If you are interested in removing as many processed foods as possible, then making your own mayo is a step in the right direction. This is the recipe we use here on the farm and it's really quite simple.

Here's a little lesson about mayo before you dive in.

1. We use whole eggs instead of just egg yolks so you can skip separating the eggs.

2. Mustard — I know what you're thinking, but when it comes to making homemade mayonnaise mustard is sort of a magical ingredient. It's main purpose is to keep the mayonnaise stable. Along with the egg yolk, mustard helps emulsify the mixture, reducing the risk of our mayo breaking. Broken mayo is a pile of mayo soup, which can be fixed. Do not skip this ingredient. It is essential to the production of mayo.

3. Pick a neutral flavored oil — By neutral flavored oil, I mean use an oil that is light in flavor. Quite a bit of oil is added to make mayonnaise, so it’s important to like the flavor of the oil you use. For a clean tasting mayonnaise use something like grape seed, safflower, avocado or canola oil. I actually use a combination of grape seed and avocado oil, as the avocado oil can be strong on it's own.

4. Food Processor - VERY important. There are other ways, but this is by far the easiest.

5. Room temperature ingredients are best when making mayonnaise. If you’re not able to wait for the egg to come to room temperature, submerge it in lukewarm (not hot) water for a couple of minutes.

6. I double this recipe and it'll fill up a 20 ounce jar.

Alrighty - enough will all that jibberish - let's jump in!

Ingredient List:

1 large egg at room temperature

1/4 teaspoon dry mustard

1 Tablespoon red or white wine vinegar (champagne vinegar also works)

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt, or more to taste

1 cup (240 ml) neutral flavored oil, grapeseed, safflower or canola are best

1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice, optional

Instructions:

Step 1: Prepare your food processor. Plug that puppy in and choose the blade attachment. If you have multiple bowl sizes to choose from, choose the smaller bowl, unless you are doubling. Mine comes with one size and it works perfect.

Step 2: Add 1 large egg to the bowl of your food processor and process for about 20 seconds.

Step 3: Add 1/4 tsp of dry mustard, 1 TBS red or white wine vinegar, and 1/4 tsp kosher salt (table or sea salt will also work) then process for another 20 seconds.

Step 4: VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: Slowly add 1 c oil (I use 3/4 c grape seed & 1/4 c avocado), in tiny drops, until about a quarter of the oil has been added. Adding the oil slowly is really important. If you were to dump it all in at once, you’d have mayonnaise soup!

TRICK TIP: My food processor comes with a cap to cover the shoot (hole the food goes down if you will), which happens to have a tiny hole in the in the cap AND it's PERFECT for controlling the oil. I can't tell you how much I hated pouring the oil SLOWLY until I figured out this little magic trick.

Step 5: Once you've gone through about a 1/4 cup of dripping oil, you should notice your mayo has emulsified or thickened. If it has, you can now add the rest of the oil as a steady stream instead of drips. If it hasn't emulsified, keep dripping.

Step 6: After all the oil is added and you have a nice thick and creamy mayo, add 1 tsp of fresh lemon juice and blend for a few seconds just to mix in. At this point, you can taste test your mayo and add more salt or lemon juice to your liking.

How long does homemade mayonnaise last you say? As a good rule of thumb, homemade mayo will last as long as your eggs would have lasted. Assuming you keep it covered in the fridge and you're using fresh eggs, it can last several weeks. Some say a week or longer, depending on the freshness of your eggs. Our mayo lasts (my eggs are FRESH) as long as it takes us to eat up that delicious jar of mayo. We enjoy sandwiches on the farm and usually end up making a jar once a month or so. We have yet to throw out bad mayo. YOU can determine the shelf life by sniffing and dabbing your clean finger in for a taste test :).