How to make Mayonnaise – a step by step mayonnaise recipe

This mayonnaise recipe is quick and easy. And there’s lot’s of tips to help you customise it and make it your own

With a little practice, you can quickly learn how to make mayonnaise. This homemade mayonnaise recipe is fast and easy. And as a nutritionist and chef, I’m going to suggest you give it a try.

Why make your own Mayonnaise?

Opening a jar is easier. So, why should you make your own mayonnaise?

Homemade Mayonnaise tastes better

When I was a commis chef at Le Rempart in Tournus, my old head chef maintained mayonnaise should never have strong a flavour. Instead, it should bring out the flavours of the other ingredients on the plate. He’d held a coveted Michelin star for years – who was I to argue?

And no doubt bought mayonnaise has a distinctive flavour. And it competes with everything it accompanies.

You can customise it

Follow the original mayonnaise recipe to start with. Then mix in other ingredients to give it the flavour you want. Marie rose sauce is a classic example. But you can add whatever you fancy, herbs, lemon – juice and/or zest, paprika… let your imagination guide you.

If you add the same ingredients to shop-bought mayonnaise, you’ll never hide its flavour.

And you can customise it

If your happy making the classic mayonnaise, it’s time to get creative. Try different oils or blends of oils. Use alternative vinegars or lemon or lime juice instead. Substitute the Dijon mustard with another mustard or a spice paste like harissa.

For your first experiment try a proper Aioli. Replace the vinegar with lemon juice. Go heavy on garlic paste instead of mustard. And replace rapeseed oil with and olive oil. Delicious!

It’s better for you.

Let’s not pretend. You can’t eat mayonnaise with a ladle and call it healthy eating. It just has too many calories. But it can be a healthy addition to your diet. Make your own mayonnaise and you can decide what’s in it. And you can choose healthy.

The basic recipe has three ingredients. Free range egg yolks, white wine vinegar and extra virgin rapeseed oil (salt and mustard are optional). You choose the quality and health characteristics of the ingredients. And every additional ingredient you add. That’s especially important when you’re choosing your oils.

Take a look at the ingredients on the back of a jar of shop bought. Decide for yourself. Or check-out Hellman’s ingredients here

You learn a useful cooking skill

Learning how to make mayonnaise is not difficult. But it takes a little practice. And what you learn is a transferable skill. It can be used to make other delicious hot and cold sauces.

Give this mayonnaise recipe a try and you’ll be ready for new taste challenges!

Tips on How to make mayonnaise

You can make this recipe using an electric whisk in 5 minutes. And I do. But I only use a single whisk attachment on the lowest speed.

But if you’ve never made mayonnaise before, I’m going to suggest you make it with a hand whisk. It’s harder work and it takes longer. But when you use an electric whisk everything happens very fast. Unless you know what to expect it can go wrong quickly. Your mayonnaise can separate in the blink of an eye.

It takes only a couple of times by hand to learn to make mayonnaise. Then if you have an electric whisk use it. But what you’ve learnt will serve you well for other hot and cold sauces in the future.

Oil and Water

Oil and water don’t mix. Put them in a jar together and shake as hard and as long as you like, but when you stop, they will separate again.

Yet at its simplest, mayonnaise is egg yolk (mostly water) mixed with oil. To make your mayonnaise work, you need to make an emulsion.

Emulsions

When two liquids don’t normally mix, it’s still possible to blend them. It’s done by creating a dispersion of minute droplets of one in the other. Aka an emulsion.

Cooking uses a lot of water and fat emulsions. Ice cream, hollandaise sauce and the classic fish sauce beurre blanc to name a few. Even in restaurant kitchens, emulsion sauces have an air of mystery and a reputation for difficulty.  

Totally wrong. Emulsions are easy – if you understand what you’re doing. And mayonnaise is the simplest one to make. Once you’ve made it a few times you’ll impatient to tackle some of the others.

Tips for adding the oil

To make an emulsion successfully, you pour the oil in slowly as you whisk the mayonnaise base.

Add the oil too slowly and your mayonnaise will be over whisked and it will split.

Add the oil too fast and your mayonnaise will not thicken properly. Or worse, it will split.

But mayonnaise is actually very forgiving. A couple of glugs of oil by mistake are easily rectified. Stop pouring and keep whisking until the excess oil has been incorporated.

Pouring the oil and whisking is a little like tapping your head and rubbing your belly. It takes practice. If you struggle, ask someone to pour for you.

Again, I urge you to try making your mayonnaise by hand on the first couple of occasions.

Making Mayonnaise with a stick blender

If you don’t have an electric whisk, this recipe will work with a stick blender. If you want to see the technique, here’s a YouTube video. Using a stick blender is often described as an easy mayonnaise making “hack”. But an electric whisk should be your first choice for four reasons.

• An electric whisk is just as easy and just fast
• You’ll miss out on learning a transferable cooking skill
• It’s easier to make larger amounts if you need to
• You can’t adapt and customise your mayonnaise as easily

The last point is especially important. The stick blender technique requires you to add all your premeasured ingredients together. It makes it difficult to experiment.

Make your mayonnaise with an electric whisk

With an electric whisk, you can taste your recipe as you go and adjust and adapt it as necessary. Some of my best mayonnaises have evolved this way!

Enjoy!