Before you scratch your head and won­der who would want to make may­on­naise on their own, just try it, espe­cially if you’re aller­gic to soy. It’s so easy, really, and totally addict­ing. A warn­ing about raw eggs. My research shows that about 1 in 10,000 peo­ple get sick from a raw egg, although I recently saw the num­ber as high as 1 in 30,000. Just make sure your shell is intact and it’s been prop­erly refrig­er­ated and you should be fine.

Total time: 5–6 min­utes
Yield: about 1 cup

2 egg yolks (reserve the whites to use with scram­bled eggs)
about 2 tsp. fresh squeezed lemon or white vine­gar
about 10 oz. light olive oil or wal­nut oil
pinch of salt

1. Place a small round bot­tomed bowl atop a thick kitchen towel and begin to whisk eggs yolks.
2. While whisk­ing, pour the tini­est con­tin­ual trickle of oil pos­si­ble into the yolks and con­tinue to whisk. Keep your eye on the trickle (should not yet be a con­tin­u­ous stream), not on the yolks.
3. Once you feel the yolks start to thicken (after a minute or two), and the mix­ture starts to turn a pale shade of yel­low, increase the oil addi­tions to about a tea­spoon each and con­tinue whisking.
4. When the mix­ture looks like it is start­ing to pull apart, whisk in 1/2 tsp. of lemon juice vine­gar, which will act as an emul­si­fier. Con­tinue until your oil and lemon juice is gone, even­tu­ally adding oil in 1 T addi­tions. You don’t have to whisk like crazy, just con­sis­tently. The entire process should take 5 min­utes tops.
5. Taste for tex­ture and fla­vor and add salt if desired. For any­one aller­gic to soy who wants to enjoy a tuna salad or egg salad sand­wich, this is heaven!