Homemade Mayonnaise from Homegrown Eggs

Making homemade mayonnaise is unbelievably easy. Just whip together fresh homegrown eggs or egg yolks, vinegar or lemon juice, salt, and oil. Exactly what ingredients you use and how you put them together is the secret to making homemade mayonnaise that tastes terrific to you.

Mayo Ingredients

To make good mayo, your ingredients and utensils all must be at room temperature. Remove chilled eggs from the refrigerator 30 minutes before you start. You may use whole eggs, but using just yolks instead will give you a richer-tasting, more yellow-colored mayo.

Classic mayonnaise contains olive oil. Most mayo makers prefer virgin rather than extra-virgin olive oil because the flavor is less strong. Some people use half olive oil and half vegetable oil. Others use all vegetable oil. Use whatever kind of oil you like best and your mayo will suit your taste.

You also need an acidic ingredient. As with oil, choose whatever you like best. Some people use lemon juice, some use vinegar, and some use half of each. The vinegar may be apple cider vinegar, white distilled vinegar, rice vinegar, white wine vinegar, red wine vinegar, or your personal favorite.

You could also substitute warm water for half the lemon juice or vinegar, which helps suspend the oil. The goal is to keep the mayo from “breaking,” or turning into a grainy liquid instead of a satiny-smooth sauce.

I like to add a little prepared mustard (such as Dijon) or mustard powder (such as Colman’s) to increase the yellowness, enhance the flavor, and help the ingredients blend better. For balance I also add a pinch of cayenne pepper or white pepper or a dash of Tabasco sauce.

Mixing Methods

If you have a stick blender, the mayo making process is fast and requires little cleanup. Simply put all the ingredients into a wide mouth jar and gradually whip from the bottom up. Put a lid on the jar and refrigerate your homemade mayonnaise. This process takes less than one minute.

If you use a blender — or a bowl with a mixer, egg beater, whisk, or wooden spoon — combine all ingredients except the oil, then whip continuously while slowly drizzling in the oil. This process takes about five minutes. Although the recipe below uses this method, you can mix the same ingredients in a wide mouth pint jar and use a stick blender, as shown in the video.

Using the blender method, if the mayo doesn’t begin to thicken almost immediately, chances are you are whisking too slowly or drizzling the oil too fast. If at that point your mayo “breaks,” all is not lost. Just beat another egg yolk and keep whisking it while gradually adding the messed-up mayo and then the rest of the oil.

Homemade Mayonnaise Recipe

Whisk smooth.

Whisk smooth before adding a few more drops. After adding about one-quarter of the oil, and the mixture starts looking like mayonnaise, drizzle in the remaining oil in a slow, steady stream, whisking continuously.

Refrigerate your delicious homemade mayonnaise and use it within a week. Because it contains raw eggs, avoid leaving it out of the fridge for any length of time.

Cooked Mayo

Traditional mayo is not cooked. Eggsperts claim it’s unsafe because the eggs might contain Salmonella bacteria. Yet the percentage of contaminated eggs is low, and they most often occur in food-service operations that use eggs from industrialized hens. I would not make mayonnaise with raw eggs from the supermarket, but I have no qualms about using my own clean, fresh, homegrown eggs.

However, if you are concerned you can cook your eggs. A temperature of 160°F destroys Salmonella bacteria. So simply whisk together the raw egg(s) with the vinegar or lemon juice and water and heat it to 160°F. At that temperature a few bubbles will form and the mixture will coat the back of a metal spoon.

To avoid scrambled eggs, heat the mixture slowly, stirring constantly. As an extra precaution, use a double boiler.

As soon as the proper temperature is reached, remove the pan from the heat. Rest the bottom of the pan against a tray of ice water or crushed ice, still stirring, until the mixture cools to room temperature. Then add the salt and oil as usual.

Mayo Fixes

Homemade mayonnaise lacks the stabilizers of a commercial product. Plus your ingredients are not standardized like those used in industry. Therefore your mayonnaise may not always come out exactly perfect. Here are some quick fixes for common problems:

Mayo is too thick. Stir in hot water, a little at a time, until the consistency is right.

Mayo is too thin. Chill the mayo and whisk it again.

Mayo separates or curdles. Sometimes just whisking the chilled mayo does the trick, especially if you use olive oil. Another fix is to whip the mayo while drizzling in about a tablespoon of boiling water, or just enough to make it smooth again. A third fix is to beat an additional egg yolk and add it, a little at a time, while whipping the curdled mayo until it re-emulsifies.

Mayo is greasy. Avoid making mayo on a hot, humid day. If that’s not the issue, use less oil. Or try a different kind of oil. Not all oils are the same — some are heavier than others.

Once you perfect your mayonnaise-making technique, you can have fun getting creative by blending in other ingredients for delicious homemade sandwich spreads, salad dressings, tartar sauce, and vegetable dips.