How To Make Homemade Mayonnaise

My journey towards learning how to make homemade mayonnaise started a little over 30 days ago, when the Southern husband and I started out on the Whole 30 eating plan (and more on that later), but let me just say this right now: among the many other benefits of this past month, having to make my own mayo was a game-changer.  As someone who routinely makes her own ricotta cheese, butter and jam (and all of these are both ridiculously easy and one million times better than the store bought variety), you’d think at some point it would have dawned on me that mayo might fall into that category.  But no, I’ve only figured out a few weeks ago that eggs, olive oil, mustard powder, salt and lemon juice, my handy immersion blender and 5 minutes are the only things standing in between me and mayo that leaves the jarred stuff in the dust.

Want to know how to make homemade mayonnaise? Here's the easy recipe!Click To TweetSo, because the making of the mayo is only going to take me a sentence or two to explain, here’s my verdict on the Whole 30.  As some of you know, the Southern husband and I started this last month, and in a nutshell it meant taking all gluten, sugar, dairy, legumes and alcohol out of our diet.  We were left with protein (fish, beef, poultry, eggs), lots of veggies and fruits, and what the Whole 30 folks describe as healthy fats.  Avocados, olive oil, anything made out of a coconut and so on.  We went into it for different reasons – me because I had heard wondrous reports of people who were no longer getting chronic headaches (I am one of that headache-suffering tribe – everything from garden variety headaches to torrential migraines).  The Southern husband is always up for any kind of healthy eating adventure.  And while Whole 30 is not specifically aimed at losing any weight and the two of us are in pretty good shape weight-wise, we both wouldn’t have said no to losing a few pounds.

So we put the bacon in the freezer (most bacon contains sugar.  Sob.) and I made a 30 day meal plan that didn’t include any of that stuff above.  A 30 day meal plan that included four dinner parties, just to up the pressure. I bought a spiralizer. And away we went.  I made coconut beef stew and salmon with mango salsa.  Pineapple shrimp gazpacho and ginger lime steak.  We had a cookie sheet clambake.  Sure, I missed my merlot and the milky, sugary tea I love in the morning, but let’s put it this way: we did not suffer.  We weren’t hungry.  We had a grand old time at the dinner parties. And…

…I am going on three weeks without a single headache.  As a 2-3 headache a week girl, this is nothing short of a miracle for me.  The Southern husband, who regularly gets the sneezies and itchy eyes from allergies hasn’t had the sneezies or itchy eyes since about the middle of the Whole 30.  I’ve lost 8 pounds and he has lost 5.  And – bonus points! –  because it was that or no mayo in our tuna salad, I figured out how to make homemade mayo.  So in addition to reintroducing just a little wine and cheese and bacon back into our diets, the homemade mayo is here to STAY.

So here are the few sentences: put a room temperature egg into a bowl with a little mustard powder and salt.  You can do this in a food processor or in a blender – I like my food processor best, for magical reasons I will explain in a second.  While whatever machine you are using is running, slooooooooooowly drizzle the olive oil into the egg mixture.  I mean slowly.  A trickle.

And here comes the magical reason for using the food processor: look at the insert for the feeding tube – that piece you use to push ingredients down into the bowl when you are shredding or grating something.  It has a teeny tiny hole in the bottom.  If you pour the oil in to the processor through the insert, that teeny hole will trickle the oil in EXACTLY the right amount and at EXACTLY the right speed.

One way or the other, you will see the ingredients start magically turning into mayo almost immediately.  When the oil is all in and everything is looking mayo-like, gently stir in some lemon juice.

And voila, you have made your own mayo!  Spoon it into a mason jar and admire it, and then put it in the fridge.  Or use it to make tuna salad while you are on the Whole 30, or a BLT with fried egg if you aren’t.

The more you know…

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