Mayo - Everything You Need to Know!

Mayonnaise is a widely popular condiment and a key ingredient in many dishes, from sandwiches to salads, and it is produced and distributed globally by numerous food companies. The downside to this is that Mayo as we know it today is more often than not full of junk ingredients and is quite expensive! Thankfully it is very simple to make your own healthy and nourishing Mayo, customize it to suit your dietary needs, save money, and even make some extraordinary custom flavor blends! Today I am going to share everything you need to know about making this classic condiment at home, including what ingredients are essential and which are optional, how to adapt this to suit the carnivore diet, how you can extend the shelf life of this product to last months in the fridge, and also the cost analysis that shocked me! 

Equipment

You can make this entirely by hand without any kitchen tools, but I highly recommend an immersion blender! It makes this process so quick and simple, and it is also ridiculously handy for all sorts of kitchen tasks. This KitchenAid hand blender has actually completely replaced our stand up blender, it makes quick work of frozen fruit smoothies, smooth pureed soups and baby food, and is invaluable when making jams and sauces! 

Ingredients

Essential Ingredients

-Eggs

-Acid

-Fat

-Salt

Optional Ingredients

-Mustard

-Garlic

-Pepper

- Any Herbs & Spices!

Let’s take a closer look at these ingredients. 

Eggs - Eggs are an essential part of making mayo and they will remain raw so using eggs from a good source that you are comfortable consuming raw is important here. Some recipes call for whole eggs and some only the yolks, either way is delicious! I usually use the whole egg so I do not waste or have to come up with a use for the whites but I suggest trying both ways and deciding what you prefer!

Acid - You can use ACV, Wine, or Lemon Juice as your acidic ingredient, totally up to you. Use what you have available and your flavor preference, this is pretty flexible. I have recently started using my fire cider as the acid element and it adds such a great depth of flavor, if you make fire cider, I definitely think it is worth trying in a batch! 

Fat- This is one of my favorite parts! When I first started making mayo at home I thought I could only use Olive Oil or something similar, but you can use so many fats for mayo! I love to make it with lard, tallow, and schmaltz, all of which make a thick and rich spreadable mayo and make this recipe carnivore friendly! You could also use sunflower, avocado, olive, coconut, or pretty much any oil depending on your dietary preferences in this recipe! 

Salt - Use a good quality salt with natural minerals to bring out all your flavors and add some great trace nutrition! 

Optional Spices- Mustard is included in almost every American mayo recipe i've ever seen, it is definitely a classic part of this condiment in the states and it also helps to emulsify the mixture, so tho not strictly necessary, it is highly recommended. And then you can experiment by adding fresh and dried herbs and spices to your heart's content! I usually only add a teaspoon or two of extra seasonings at the most here but it's really flexible, add a little and taste it and just adjust until it's where you like it. Adding a couple fresh garlic cloves or dill in this recipe is pretty darn amazing.

Secret to Storage

If you have ever looked into making mayo before you may know it has an incredibly short shelf life, only about 5 days in the fridge! This makes it impractical to make a large jar for most families. However there is a trick that not only extends the shelf life making your mayo store up to 3 months but also adds healthy benefits to your mayo! I have used this trick for over a year now (at the time of this writing) and It is so simple! All you need to do is add a cultured liquid and let your mayo ferment for 5-8 hours! The culture you use could be kombucha, whey from plain yogurt, or some naturally fermented sauerkraut brine, any naturally fermented liquid that is full of probiotics will inoculate your mayo with those good bacteria and prolong its lifespan. 

Cost Analysis

This part made me so happy! I know in theory that making so much of my food from scratch saves a lot of money, but I do not often actually sit down and calculate exactly what it costs, so this just made my day and was a great reminder that all the effort I put in to preserving our own food literally pays off! A while ago I made a video about rendering tallow at home. I paid $30 for beef fat and turned it into 24 pints of Tallow. At $1.25 per pint of tallow, free eggs from my chickens, and negligible cost of vinegar and salt…  A pint of mayo made with tallow currently costs me about $0.62 … Yes you read that right, It costs me sixty two cents per 16 oz jar of beyond organic tallow based mayo!!!! It is mind blowing when I would have to pay $9 for 12oz of a decent quality mayo with coconut oil from my favorite online retailer!

Recipe

Now that you know everything you might need to know… let's make some mayo!

Yields 1 pint jar, about 2 cups. 

Ingredients: 

• 1 whole egg and 1 yolk that you are comfortable eating raw (1 xxl duck/goose egg or 3-4 yolks)

• 1.5 tablespoon acid

• 1 tablespoon cultured liquid

• Optional up to about 1 tbsp herbs/spices 1 tsp mustard is a very common addition for flavor and added emulsification. 

• ¾-1 cup of fat

Start with room temperature eggs so that they emulsify properly and If you are using a fat that is solid at room temperature, warm it until it is melted but not hot ( you don't want to cook the eggs by adding hot oil). With the immersion blender you can add all the ingredients at once and wait about 30 seconds for the ingredients to settle. Starting with your blender firmly at the bottom, blend until the mixture thickens and turns a bit opaque, then start to lift and lower the blender until all the oil is emulsified. If you are using a food processor or mixing by hand you will want to add everything except the oil and mix it for about 30 seconds and then while mixing, slowly (very, very, extra slowly!!!!) drizzle the oil in and continue to blend until it is fully incorporated. 

Once the mayo is fully emulsified, put a lid on and leave it to sit on the counter at room temperature for 5-8 hours (this is to let the fermentation magic happen, adding nutritional value and extending the storage life of your mayo) then transfer it to the fridge and use it within 3 months!

Of course, use discretion and if there is mold or an off odor, discard and make a new batch. 

This blog post contain affiliate links, I earn a commission from qualifying purchases made with these links at no cost to you!