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Homemadeaioli is one of the tastiest sauces of French/Spanish cuisine, and contains a short list of ingredients. Yet, it takes knowing the few tricks that either turn it into a success or a disappointment. We’ll show you how this works here for consistent results. I grew up in the South of France in the region of Provence, where aioli is very popular. The etymology of the word comes from “ail” which means garlic and “olive”, the word being the same in French and English.
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Homemade aioli
Easy recipe for homemade aioli from scratch. Aioli is a French/Spanish garlic mayonnaise sauce made from crushed garlic, egg yolk, olive oil, lemon juice, and salt.
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Course: Condiments, Sauce
Cuisine: European, French, Spanish
Keyword: Aioli, Garlic mayonnaise
Prep Time: 30 minutes minutes
Total Time: 30 minutes minutes
Author: Nicolas Pujol
Ingredients
- 1 egg yolk
- 4 garlic cloves crushed
- 20 cl of olive oil (20 cl = 7 ounces = 0.875 cups)
- 1 to 2 teaspoons of lemon juice
- A pinch of salt
Instructions
Tips and secrets for making homemade aioli from scratch:
There are many stories about making aioli being an exercise of faith: sometimes, the olive oil blends and solidifies with the egg, and sometimes it doesn’t, no matter how hard, long or fast the ingredients are whisked. It’s happened to us, and then we learned. Time to teach magic.
The success or failure of aioli comes in the first 10 minutes when the olive oil comes in contact with the egg and garlic.
The two factors that make it work are 1/ mixing the egg with very small drops of olive oil at the beginning. If you add too much oil immediately, the aioli is missed beyond repair. You can add more oil, beat it harder, chances are it will remain liquid and never catch on. The first drops of olive oil make the initial chemical bonds that solidify the sauce and set the foundation for everything else. You can add oil faster later, at about 2cl rate, every 2-3 minutes. You’ll see very quickly that from start to end, the sauce never gets liquid. If it’s liquid, it’s not aioli.
Now, time for the secret number 2: garlic has emulsive chemical properties that directly contribute to the consistency of the sauce. Crush it all and add it to the mix from the very beginning. The amount of garlic is therefore both a matter of taste and necessity. Aioli can be quite strong if you put too much of it, and if you put too little you’re risking upsetting the bonding process. Now you know the secret of making aioli and the preparation is a set of simple tasks.
French aioli preparation:
Separate the white and yolk of an egg by breaking the shell half open and gently dropping the yolk back and forth; the yolk must stay whole and not break during the process.
Put the yolk, salt and crushed garlic inside a small bowl
Add, as outlined above, very small drops of olive oil into the bowl and stir gently with a whisk; there is no need for an electric mixer or whisking particularly fast, just enough for ingredients to blend
About one minute later, add a few more drops, again in very small amounts, whisk between oil increments. Keep adding oil in tiny amounts for the first 10 minutes until you have a thick base.
The aioli, once 10cl of oil have been poured, becomes more solid and harder to stir. It may also get caught inside the whisk, which is fine. Carefully tap the whisk handle onto the bowl (holding the latter, naturally) and repeat occasionally to retain hom*ogeneity of the sauce. You can add oil a little faster now, at about a 2cl rate.
At the very end, add lemon juice to your taste. This will help smothen the sauce and give it a crisper, fresher color.
There are many ways of enjoying aioli. The classic dish from Provence is to steam fresh vegetables such as carrots, potatoes, asparagus, pretty much any vegetable. Often times, aioli is paired with a fish that is also steamed or poached, and lightly seasoned with herbs, olive oil and lemon. Beyond traditional pairing aioli is great with meats as well, so it’s really up to the cook to match the tastes and be either classic or creative.
Step by step preparation photos for making homemade aioli from scratch
