As part of my diabetes control, I try to find ways to add healthy fats to my diet. Besides the well known omega 6/3 ratio, it's important to get a wide variety of saturated and monounsaturated fats. One of the ways I do this is to make my own mayonnaise to use in salad dressings.
I used to absolutely HATE mayo, I would actually gag on it. Little did I know that the soybean crap they market in stores is not really mayo. Made with fresh eggs and spices and mixed, real fats, homemade mayonnaise has a wonderful flavor and I can eat it from a spoon.
My method is quick (except where noted below), easy and can be done in an emergency in less than five minutes.
Prepare the eggs and oil early
The longest part of the process might be bringing the ingredients to room temperature. I put them out about two hours ago. Many people do not refrigerate eggs, since they can last several days at room temperature quite easily. I just end up having more room with them in the fridge.
If the eggs are not above about 70°F then the emulsion of fats and proteins may not form properly. See the troubleshooting paragraph below. The oil should also be room temperature. I usually keep my oils in a cupboard, since I don't use fats that are easily made rancid. Regular cooking/vegetable/canola/soy oil should not be used, IMO.
Spices!
I spice the mayo a little, because sometimes I use it bare on sandwiches. For three eggs and three cups of oil I use about this much black pepper, red pepper and salt. I'm sorry, but everything I make varies when I make it. You will have to decide for yourself exactly how much salt and pepper you want. I don't usually measure. It's about a half a teaspoon of each, at a guess.
I've found that even a little variety makes things that you prepare often taste better. That's why I don't usually measure or follow a recipe.
The salt I use is the low sodium salt, not because I want to watch my sodium (ask me about that some day) but because I want the potassium they replace it with. The peppers are coarse ground because I want to see them in the mayo.
Find a great jar
Now, the reason I bother to write this is because of the method I use. I make the mayo right in the jar. This is an empty Coconut Oil jar with a plastic lid. Easy to clean, no rust on the lid, and holds enough to last me two weeks or so.
Choose quality ingredients
Put the eggs, spices and the following ingredients right in the jar. I have it in the sink because I have spilled it before and getting oil, vinegar and eggs out of my laptop might not be easy!
I am not sure what the policy on product placement is, so I have disguised these a little. But find a really good natural vinegar, and I use simple yellow mustard, because I don't want to mess with the flavors I put in myself. Brown mustards often have various spices which may not blend well with my other choices. But that's up to you. It turns out that I use about a tablespoon of both.
Just put them in the jar
I usually just crack the eggs into a bowl (to avoid shell chips) and dump it all in the jar. All this fancy stuff with the little white bowls is for your benefit. See how much I value your time? Thanks for reading this far. Wait til you see the video! It's going to be great. Well... as great as making mayo can be, I guess.
That's everything in the bottom and the oil will float on top. Don't worry about mixing it up too much, but the eggs on the bottom will be where you start actually making the mayo.
The very important fats
I use three different fat sources. About two tablespoons of filtered coconut oil (the taste is not great in mayo, although I love it in other things), a light Olive oil (again, to avoid strong flavors, ymmv), and about 1/4 cup bacon fat.
Wait, you say, I thought you didn't want strong flavors!
I didn't want strong flavors covering up the bacon goodness. Because, bacon.
I fill up the rest with olive oil and it makes about three cups. Total volume is about 3 1/2 cups of mayo. I'll make a better list below.
You don't want to use too much coconut or bacon fat, long chain lipids (fats) get very stiff when cold, and even in emulsion they can make your mayo as hard as wax. Other fats which you can use for lipid variety are avocado, walnut or even beef tallow. But only use a very small amount. Your body may only need a few million molecules of essential fats to keep your brain healthy. What? Did I just say that?!?! I am not a doctor!
The mixing video
Wow, I hope this turns out good, since I hyped it so much! I don't know if I can hold the phone and blend it at the same time. This would be impossible with the old method. But using a stick blender you can probably do it one handed. Let's see!
TIL: Don't talk while blending.
Troubleshooting
There's only one problem I have ever had, it doesn't happen very often, but everything will be going along nicely and then suddenly, for no reason, it just won't get stiff. Don't be embarrassed, it happens to many folks.
If everything doesn't work out quite right, you get a nasty looking greasy jar of watery crap. The emulsion doesn't form. In fact, they say that the emulsion "breaks" and you can look up ways to prevent that. Room temperature and starting slow turns out to be the prevention.
But how do you fix it? Easy and fun!
Just take another room temperature egg and drop it in the bottom. Then try again. It will probably fix it. Once I had to add a second egg, and that fixed it. The mayo was still just as good. I couldn't tell the difference between three eggs and five.
List of ingredients (best guess)
- Three eggs
- Three cups of oils
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Tbsp vinegar
- Tbsp prepared mustard
- Anything else you want in your mayo. I've tried herbs, fresh greens, water kefir, pickled hot peppers. That last one didn't work out so well....
I use it for salad dressing mostly, I mix in salsa or Sriracha and use it generously to bump up my fat levels for ketogenesis. Hope you try it and enjoy it! Let me know how it works out for you.
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