What Is Mayonnaise and How Can I Use It?

If mayonnaise has turned up in a recipe or caught your eye at the store, here's what you need to use it with confidence and how to choose it, cook it, store it, what to substitute, and 961 recipes to try it in.

What is mayonnaise?

Mayonnaise is a cold sauce built by whisking oil into egg yolk until the two trap together as a thick, pale emulsion. Acid from vinegar or lemon juice loosens it and sharpens the flavor, and a little salt and mustard round it out.

The magic is the egg yolk. Lecithin in it coats millions of tiny oil droplets and keeps them suspended in the water from the yolk and the acid, so the sauce stays creamy instead of splitting back into a greasy puddle.

Store-bought jars are convenient and shelf-stable until opened, made with pasteurized egg so there is no raw-egg worry. Homemade tastes fresher and lets you control the oil and the tang, but it is a raw-egg sauce, so it asks for more care.

Making Mayonnaise

Start with everything at room temperature and the yolk, acid, mustard, and salt whisked together in a bowl. Then add the oil slowly.

The first quarter cup goes in literally drop by drop while you whisk hard. Once the base turns thick and glossy you can pour the rest in a thin steady stream.

Speed is the only thing that breaks a batch. Pour the oil faster than the yolk can absorb it and the droplets never get coated, so the sauce stays thin and oily instead of setting up.

A neutral oil like canola or light olive oil keeps the flavor clean. Pure extra-virgin olive oil turns bitter when whipped this hard, so save it for drizzling. Use it for no more than a quarter of the total oil if you want its flavor.

Fixing a Broken Batch

If the mayonnaise goes thin, slick, and curdled, the emulsion has split. Do not throw it out.

Put a fresh yolk in a clean bowl, then whisk the broken mixture into it slowly, the same drop-by-drop way you started. It pulls right back together into smooth mayonnaise.

A blender or food processor makes this nearly automatic, since the blades hit the right speed for you.

An immersion blender in a tall narrow cup is the fastest route of all. Drop in the yolk, sink the blender to the bottom over the oil and acid, and run it while lifting slowly.

Cooking and Pairing With Mayonnaise

Mayonnaise is the backbone of cold, creamy dishes. It binds and dresses tuna, egg, ham, and chicken salads, and it gives body to coleslaw and potato salad.

Spread on bread before grilling a sandwich, it browns crisper and more evenly than butter.

It also pulls a quiet trick in baking. A spoonful in a cake or muffin batter is just oil and egg already emulsified, so it adds fat and moisture without thinning the batter. That is why some chocolate cakes and quick breads call for it.

The common mistake is heating it hard. Mayonnaise will curdle and weep if you boil it, so stir it into hot dishes off the heat or fold it in at the end.

Substitutes

Plain Greek yogurt or sour cream swaps in roughly one for one in dips and dressings, adding tang and cutting fat, though both thin out and can split if cooked. For sandwiches and binding, mashed avocado or hummus gives creaminess without egg.

In baking, an equal amount of oil plus a little of the recipe's egg gets you close, since that is essentially what the mayonnaise was adding.

None of these match its glossy spreadable body. For a true mayonnaise texture you are better off making a quick batch from scratch.

Buying and Storing Mayonnaise

Full-fat jarred mayonnaise has the cleanest flavor and the most stable body for cooking. Light and fat-free versions swap oil for water and starch and behave differently, especially under heat. For the variations, see mayonnaise, light and mayonnaise, fat free, plus the eggless and buttermilk styles below.

An unopened jar keeps in the pantry until its printed date. Once opened, refrigerate it and use it within about two months, always with a clean spoon.

Homemade is the careful one. Keep it cold and use it within three to four days, and make it with pasteurized eggs if you are serving anyone pregnant, elderly, very young, or otherwise vulnerable to salmonella from raw egg.

Never leave any mayonnaise dish out more than two hours, or one hour in hot weather.

The variations on this page each start from this same sauce and change one thing, usually the fat or the egg. The links below take you to each one.

Types of mayonnaise

Specific kinds of mayonnaise and the recipes that use them.

Mayonnaise, light

Light mayonnaise is regular mayonnaise with some of the oil pulled out and replaced by water and starch-based thickeners. That cuts the fat and calories by roughly half while keeping a spreadable texture.

It works the same as full-fat mayonnaise as a cold spread or salad binder, just thinner and a touch more tangy, since there is less oil to mute the vinegar. For the full story on what mayonnaise is and how it behaves, see mayonnaise.

Mayonnaise, fat free

Fat-free mayonnaise contains no oil at all. Its body comes from water bound with starches and gums like modified food starch and xanthan, so it is technically not a true emulsion, just a thickened gel made to look and spread like mayonnaise.

That swap drops it to a few calories per tablespoon, far below either regular or light mayonnaise. For what mayonnaise actually is and why the oil matters, see mayonnaise.

Mayonnaise, eggless

Eggless mayonnaise is mayonnaise made without egg, so the emulsifier that normally comes from the yolk has to come from somewhere else. Most versions use aquafaba, the starchy liquid from a can of chickpeas, or a soy protein, both of which hold oil in suspension much the way lecithin does.

The result spreads and tastes close to the real thing, which is why it is the standard mayo for vegans and for anyone avoiding raw egg. Because there is no raw egg, the food-safety caution around homemade mayonnaise does not apply. For how the classic egg version works, see mayonnaise.

Buttermilk mayonnaise

Buttermilk mayonnaise is regular mayonnaise loosened and soured with buttermilk. Stirring buttermilk into the finished sauce thins it to a pourable consistency and adds a fresh, tangy bite that plain mayo does not have.

It is the backbone of ranch and other creamy herb dressings, where the buttermilk tang is the whole point. For the base sauce it starts from, see mayonnaise.

Nutrition

Quick facts

Where to find mayonnaise: Mayonnaise is usually found in the salad dressings section or aisle of the grocery store or supermarket.

Food group: Mayonnaise is a member of the Fats and Oils US Department of Agriculture nutritional food group.

Amount	Weight
1 tablespoon	14 grams
1 cup	235 grams

What Is Mayonnaise and How Can I Use It?

Key Points