Suddenly Mayonnaise Is Expensive

Nothing has surprised me at the supermarket more than the rising cost of mayonnaise ... and I'm not alone. A friend complained about paying $12 for a 30-ounce jar. Last week I walked out of Key Food refusing to spend $8 a jar. Before the pandemic, mayonnaise was $2.99 - $3.99 for a 30 oz jar. If I get desperate I may reluctantly accept spending $5 a jar. Time will tell.

I have found Walmart's Great Value in-house brand and Target's Market Value in-house brand as good tasting as Hellmann's, America's leading mayonnaise. Target charges $4.39 for a 30 oz jar, while Walmart's mayonnaise is only $3.38.

Why is most mayonnaise so expensive? One reason given is, an egg shortage caused prices to soar due to the bird flu in 2022 - 2023. Yet it's not the full story. TIME magazine reported that a main culprit for the rising cost of eggs is price gouging by America's largest egg producers. You have to wonder if price gouging has extended to mayonnaise and other groceries, as has been implied by several news sources.

Of course, if you simply need a smear of mayonnaise on a sandwich, a jar will last a while, but what about for American potato salad, tuna salad, coleslaw, or salmon cakes? Undoubtedly, most households will need mayonnaise sooner rather than later. If I use more than 1/4 cup of mayonnaise in a recipe, I like to use a 50/50 ratio of mayonnaise to Greek yogurt. It cuts the fat, still tastes like mayonnaise, adds more protein, and stretches your mayonnaise further. 

Another measure is to make your own mayonnaise until prices fall again, which they inevitably will. Like their in-house mayonnaise, Walmart and Target have kept their eggs at bargain prices. 

The following is a one-cup recipe. Small fresh batches of homemade mayonnaise are ideal. It has a shorter shelf life than commercial mayonnaise:

Homemade Mayonnaise

Ingredients:

Photo: iStock

1 large egg

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon white vinegar (or be eccentric and use Balsamic vinegar for a delicious taste)

1/4 teaspoon salt (I use pink Himalayan or Morton's iodine salt.)

1 teaspoon lemon juice 

1 cup of mild vegetable oil (such as avocado, sunflower,  soybean, or safflower, etc.)

Directions:

1) Toss all the ingredients except the vegetable oil into a food processor and pulse.

2) Next pour 1/8 cup of the vegetable oil slowly into the food processor and pulse, then a little more oil and pulse, and a little more oil and pulse. You have to start slow to make an emulsion of air and liquid to turn the ingredients into mayonnaise. If you pour all the oil into the food processor at once or your food processor is too big, you may have a failure since the blades won't touch the ingredients and the emulsion won't occur.

Mayonnaise is a condiment I never thought of making myself since until now I couldn't make it better or cheaper than readymade, but $8 - $12 a jar is a reason to reconsider!

You may also enjoy:

Homemade Golden Syrup

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Marinated Black Olives

Photo: istock

Why olives come in such small quantities like a 6-ounce jar is a mystery to me, so a few years ago I started buying 4-pack cans of olives from Walmart and marinated them myself.

 It's easy-peasy and economical as well. Plus you can experiment with different herbs and spices. The batch I'm eating now has only a few spices, and it is delicious:

Marinated Black Olives

Ingredients:

4-6 ounce cans of black olives

vinegar of choice (I used Cabernet Red Wine Vinegar.)

salt (I used Sicilian Basil Salt that I had in my cupboard.)

pepper (I used a saltless Cajun mix I made previously. It has red pepper flakes in it.)

garlic (I used dried and lots of it.)

Herbs de Provence

bay leaves (I used dry ground bay leaves, but have used whole bay leaves in the past.)

Directions:

I opened the 4 cans and tossed the olives with some of the liquid into a large jar.

This time around I didn't measure my spices or vinegar, but added some and tasted the liquid that came with the olives in the can then added more of the vinegar and spices to taste. I made sure the liquid covered the olives and discarded the surplus liquid. I omitted extra virgin olive oil, but by all means, add olive oil to the batch if you wish.

Eat several and store the batch in the refrigerator to marinate overnight ... and until you finish the batch. 

Cheap. plentiful and tasty! A puny 6-ounce jar of olives is a thing of the past. Nowadays we eat as many olives as we wish!

My latest batch

You may also enjoy:

Homemade Vanilla Extract

Homemade Golden Syrup

Breakfast Quinoa Cereal Bowl

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