Oh. My. Gosh. Homemade mayo is amazing! I mean, just LOOK at that picture!
NOTHING like store-bought mayo. NOTHING. If you’ve never had fresh mayo, you haven’t yet begun to live, my friend.
Ivory’s No-Fail Mayo Instructions
1 egg yolk
1 tsp lemon juice
1 pinch salt
1/2 to 3/4 c pure canola oil, divided
1. Dependable mayo is about two things: warmth and the SLOW addition of oil. So, fill you bowl with REALLY hot tap water and dump in your yolk. Let sit for a few minutes for bowl and yolk to warm. (To pasteurize your egg first, see instructions at end of post.)
2. Drain water and set bowl on something non-skid. Whip for a sec till it’s lil’ bubbly.
3. Add lemon and salt. Mix well.
4. Place 1/4 c of oil in a small container. Add ONE TEASPOON of oil, whip until you can’t see it. Takes 10 seconds.
See that oil? Don’t add any more until it’s gone.
5. Continue ONE TEASPOON at a time until you worked through the entire 1/4 c.
6. Refill container with another 1/4 cup oil and repeat process adding 1/2 T at a time.
Should look a bit like this.
7. If want it thicker, add oil by Tablespoons until the consistency is how you want it. If you go too far, it will start to ball up and clean the sides of the bowl.
Mold-able mayo? Not good
8. Use immediately or refrigerate. Will keep a few days or more.
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- If you want to pasteurize your egg yolk before you begin. Set up a double boiler (or do the janky mason jar on glass ramekin like me). Begin heating water on medium. Put some water in the cup…like an inch. And gently drop in your egg.
- Heat until the water containing the egg is at least 130 degrees F. Don’t go above 140 or your egg yolk will cook. Try to keep it around that temperature for a five minutes.
- To warm your bowl, dip in pan and dry. Then continue above instructions at step 2.
Thank you so much! I tried to make mayo a couple of times over the years and never had success. I will definitely give this a whirl!
Omigosh, it looks like frosting! I better get that thought out of my head, or I’ll be in for a shock when I taste it.
Your recipes are always so easy to follow. Thanks for this one!
Great post! I grew up on home made mayo – both grandmothers and my mom always made it, and I can’t even eat store-bought!
The only thing I do differently than your recipe is to essentially double it and use my food processor. I use 2 whole eggs and also add 1 tsp sugar to the doubled recipe. Using the food processor speeds up the process for me, and also I almost never have a failure. If for some reason it doesn’t thicken up, you can just start over with another egg and add the original failed batch back into the egg. Works every time!
Yet another great recipe that I will add to my notebook! I’ve been wanting to make my own mayo, so I can’t wait to try it. I already love the baby wipes, the deodorant, and the sugar scrub. Thanks for sharing!
hi;
Would it work with plain old vegetable oil?
😎
This is so funny in that I just attempted two failed batches of mayonnaise on Saturday. I figured that it was probably the fact that I didn’t warm anything up before blending. I will definitely give it a go again this weekend. Thanks for the hints & tips.
Debbie…(O:
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You always have the best tutorials for things that cost so much to buy in the stores. This is a Godsend for that expensive stuff I am forced to pay for. Thanks so much and I look forward to more of your moneysaving posts.
I did this last week. I really have always HATED mayo, but hubby wanted egg salad (you know with all those delicious eggs our hen Molly has been laying for us) and we were out of mayo. I hate driving to the store even more than I hate mayo so I made my own. I think I’m a mayo convert now. There really is nothing like the real deal.
THANK YOU!!! I just had to pop in a say that! I’ve always bought store bought and now after having made my 3rd batch I’m a total convert! Thanks NANA for your additional info because it came in handy!!!! Please keep up the excellent Ideas!
I have been searching for a fool-proof mayonnaise recipe for days. I finally decided on one from epicurious. At the end I had a thin yellow liquid and was down 1 cup of oil — what went wrong? So I found your recipe and your photos and detailed instructions, and well, tonight was my first homemade mayo! I served it with turkey burgers and sweet potato fries and oh wow, I will never go back. Everybody loved it. Thank you!
Eric…HURRAY! This is why we post this stuff!
I’ve made two small batches with this already with no problem at all! Since I don’t use that much mayo in a week, and I like it less ‘eggy’ than the typical homemade mayo (more like store mayo) for the second batch I made a few adjustments: 1/2 an egg yolk to 2/3 c oil; half rice vinegar and half lemon juice for the acid; “extra light” olive oil (it has fewer olive oil benefits, but no olive oil taste at all); and a pinch (scant 1/8tsp) of sugar (an addition I read about somewhere else).It turned out great – better than store mayo, and much better for you, but not so very different in taste. I’m looking forward to experimenting further. Could it be that the heat applied for pasteurization actually makes it come together more easily than just room temperature yolks – I had absolutely no problem getting the oil to emulsify – I actually used a FORK to incorporate the oil after the first half was whisked in with a very small, cheap electric whisk (it couldn’t handle the weight after it started to get thick). Hurrah!
it seems the temperature isn’t the only thing keeping the ingredients from becoming mayonaise. I make it usually every other day but this morning i wasted seven eggs on (so seven times i tried to make it, hot cold medium temperature, whisk more/less, more/less salt, more/less vinegar) it just didn’t mix. Not once! Very, very frustrating i can tell you. I still don’t know what went wrong (which is even more frustrating) but my room temperature i’m working with dropped 4 degrees (celcius) today (heater not working) and maybe the humidity has something to do with it.
C
Delicious. And it worked, first time. So tired of soupy vinegary tasting mayo. I’m a mayo freak, but in India it is an expensive import. The last 2 jars we bought were past their expire date and had turned brown–a waste of Rs 600, to say nothing of the whole day it takes to buy it across town.