IT IS IMPORTANT THAT ALL OF THIS BE AT ROOM TEMPERATURE, OR THE MAYONNAISE WILL NOT EMULSIFY.

Put the blender all the way into the mixture, i.e., so that it is resting on the bottom of the beaker. Turn it on at high speed and count slowly to 10 without moving it. Then slowly move the mixer up and down through the mixture until the mixture is fully emulsified, i.e., thick -- like mayonnaise. The whole mixing process takes perhaps 30 seconds, if that, and it makes 1-1/2 cups (12 fluid oz.) of mayonnaise that will keep for at least two weeks in a tightly-closed container in the refrigerator. If the mixture isn't going to emulsify you'll know right away, because it doesn't even start to thicken and you end up very quickly with oily soup.

By the way: an immersion blender is a great tool, and not just for mayonnaise. I like to cook pureed-vegetable soups in chilly weather, and the immersion blender makes the process extremely easy. It also makes terrific milkshakes, without ice cream.

I know how to stabilize any mayo.

Today I started to make flax mayo ... And you know how hard that is.

Flaxseed oil just won't mix.

So I started thinking ... peanuts mix well ... always ...

so I added half a handfull of peanuts to the mayo. viola! thickens in seconds.

I even thing I know why.

Flaxseed oil is mainly ALA ... if you google it a bit you'll find that ALA is very unstable and it's conformation is high energy ... that's why it didn't thicken :)
vanderwaals bonds were stronger then the hydrogen bonds! :) so it stayed in oily state instead of the watery state (that's what were doing here ... we're trying to make oil act like water)

it thickened so much i had to add more oil! cause my blender wouldn't blend! :)

anyway flaxseed oil mayo is great ... you just have to add more lemon juice to make up for the flavor :)

I don't think lemon juice masks the flavor as much as citric acid bonds with ligands or other compounds that give it the smell.

I did it this way (the second time - you can add peanuts any time you want to thicken it):

blender:
peanuts (1/2 handfull)
lemon juice (2 & 1/2 lemons)
2 whole eggs
salt

blend until smooth

add all the oil (250 mL)

blend until smooth

if you want stronger mayo (thicker) add a few peanuts, if you want smoother, add more lemon juice

I think peanuts can stabilize ANY mayo (protein acts as a stabilizer ... i think it magnifies lecithins action)

Goran Matejcic <svizac@gmail.com>

That homemade mayo looks so delicious and creamy. That would be delicious to make mayo from scratch and them turn it into something like egg salad. I have to give this a try.

I wanted to make some mayo for my salad and never knew it was so easy. Loved all the entires. :D

I tried this recipe, with the exception that I didn't remove the egg whites.

It ended up a runny liquid, but the oil did not appear separated. The resulting liquid was a consistent yellow color throughout, no oil sitting at the top or anything, but it never got thick or creamy, just a liquid. Is it because I kept the whites in? I kept everything else in the recipe the same.

The wand blender in the narrow jar, with everything added at once ( I used a mason jar) method works beautifully! So easy-thanks!

Has anyone tried to add kefir to the mayo and would the kefir help with the worry about salmonella because of the probiotics in it?

A week or so ago was the first time I made mayo because I ran out, as well, and needed to finish up the tuna salad I'd started. I didn't know anything about how to add the oil, but I put the eggs in the blender, slowly added oil and then the mustard powder, salt, pepper and agave. It was wonderful.

thanks

eggs have very very low incidence of salmonella. VERY low. EXTREMELY low. in fact i eat raw eggs, 2 at a time, in a smoothie every morning. raw eggs are not dangerous.

a test you could perform is break an egg into a small bowl.. if the yolk breaks then you could discard the egg (save it for cooking later, don't waste it). also, if the egg smells then it's no good. usually eggs are really good for being clean. i haven't come across an infected egg yet!

michael, i think your site is really fun. i'm gonna try the mayonnaise recipe now with first-cold pressed sunflower oil, as it's not refined (like light olive oil is). i've tried a different recipe with olive oil but i used extra virgin so it was really olivey tasting. thanks for taking pictures too, it's a very effective way to get people to do a recipe. i also like how you explain the emulsion thing and lecithin, as that kind of stuff really interests me.

see ya!

- t (my name is tina, too lol)

The immersion wisk method is the best way to make mayo. I make it in regular 1 qt canning jars. Also I like to add food coloring to make mayo for my kids. I found a site that shows how to make Gourmet Mayo. But they charge $6 for the method. It's MakeBlueMayo.com.

I made this mayo as described in the article above. While I was thrilled that it turned out, it is too sour for me. It has too much of the lemon taste. Is there a way to "fix" what I have made, or do I need to start over?

Yes, I think leaving the whites in adds too much liquid. It thickens up when you only use the yolks.

Sometimes lemon juice is too acidic. You can dampen this by adding a little water. To do this, double the recipe using water instead of lemon juice (double the egg yolk and the oil and use the same amount of water as lemon juice you used earlier). To incorporate it into an existing batch, whisk the egg in first, followed by drops of the water until that is incorporated. Then drizzle in oil while beating to keep the whole thing in emulsion.

Some 20 years ago there was an article in Scientific American about mayonnaise. Well, actually, there were a few articles - one about Baked Alaska, which is simple to make. Another one about Frozen Sahara - an ice-cream bombe filled with fruit in a sugar syrup which you microwave at the last minute; the microwaves heat the sugar syrup in the centre but don't have enough time to melt the ice cream.

Anyway, back to Mayo: SciAm posited that it was possible to make a portion of Egg Mayonnaise with just one egg, and here's how:

Heat the egg to 67C/152F which is hot enough to destroy salmonella, and to coagulate egg white (144-149F) but not to fully coagulate egg yolk (149-158F). Use a hypodermic syringe to extract 1ml of egg yolk, raise the temperature and continue to cook the egg until hardboiled. Use the 1ml egg yolk to make a tablespoon of mayonnaise and serve.

The article was partly written by the late Professor of Physics Nicholas Kurti of the University of Oxford. He had an abiding interest in food and cooking and was a collaborator with Herve This, the first person to be awarded a PhD in Molecular Gastronomy. He also co-presented a cookery programme with Raymond Blanc on BBC.

My husband attempted to make this twice and both times the same thing happened. It got so thick (almost looked crumbly) that the blender was laboring before even half the amount of oil was added. He continued to add the rest of the oil slowly and it turned runny. What did he do wrong?

I'm not sure what went wrong. Maybe a few details about the ingredients will help shed some light - what type and size eggs did your husband use? Since we're using just the yolks, if your yolks are smaller or larger than average then that might be a clue... Also, you may want to try this without a blender - it is possible that the blender is over-blending the ingredients.

I found last night that if the mayonnaise is too runny, heating it in the microwave in 30 second increments and restirring can thicken it up to a decent consistency. I am not sure if this results in a different-tasting product than if it goes completely perfect.

Hey there! That was incredible..i have never read something this simple in my life. you are an amazing person and i would just like to thank you for your time and energy in writing this unforgetable article that has forever changed my life.

gracias,
Maria

I thought i lead a boring life!! ,,just buy a jar of mayonaise instead,,lets face it ,,it tastes the same anyway,,and no1 really cares this much about mayonaise& any1 who goes on about homemade mayonnaise being a wonderful thing needs 2 get out more. :shock:

Try using grapeseed oil. It cooks, or in this case emulsifies like olive oil would. It has all the health benefits of olive oil, but it is for the most part flavorless. I use it for everything now.

Bravo! My arm is about to fall off from whisking but the mayonnaise is perfect and delicious. Thank you for taking the fear and intimidation out of what will be a decadent addition to the local food on our table.