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In the pantry post I called the jar of avocado oil mayo in my fridge the shortcut for people who are not going to make their own. This is the other half of that sentence.
Mayonnaise is genuinely easy. Four ingredients, an immersion blender, about a minute. The first time you do it you will be faintly annoyed that you ever thought otherwise.
There is still a jar of the shop-bought stuff in my fridge. Both things are true at once.
The reason to bother
There is one argument for making your own, and it is not taste, cost or virtue. It is that you control the oil.
Commercial mayonnaise is mostly soybean or canola, because those are cheap and neutral. The clean label brands use avocado oil and charge for it. Make it yourself and the oil is whatever you poured in.
That stopped being theoretical this summer. UC Davis tested 54 products sold as avocado oil and found 48 of them cut with cheaper oils. Every American made avocado oil mayonnaise in the sample failed (UC Davis, 2026). The premium jar is a bet. The bowl you make is not.
I pour one of two things. Georgia Olive Farms extra-virgin when I want the mayo to taste of something, usually for a sandwich. Chosen Foods avocado oil when I want it neutral, which is most of the time. Chosen Foods is also the one I trust on purity: when UC Davis tested 22 bottles of avocado oil in 2020, it was one of only two that came back pure and unoxidized (Food Control, 2020). A snapshot of that year, not a lifetime guarantee, but more than most brands can point to.
It also tastes fresher and costs less. Neither would have got me to do it.
The method
Four things: one egg, oil, something acidic, salt. Roughly one egg to one cup of oil. The rest is seasoning.
Mayonnaise in about a minute
- Egg in a jar. Use one barely wider than your blender head, so the head sits flat on the glass. A wide mouth pint jar is close to perfect.
- A tablespoon of acid. Lemon or plain white vinegar. They taste noticeably different, so try both at some point and pick.
- Salt, and mustard if you want it. A squeeze makes it taste like the mayo you grew up on, and it helps the emulsion hold. That ingredient earns its place twice.
- Pour in all the oil at once. Yes, all of it.
- Blend without moving. Head flat on the bottom, switch it on, count to five. The bottom goes thick and pale while the oil above sits there doing nothing. Raise the head slowly and it turns into mayonnaise on the way up.
Step four is the one nobody believes. There is no drizzling here. Drizzling is for a whisk or a food processor, where you fight the emulsion the whole way. A stick blender in a narrow jar can only pull in a little oil at a time, so it does that work for you.
When it fails, and how to rescue it
It fails one way: it stays liquid. The head was not flat on the bottom, or you lifted it too early.
The fix takes thirty seconds. Pour the failed mixture into a jug, crack a fresh egg into the clean jar, blend, then pour the broken mixture back in slowly. It comes together. You end up with more mayonnaise than you planned, which is not a real problem.
What it actually costs
An egg, a cup of oil, a splash of vinegar. Call it a dollar or two for about as much as comes in a supermarket jar, though the oil you choose moves that number more than anything else. The clean label jar runs nine or ten. The saving is real, and it has never once been the reason I made it.
Keeping it
Lid on, in the fridge, eaten within a week. No preservatives, so it will not behave like the shop-bought stuff.
It is raw egg, so there is a small salmonella risk. Pasteurised eggs remove it entirely, and they are worth buying if you are pregnant, elderly, very young or immunocompromised.
Why the jar is still in my fridge
Because it is eleven at night and I want a sandwich.
Homemade takes a minute, but it takes a minute now, and it needs an egg, a clean blender, and me being willing to wash a blender at eleven at night. Most nights I am not.
So both live in my kitchen. I make it when I am already cooking, and I buy it for everything else. A recipe post that ended by telling you to throw away the jar would be a worse post and a less honest one.
The eggs matter more than the oil
Pasture raised. That is the rule, and eggs are the one thing here I will happily overpay for.
The best price is local. Farmers markets, roadside stands, whoever at work keeps hens. I go to the market and actually talk to the vendors, because the label is not the useful part, the conversation is. Ask what the birds eat.
That is the part getting harder. I try to avoid eggs from hens raised on soy, and in a supermarket that is close to impossible now. Nearly every carton on the shelf, the pasture raised ones included, comes from birds fed corn and soy. Pasture raised tells you about space. It tells you nothing about diet.
If you want them delivered, the Whole Foods pasture raised carton is the one I would order, with that caveat attached: pasture raised, not soy free.
I buy elsewhere than Vital Farms, which is a preference and not an accusation. A class action was filed in 2021 over how its pasture raised and ethical marketing were presented, PETA’s foundation helped bring it, and it was dismissed in January 2025 with no payment and no finding against the company. Nothing was proven. Read it and make your own call.
What I actually use for this
Cuisinart Smart Stick Immersion Blender
Mine is green and I have had it for years. It is the entire reason this takes a minute instead of ten, and in all that time it has never given me a reason to look at another one.
Purchase signal: Owned for years · still the one I reach for
Price: Around $36.70 for the current model. Mine cost less than that when I bought it, and it is the older green version rather than the silver one on sale now.
Chosen Foods 100% Pure Avocado Oil (25.4 oz, 2 pack)
The neutral one, and what I reach for most of the time. When UC Davis tested 22 bottles of avocado oil in 2020, this was one of only two that came back pure and unoxidized.
Purchase signal: What I pour most weeks · bought in store rather than online
Price: Around $31.94 for two bottles.
Whole Foods Market Pasture Raised Large Brown Eggs (18 ct)
The delivered fallback for weeks I do not get to the market. Pasture raised, which is the part that matters most, though like almost every supermarket carton these are not soy free.
Purchase signal: The carton I order the weeks I cannot get to the market
Price: Around $8.49 for 18.
Quick questions
Do I need an immersion blender?
It is the one piece of kit that makes this a one minute job, so yes, effectively. Mine is an old green Cuisinart Smart Stick and it has never struggled with this. A whisk works if you drizzle the oil in slowly, but that is several minutes of real effort. A food processor works and is annoying to clean for this much food.
Can I use olive oil?
Light olive oil behaves like any neutral oil. Extra-virgin gives you mayonnaise that tastes strongly of olives, peppery and a little bitter. I make it that way on purpose with the Georgia Olive Farms bottle, but it is not what most people picture, so keep that batch small the first time.
Why did mine come out liquid?
The blender head was not flat against the bottom, or you moved it too soon. See the rescue above. You lose nothing but one extra egg.
How long does it keep?
About a week in the fridge in a closed jar.
Is homemade healthier?
It is exactly as healthy as the oil you put in it, which is the entire point and the only claim I will make for it.
This is a recipe, not medical or food-safety advice. Raw egg carries a small risk of foodborne illness; use pasteurised eggs if that matters for you.
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