Homemade mayonnaise: extra virgin olive oil splits opinion online

Homemade mayonnaise: the extra virgin olive oil some swear by and others can't stomach

Why does mayonnaise made only with extra virgin olive oil prove inedible to many palates, while others defend it as the only authentic version? The short answer: the bitterness and intensity of extra virgin olive oil. The long answer fills a 120-reply discussion mixing oil chemistry, habit, Mediterranean tradition and a reasonable suspicion about what store-bought mayonnaise actually contains.

The starting point is a minimal recipe: two yolks, a splash of lemon, a pinch of salt and extra virgin olive oil added little by little, no electric blender. Its defenders insist that even an ordinary supermarket oil makes it delicious and that, once you've tried it, the jarred version tastes of sugar and additives. Its critics argue the opposite: that olive oil overwhelms the flavour and that traditional mayonnaise has always been made with sunflower oil.

The problem with extra virgin olive oil's bitterness

The most repeated criticism is that any extra virgin olive oil brings a bitterness that ruins the sauce. It's not an isolated opinion: commenters point out that 99% of people who try an all-olive-oil mayonnaise won't eat it, and that bars have used sunflower oil for a reason. The proposed solution is to use mild olive oils, such as arbequina or empeltre varieties, or simply a refined olive oil labelled as mild, which in practice is refined oil with a small percentage of extra virgin.

There's a third way that blends both worlds: ratios of 70-75% sunflower and 25-30% olive, producing a mayonnaise with character without being overpowering. And a fourth, more technical option, using xanthan gum to thicken without needing so much oil. Whether that still counts as mayonnaise remains an open question.

Sunflower, olive and the additives nobody looks at

The health argument soon appears. Against the defence of extra virgin olive oil as an additive-free product, the processes of industrial sunflower oil are listed: hexane, phosphoric acid, sodium hydroxide, bleaching earths, TBHQ, BHA and BHT, among others. The list is used to argue that store-bought mayonnaise isn't just oil and egg, and that anyone eating it daily is exposed to a load of additives that homemade versions eliminate.

The counterargument is that organic sunflower oil exists and tastes of sunflower seeds, and that the problem isn't sunflower oil but industrial refining. It's also noted that store-bought mayonnaise usually contains sugar to make it more addictive, a detail that anyone making the sauce at home fully controls.

The tradition: mayonnaise or mahonesa?

Spelling becomes a battlefield. Some argue that "mahonesa" is the Spanish form and "mayonesa" the Frenchified one, with Menorca as the possible birthplace of the recipe. The linguistic debate intersects with the gastronomic one: if the origin is Mediterranean, olive oil would have historical priority over sunflower oil, which arrived en masse much later.

Along those lines, it's argued that Balearic islanders a hundred years ago didn't make mayonnaise with sunflower oil, and that the spread of this oil responds to industrialisation and lower costs, not to an improvement in flavour. Aioli, with crushed garlic, appears as the natural evolution: raw garlic provides allicin and offsets the oil's intensity.

The real cost of making it at home

The economic comparison isn't developed with hard figures, but with one idea: homemade mayonnaise has no equivalent on the market, and anyone who tries it stops buying the industrial kind. The price of extra virgin olive oil, highly variable depending on variety and vintage, shapes the equation. It's mentioned that a one-kilo jar of a well-known brand survives entire moves in the fridge, which says a lot about its composition.

The debate about sugar in bread and in tomato sauce closes the circle: the industry adds sugar to improve flavour and create an addictive product, and the homemade version removes that variable. The practical conclusion is that making mayonnaise with extra virgin olive oil requires choosing the oil well; not just any will do.

The opening question still has no single answer. Some will keep whisking yolks with sunflower oil and others with the mildest olive oil they can find. What nobody disputes is that jarred sauce contains things the homemade one doesn't. And that the palate, like the wallet, gets used to what it's given.