Paleo Project - Homemade Mayo

If you've inspected the back of a Hellman's mayo jar, you know that there are some less than desirable ingredients used to make that creamy delicious condiment.

In my opinion, the worst are Soybean oil and EDTA - which has potential as a cytotoxin. Even the mayo jars that say "Olive Oil" are made with some soybean oil or canola oil.

Note: If you believe that canola oil is truly heart-healthy, do some googling. I am not an expert, not a research biochemist, but I can read and strongly encourage you to do your own research and seek out studies involving your preferred foods before accepting food recommendations from our government agencies.


I decided to attempt a homemade mayo using this recipe from Everyday Paleo. She includes a video demo. Ingredients include: Olive Oil, Eggs, Apple Cider Vinegar, Mustard, Sea Salt, Cayenne Pepper (which I left out).

The Cost

Money -
$2.00 for olive oil
$.75 for eggs  (this is factoring in the most expensive free-range farmer's market eggs)
.. other ingredients were so little that I felt this was a negatable factor. The recipe made the equivalent of about 2/3 of a small jar of Hellman's.
Total: around $3.00

Time -
This took about 15 minutes to make doing the olive oil slowly and properly.. which is a lot of time when you have two small children to be slowly drizzling olive oil.

Comparison
The consistency was not as thick as regular mayo - a little more runny - but thick enough to spoon and spread on a burger. The taste of this recipe was strongly apple cider vinegar, so I made a second batch with 1/2Tbsp less and that tasted fine. The taste was also not that of regular mayo. While reminiscent, it definitely has its own taste..

My Thoughts

While not an exact substitute for mayonnaise, this recipe would be a great one as a base for a dipping condiment for veggies with some tweaking. On the video, Sarah Fragoso offers some twists on the recipe that I would like to try. This is also freaking delicious with sweet potato fries, but not something I as a woman with weight in mind would eat ALL THE TIME with my fries.

This keeps for about a week in the fridge, so it can be hard to use all up unless you halve the recipe or make a point to use it with burgers, veggies, on top of some fried eggs in the morning, etc. Because of that and the time required to make it, I would make this every other week or every third week and use guac instead on the off weeks.

My kids were not wild about this, but I think it would be great as a base with more ingredients like dill, salt and pepper and mixed into other things. My husband likes it and approves of it as a substitute for regular mayo with his one or two cans of tuna. Eating regular mayo was giving him stomach problems after our Whole 30, but he dumps a good 2/3 of a cup in with 2 cans of tuna.

I haven't ruled out the possibility of trying other recipes in the future, but this is the simplest one I have found and doesn't use expensive exotic oils. I would like to try this recipe someday from The Primal Palate because I think their recipes are fantastic and restaurant quality.

Hope this helps!
Enjoy~