Skip to main content
Salad

Mayonnaise Dressing

A creamy dressing made with mustard, egg yolks, olive oil, lemon juice, and optional spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Mayonnaise Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the emulsion

  1. In a bowl, mix the mustard, egg yolks, and salt until well combined.

  2. Add the olive oil drop by drop until the mixture begins to thicken.

  3. Once thickened, add the lemon juice or vinegar to thin it out.

  4. Continue to alternate adding the oil, vinegar, and lemon juice until fully incorporated.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, fold in the whipped cream gently.

  2. For best results, use a mayonnaise mixer or a whisk.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  5. Mustard + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Their proteins and lecithin act as the emulsifier that holds the oil and liquid together.
Olive oil
Forms the fat phase that gives the dressing its thick, rich body.
Mustard
Helps stabilise the emulsion so the oil and water-based ingredients stay blended.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens flavour and thins the mixture as it thickens.
Whipped cream
Adds airiness and softness to the dressing when folded in at the end.

The step that matters

Adding the oil drop by drop at the start. Oil must be incorporated slowly so tiny droplets can be surrounded by egg yolk. Adding it too fast overwhelms the yolks, and the emulsion breaks into a greasy, separated mixture.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Cherryfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Coconutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, egg, olive, vinegar, cream. 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