Skip to main content
Salad

Mayonnaise Dressing

A cold dressing made from egg yolks, oil, vinegar, lemon juice, and optional whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Mayonnaise Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the emulsion

  1. Beat the egg yolks and salt until very light using a silver or wooden spoon, with the bowl set in a pan of ice water.

  2. Add a few drops of oil at a time until the mixture becomes very thick.

  3. Once thick, add the oil more rapidly while beating hard.

  4. Add the vinegar and continue to beat until thick.

Finish and chill

  1. Stir in the lemon juice and whipped cream, if using.

  2. Chill in the refrigerator for a few hours before serving.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Vinegar + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,334 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Egg yolk lecithin emulsifies the oil and water so the dressing stays thick and smooth.
Oil
Forms the fat base that gives the dressing its rich body and creamy texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens flavour and helps stabilise the emulsion.
Whipped cream
Adds air and extra fat, making the finished dressing lighter and softer.

The step that matters

Adding the oil. Oil must be added a few drops at a time at first, while beating constantly. Adding it too fast overwhelms the egg yolks, so the emulsion breaks and the dressing separates into a greasy liquid.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, vinegar, cream, butter):

  1. Strawberryfits better
  2. Raspberryfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, vinegar, cream, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More mayonnaise dressing recipes

Cooked 4Aspic 3Potato 3 See all 251 →

You might also like

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipes