The Absolute Best Way to Make Mayonnaise

In Absolute Best Tests, Ella Quittner destroys the sanctity of her home kitchen in the name of the truth. She's boiled dozens of eggs, mashed a concerning number of potatoes, and seared more Porterhouse steaks than she cares to recall. Today, she tackles the oft-polarizing spread, mayonnaise.

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There are many divisive discussions to initiate in the condiment aisle, but none is as incendiary as the merits of mayonnaise. To some, its silky, gelatinous texture is the stuff of nightmares (I’ll never forget the girl I knew who would hold her nose and make an “ick” face whenever I added it to my sandwiches).

But for the rest of us, mayonnaise is divine. Mayonnaise-iness is close to godliness, as I like to say. It is the stuff of culinary magic tricks, be it for whisking together a cheater-Caesar dressing, keeping the crumb of a chocolate cake velvety, or binding together a cutlet and its panko carapace. And while my contemporaries and I might most closely associate mayo with juicy tomato sandwiches, deviled eggs, and generalized Americana fare, the emulsion is actually a fairly recent addition to the average United States larder, after its mid-18th-century debut by a French chef in Spain.

What follows are my attempts to refine an already pretty perfect food by testing different methods of emulsion, as well as types of oils. Here is what I found:

For each trial, I used:

• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• Diamond Crystal kosher salt (you could use a finer salt here, though mine dissolved perfectly fine with all of the blending activity)
• 1 cup oil (for the first round of Techniques, I used canola oil; for the second round of Oils, I used the immersion blender method for all trials with different oils as noted)

1. By Hand (Whisk)

1. Combine egg, mustard, lemon juice, and a big pinch of salt in a mixing bowl. Whisk together until fully combined.
2. Keep whisking. Begin to add the oil a drop at a time, whisking vigorously after each addition. After 3 tablespoons or so of oil have been integrated, you can begin adding the rest in a thin, steady stream as you whisk. It should start to come together as a thick, pale paste. Season to taste with additional salt as needed.

FINDINGS:

There is always a moment when whisking mayonnaise together by hand when you become sure that it will, under no circumstances, emulsify. This is a cruel phantasm—keep dribbling in the oil, and keep whisking ferociously. Because there is a moment a few drops later when, as though it had planned to all along, the mixture comes together and begins to resemble mayonnaise, thick and pudding-like in consistency. Making mayo by hand like this is, of course, a bit of an arm workout, but it’s also a live demonstration of the process of emulsifying. One crucial benefit to the By Hand (Whisk) trial was I could control the thickness of the resulting sauce with more precision; while the batches done with motorized blades whipped up into fluffy thickness almost instantaneously, I had to work for each successive aeration stage with the whisk. Eventually, I ended up with something a bit darker yellow and looser than the motorized batches; it would have been ideal for egg salad.

(Note: If your mayonnaise does not magically come together, and you’re left with a loose, watery mixture after adding all of your oil, do not panic. In a new bowl, whisk a fresh egg until combined, and then very, very slowly drip in your broken mayonnaise until you’re able to re-emulsify. This works with any technique; just begin again with a fresh egg and then drip the broken mayo in slowly as you frantically whisk, blend, etc.)

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2. Immersion Blender

A riff on: 2-Minute Mayonnaise From Serious Eats

1. Add egg, mustard, lemon juice, and a big pinch of salt in a jar that’s slightly wider than the head of the immersion blender. Cover with oil. Place the immersion blender into the very bottom of the mixture, and turn it on. Let it process without moving until a thick, pale paste begins to form at the bottom.
2. Tilt jar to one side and move the immersion blender around without pulling it out from the liquid, until all of the mixture has been emulsified. Season to taste with additional salt as needed.

FINDINGS:

There must be a German word for “a mayonnaise technique you didn’t realize you were desperately missing all of these years,” and if so, that word applies to Immersion Blender mayo. Within seconds of pushing the head of the stick blender to the bottom of the jar, filled with all of the ingredients at once (no oil drizzling here!), and pressing the potent little button that causes it to whir to life, I was left with a fully fluffed up, extra-thick batch of extremely creamy mayonnaise. As J. Kenji López-Alt points out in his recipe for this technique, which I adapted for this trial, the piece that makes it basically infallible is two-fold: Fold one is that using a jar that’s just wider than the head of the blender means the oil (which is lighter than the other ingredients) makes its way gradually into the blending zone without you actually having to drip-drip-drip it in; fold two is that the immersion blender’s head creates a vortex at the bottom that pulls that lighter oil down into the mayo whirlpool. The resulting mayonnaise was so thoroughly aerated and emulsified, it looked almost like clotted cream.

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3. Food Processor

1. Combine egg, mustard, lemon juice, and a big pinch of salt in the bowl of a food processor fitted with an s-blade. Process until fully combined, about 20 seconds.
2. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl, place the top back on, and then turn the processor on. As it runs, begin to add the oil a drop at a time, until 3 tablespoons or so of oil have been integrated. Then, as the processor runs, add the rest of the oil in a thin, steady stream. It should come together as a thick, pale paste. Season to taste with additional salt as needed.

FINDINGS:

The mayonnaise produced by my trusty, decade-old food processor was thicker and lighter in color than the By Hand (Whisk) batch, but looser than the Immersion Blender mayo. I had no issues getting it to emulsify, so I would classify it as a solid, hands-free technique for those who already own a food processor and don’t want to purchase an immersion blender.

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4. Blender

1. Combine egg, mustard, lemon juice, and a big pinch of salt in a blender. Process until fully combined, about 20 seconds.
2. Scrape the sides and bottom of the blender, place the top back on, and then turn the blender on. As it runs, begin to add the oil a drop at a time, until 3 tablespoons or so of oil have been integrated. It should come together as a thick, pale paste. Then, as the blender runs, add the rest of the oil in a thin, steady stream. Season to taste with additional salt as needed.

FINDINGS:

It feels blasphemous to admit this, as I am the type of person who bought a Vitamix on sale and then made it her entire personality (catch me drinking suspiciously thick green juice on a Zoom), but: It actually took me a few tries to get the mayonnaise to emulsify in my blender. The trick seemed to be using a medium setting—rather than a low or high one—as I added the oil, and also adding the oil a bit more quickly at the beginning to cover the blades as I began to blend. This technique does work, and eventually produced mayonnaise the texture of stiffly whipped cream (it did not fall out when I turned over the blender), but I would suggest using a food processor first if you have both on hand.

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5. Mortar & Pestle

A riff on: Garlic Aioli From Food & Wine

1. In the mortar using a pestle, blend together the egg, mustard, lemon juice, and a big pinch of salt until fully combined, about 2 minutes.
2. Begin to add the oil a drop at a time, blending vigorously with the pestle after each drop, until 3 tablespoons or so of oil have been integrated. It should come together as a thick, pale paste. Then, add the rest of the oil in a thin, steady stream as you continue to blend with the pestle. Season to taste with additional salt as needed.

FINDINGS:

I wanted to try this technique because it is the classic way to make aioli, mayonnaise’s garlicky, olive oil-based cousin. And the TL;DR is this: It worked, and like the whisk method, produced a looser, darker mayo along with a bit of heavy breathing. (To get into the nitty gritty, the Mortar and Pestle mayo was the lava-like texture of just cooling melted milk chocolate, while the By Hand (Whisk) mayo was more like cooled pudding; the latter jiggled and the former slithered up and down the sides when I tipped the mortar.) I can see how it would be especially useful for making a mayonnaise with herbs or garlic or chili peppers blended in at the beginning. For a standard, unflavored mayonnaise, though, whisking was slightly easier because of the larger bowl.

For this round, I used the Immersion Blender technique for all trials.

6. Roasted Pistachio Oil

This produced mayonnaise that was so nutty and rich, I couldn’t help but fantasize about slathering it on a Thanksgiving leftover sandwich, or on a brioche bun along with walnuts, arugula, and salami (like the tea sandwiches at New York City’s Bar Pisellino). Roasted pistachio oil is quite expensive compared to vegetable oil, so I would only recommend this if you’re really looking to make mayonnaise the star of a meal, with a pronounced, noticeably roasted flavor.

7. Extra-Virgin Olive Oil

This made for a deliciously grassy, almost bitter mayonnaise I would most likely use to dip crudité, or slather over a fresh, just barely sweet baguette before piling on oil-packed tuna and ripe tomatoes. I would not use olive oil in mayonnaise that you would like to taste like the store-bought stuff (my favorite is Hellmann’s, though I also love Kewpie and Duke’s); a neutral vegetable oil is your best bet for that.

8. Grapeseed Oil

This produced an equally neutral flavor as canola oil.

• If you’ve got all the gadgets at your discretion, reach for an immersion blender and a jar that’s just slightly wider than its head, as with this Serious Eats technique; you’ll have perfect, fluffy mayonnaise in under a minute.
  
• A food processor will do the trick as well, and it can be used in lieu of a mortar pestle for easier inclusion of fresh herbs for a pesto mayo, or garlic for something with a kick. (A blender can work as well, but see notes above; take care to use a medium speed and cover blades.)
  
• When in doubt, you can always, always whisk mayonnaise by hand, or in a mortar and pestle; neither is the most efficient method, but they’ll offer the most control over final thickness since each technique takes longer to incrementally thicken than a motorized machine.
  
• If you have a favorite supermarket mayonnaise, do some Googling to figure out the best add-ins to enhance flavor; for a Hellmann’s-like mayo, I like to add a splash of white vinegar at the end. For a Kewpie-like mayo, I’ll add a pinch of sugar and a splash of rice vinegar, I’ll swap in MSG for kosher salt, and I will start with an extra egg yolk along with the full egg.

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Are you Team Mayo? Sound off in the comments!