Aioli Recipe

by
Joshua Bousel
Joshua Bousel is a Serious Eats old-timer, having started sharing his passion for grilling and barbecue recipes on the site back in 2008. He continues to develop grilling and barbecue recipes on his own site, The Meatwave, out of his home base of Durham, North Carolina.
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Joshua Bousel
updated Aug. 30, 2018

After some mayonnaise and hollandaise, I'm feeling pretty confident in my mad emulsifying skills, so it's time to bring on more, starting with aioli.

Aioli was allegedly born in Provence, France, where a land ill-suited for cattle required an alternative to butter. So a sauce was invented that's incredibly close to mayonnaise with one very important difference: the addition of garlic. Even if the term "aioli" is tossed around incredibly loosely for any mayo-like sauce, this is how it originally came to be.

Though I stuck with the traditional emulsion process, this should work great in a blender or using Kenji's incredibly easy and fast immersion blender technique for those looking to avoid grueling manual labor in pursuit of one incredibly tasty sauce. It adds a creamy garlic bite to sandwiches, fries, or anything your heart desires.

Recipe Facts

3.5

(6)

Active: 10 mins
Total: 10 mins
Makes: 1 cup

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Ingredients

  • 3 medium garlic cloves, minced
  • 1/8 teaspoon Kosher salt
  • 2 large egg yolks
  • 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
  • 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
  • 3/4 cup canola oil
  • ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

Directions

  1. Using a mortar and pestle, work garlic and salt into a paste.

  2. In a medium bowl, whisk together garlic paste, egg yolks, lemon juice, and mustard.

  3. Whisking constantly, start adding in canola and extra-virgin olive oil in a slow, steady stream until all oil is used and sauce is thick. Use immediately or store in an air-tight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.

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