Meatless Monday: DIY Mayo without the Eggs

Last week I floated the idea of working towards making Meatless Monday a dairy and egg -free day. For those who missed the post, the idea stemmed from a desire to become a more ethical eater.

I proposed starting with small steps, like the ones I am taking. Last week I baked a vegan cake. This week, for my 500th blog post, I went on a quest to find more uses for the heart-healthy avocado, now in-season in California and quite reasonably priced in East Coast supermarkets. [Yes, it travels quite a distance to get from the West to the East, but then so does much of the produce this time of year.] 

After a bit of googling, I ended up at Brit + Co, an online media and e-commerce platform where I found the article “Ditch the Mayo, These 12 Recipes Use Avocado Instead.” Included in the dozen recipes was one for a simple mayonnaise, via the blog Choosing Raw. 

A recipe doesn’t get much easier than this:

Simple Raw, Vegan Avocado Mayonnaise

Ingredients

• 1 medium Hass avocado, cut in half, pit removed, and flesh scooped out
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice (freshly squeezed)
• 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
• 1/8 teaspoon sea salt 
• 2 tablespoons olive oil

Instructions

• Add the avocado, lemon, mustard, and salt to a food processor or high speed blender and process until well blended. Stop a few times to scrape the bowl down.
• With the motor running, drizzle in your olive oil. Continue blending till the mixture is creamy.

Remember me for next year's St. Patrick's Day!

You won’t miss the eggs one bit! With its creamy texture and delicious taste, this would pass for premium mayo were it not for its bright green color.

The recipe calls for a Hass Avocado, currently the most popular variety of avocado, but this was not always the case. You can read more about the Hass Avocado here. 

Come back next week when I explain how to make a delicious, one pot vegan meal!

Happy Meatless Monday!  Have a great week.

On Mondays I often blog on food, food issues, or gardening in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.”