You might wonder how mayonnaise ends up in a healthy food blog, as it mainly consists of oil and is also widely available in stores. If however you make some smart choices in the preparation and don't drown your food in it, vegan mayonnaise can be a beneficial and delicious dip in addition to your Barbecue, salad and other dishes. Besides that, home-made mayonnaise is unbeatably cheap to produce and done in no time.
Make the vegan mayonnaise beneficial!
The key for making a healthy and tasty mayonnaise is picking the right oil. Here, native rapeseed oil comes into place. You might also find it by its Spanish name "colza" or under the term Canola oil, depending on where you live. It is widely available, and unlike chia or flax seed oil, it is in the price range between sunflower and olive oil. What makes this one a good choice is that it consists of 50-60% of unsaturated fats. The ratio between omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids is 1:2 - which is ideal for the human body. As long as you don't bathe your food in it, you absolutely can consider rapeseed oil beneficial for your health.
It’s just where we start
This is a basic recipe. Once you got this one going, you can start creating tasty variations of your mayonnaise and create awesome dips with it. Try adding some diced pickles, fresh herbs like parsley and dill, give it a garlic note and round it up with colourful spices.
To get started you mainly need 3 ingredients - oil, soy milk and lemon juice. For the emulsion to work properly, all ingredients should be at room temperature. The soy sauce should be all natural. If it is made from more than just soy bean and water, it is likely to not work. Keep your ingredients as plain as possible. And yes! It absolutely should be SOY, because we rely on the emulsifier sojalecithine that replaces the yolk. For preparation, you need only a hand blender and a tall measuring cup. It may happen that something goes wrong in the preparation, if you are not pouring the oil carefully enough. Luckily, a failure only costs you a couple of cents and you can retry if it did not work out.
What to eat vegan mayonnaise with?
There are plenty of dishes that ask for a dollop of mayonnaise. You can put it on burgers or eat it with fries (I know, that's uncommon in the US, but hey - give it a try! Europeans love it). You can turn it into a dressing and throw it over a salad.
Basic vegan Mayonnaise
Equipment
- Hand Blender
- Food Processor
Ingredients
The Base
- 100 ml Soy Milk the natural, low processed one
- 1/2 Lemon Juiced
- 300 ml Canola Oil
The Flavour
- 1 tbsp Sweet Mustard
- 1 pinch Garlic
- 2 tsp White Vinegar
- 1 dash Kala Namak optional, gives egg taste.
Instructions
- Make sure your base ingredients are all at room temperature. If your soy milk is in the fridge, take it out and let it warm up a bit. Press the juice of half a lemon.
- Mix soy milk and lemon in a tall measuring cup. Slowly add the oil while continuously blending. It is important to pour slowly and steadily to make the emulsion work. If you pour the oil to fast, you end up with soup instead of a firm mayonnaise. Continue slowly adding the oil, until your mayonnaise is firm enough. You reach this point is when the ratio between oil and soy milk is about 1:3.
- Time to add some basic flavour. Give a spoon of mustard, some vinegar and pressed garlic into the mayonnaise. Carefully stir in the ingredients without blending further.
- I suggest storing this base mayonnaise in a jar at this point. In the fridge, you can keep it for a long time. If you want to make a dip or sauce with extra spices, take some of your mayonnaise and add what you feel like. The remaining mayonnaise stays in your fridge and is ready to be transformed into something different when needed.
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Nutrients per serving
