.png)
Healthy Homemade Mayonnaise
Are you trying to eat clean? Or at least cleaner? I’m right there with you. If you’re trying to do better you know the basics, buy organic fruits and veggies where possible, get hormone free meat, and try to limit additives and preservatives.
Easy, right? Well, yes and no, that part is pretty simple, but then once you dig a little deeper you find hidden toxins in a lot of other places.
Where do you shop when you go to the grocery store? Do you get lots of pre-made boxed dinners from the center aisles or do you shop the perimeter where they usually sell the fresh food?
I know it takes longer to cook from scratch, but this way you have a better idea what you’re putting in your body. An often-overlooked area of health is food. It seems so straightforward, but we get in a hurry and get lazy, this can lead to all kinds of health problems. Think about it, isn’t it cheaper in the long run to pay more for food than for healthcare? Food is healthcare, we must remember that!
While we may not live on a farm and grow/raise all our own food, we can insert healthier options here and there (and although I’m not a doctor or nutritionist), I can say with certainty every little bit helps.
With that said, my next question to you is have you ever looked at your average condiment ingredient list? There are so many ingredients to avoid, it’s not funny. The first one is the oil they use; canola or soybean are the first ingredients which means this is what is mostly in your mayo. I know, I know, people love their soybeans, but from my research it isn’t something I want to put in my body. Any substance that causes inflammation is not anything I consider healthy.
Here's an article on this subject: https://www.ourpaleolife.com/soybean-oil/
Canola oil is even worse, seed oils aren’t all they’re cracked up to be! Here’s an article on canola: https://perfectketo.com/canola-oil/
Please do your own research, but yuck, no GMOs for me!
But what is a good oil? Recent research has pointed us away from processed vegetable oils to olive, avocado and nut oils. Peanut oil is not what I’m talking about, the peanut is actually a legume, I’m talking about pecans, walnuts and pistachios, these are the heart healthy anti-inflammatory oils I want in my mayo!
I tried the mayo recipe with all sorts of oils, light olive, avocado and yes even the horrible canola oil. The olive and avocado had an after taste I didn’t like and although canola didn’t have any after taste, I was on the hunt for the perfect mayo, healthy AND tasty.
Then I found THE oil for me:
Wow, it was what made the mayo perfect, roasted nutty taste, think about it, the main ingredient is oil, if it’s not good, the mayo won’t be worth eating.The next important ingredient is the egg, if you can find beautiful farm fresh eggs from your local farmers market or your own chickens, perfect! If you have to get them from the grocery store, may I suggest pasture raised, free-range eggs like these from Vital Farms:
I like these because they look just like fresh eggs from the farm, with an orange yolk, not the yellow ones. The chickens are raised humanely in the field with lots of sunshine and fresh air. Remember what they eat in the pasture is what ends up inside of you, so again this is important.
For the dry mustard, I use:
There is a mustard recipe on the can if you’d like to try that for a healthier yellow mustard. Do your body a favor and stop using regular table salt, go with something your body will thank you for like Alessi Himalayan Salt
As for the lemon juice, obviously a perfect lemon picked from your own tree is best. If you don’t have a tree (as most of us don’t), you can buy an organic lemon from your farmer’s market or grocery store. That would be the healthiest way to go, if you must use bottled lemon juice, I’ve found Nellie & Joe’s to be the best:
Yes, they do add a preservative, but it’s a consistent lemon juice, so I guess we need to pick our battles, fresh is always best, but sometimes that’s not an option.
As far as the white wine vinegar, here’s a delicious organic vinegar:
As far as the white wine vinegar, here’s a delicious organic vinegar:
Making mayonnaise can be a little tricky, but it’s so worth it and once you get the hang of it, it isn’t really that difficult.
I’ve seen other recipes that call for a stand or immersion blender, but I’ve found a food processor to be the best tool for the job. Yes, it’s a pain to clean, but for me, it’s the only way to go and I’ll tell you why. The recipe calls for combining all the ingredients and then drizzling the oil in. If you’ve ever tried to drizzle oil in a super thin stream you know it is not an easy task. I used to do it with my measuring cup until I noticed a VERY cool feature of the food processor. If you look at the plunger, there is a tiny hole at the bottom which is perfect for this task:
Seriously, how did I get this far in life (yes, I’m pretty darned old) and not notice this? It makes the drizzle process inconceivably easier.When making this, I have found this the best way to get combined properly, put in all the ingredients except yolk and oil and give it a quick spin (like 5 seconds), then pop the yolk and pulse for another second or two just to combine.
Once all ingredients are combined it’s time to start adding the oil.
Turn on the food processor and add 1-2 drops of oil to get it going, if you try to just dump the oil it will not combine properly, it will separate, be disgusting and you will throw it away. Blend for about 20 seconds and then with the pusher in, pour in your oil.
Turn on the food processor and add 1-2 drops of oil to get it going, if you try to just dump the oil it will not combine properly, it will separate, be disgusting and you will throw it away. Blend for about 20 seconds and then with the pusher in, pour in your oil.
After all the oil is in and combined, take the blade carefully out and push the ingredients that didn’t get blended in mixed back in and replace the blade.
Blend again for about another minute until the mayo is fully blended. Once it's all fully combined, transfer it to a glass jar and store in the refrigerator.