Egg Free, Gut Healthy Mayonnaise with Avocado Oil (plus an option to ferment)

Egg free, gut healthy mayonnaise… I’m not kidding! I’m really excited about what I’m sharing with you today! If you’ve been using store-bought mayonnaise, please give this a try. If you’ve wanted to try making your own at home, but are wary of raw eggs, you’ve come to the right place! This healthy mayonnaise recipe uses simple ingredients, and doesn’t take more than 10 minutes of hands on time.

You know that on this blog, one of my main objectives is to use what is so often deemed as trash. Meet Aquafaba. Fun new word for a lot of you, I’m sure! Let’s break it down. We know “aqua” means water. But what does “faba” mean?

It’s Latin for bean! So water bean, err… bean water, is our star in today’s recipe! Specifically, garbanzo beans. They are the ones that the liquid gels together and make egg-free mayonnaise possible!

We’ve been making homemade mayonnaise for years, but we always had our own chickens. I have no qualms about eating raw eggs if I KNOW the chickens are clean and healthy. When we moved to Japan, I for sure didn’t trust the commissary’s pale “organic eggs,” (Japan’s were unmarked… in English, anyway!) so I searched for a vegan mayonnaise recipe. I found one on one of my favorite blogs, Minimalist Baker. I took what she said about replacing eggs with aquafaba, but made several tweaks, starting with making my own aqua faba. (I also omit the maple syrup and mustard, and use lemon juice instead of apple cider vinegar.)

Make Your Aquafaba Gut Healthy

We rarely use canned beans because it is so much cheaper to make them at home. I love this organic brand from Amazon. I soak the dried chickpeas in water (in a one part chickpeas, three + parts water ratio) with a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar. Let soak overnight. In the morning, drain and rinse well.

Here’s where the “gut healthy” part comes in. Instead of filling the pot back up with water, use homemade bone broth. It makes for INCREDIBLY flavorful beans and aquafaba, and adds the bonus of being good for your gut. Fill pot with broth, two inches above the beans. I use the instant pot for making beans these days, so I set it to high pressure for 20 minutes. If you’re using the stovetop, bring them to a boil, then let them simmer for about two hours. Check on them at that point, and adjust your time as necessary.

Aquafaba is a great substitute in most baking recipes that call for eggs, but I would be selective as to which recipes I add the broth to. Bone broth aquafaba probably wouldn’t make the best chocolate chip cookies! But this is one place where making it with broth is a good thing! (Otherwise, we add our brothy bean liquid to soups.)

Equipment Needed for Egg Free, Gut Healthy Mayonnaise

• Immersion blender
• Wide mouth pint mason jar

If you don’t have an immersion blender, it can be done in a regular blender or food processor, but it was always hit and miss with how well it turned out until I got an immersion blender. Now, it turns out every single time. (And, it’s the cheapest of all kitchen appliances to buy!)

Ingredient List:

• 1/2 of one lemon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup bone broth aquafaba
• 1 cup avocado oil
• (optional: 1 TBS whey from yogurt or brine from fermented vegetables)

The first time I made homemade mayo, I used extra virgin olive oil. The recipe had called for vegetable oils, and we all know I wasn’t about to use that! But, WOW. GA-ROSS. Unless you’re a die hard olive oil lover, avocado oil is our best option for being a source of healthy fats in this recipe.

Make Egg Free Gut Healthy Mayonnaise:

Place all of the ingredients in a wide mouth pint mason jar in the order listed. Plunge the stick blender all the way to the bottom, then turn on. Keep it on the bottom for 20 seconds, then, very slowly, start raising it up. You will see little swirls of un-mixed oil, so keep blending, moving the stick as necessary to get rid of all of those streaks and swirls. The more you blend, the thicker it will be.

That’s all! It doesn’t take a lot of time, it’s nutritious and trumps traditional mayonnaise on every level.

Option to ferment:

If you do any kind of fermenting— be it making your own yogurt or sauerkraut, take a tablespoon of the brine or whey, and mix it in with the rest of the ingredients. Once made, let sit out for 6 hours before you refrigerate. I don’t notice any difference in flavor when I do this, but it does last significantly longer in the fridge! You can smell and see when it has turned… the time is determined by many variables in each kitchen, each ingredient.

Ways to Use Your Own Mayonnaise Outside of Sandwiches:

One of my favorite ways to use mayo is to make chickpea “tuna” salad. Flavor it as you would your favorite tuna salad, but since we have chickpeas on hand, use them in place of tuna. It is DELICIOUS and one of my go-to’s for out-of-home lunches.

Chicken Salad, Potato Salad, and Pasta Salad. We are coming up on barbecue season. Plan on bringing all the mayonnaise loving salads: potato salads, pasta salads and chicken salads to your summer gatherings this year.

Salad Dressings. I love making honey mustard salad dressing when I have about a quarter of the jar left (around 1/2 cup). I squeeze in a 1/4 cup of mustard, three tablespoons of honey, 2 TBS apple cider vinegar, 1/2 a lemon and a clove or two of garlic. Blitz with the immersion blender until it is a smooth, creamy texture. Taste and adjust flavors as you see fit.

I hope you give this egg free, gut healthy mayonnaise a try. As always, be sure to come back and let me know how you like it! Share your favorite summer-time uses for mayonnaise, too!