Once you try Japanese Mayonnaise, you’ll never go back. It has a rich egg flavor, a tangy and sweet taste, and is creamier in color and texture than regular mayonnaise. And just like any Japanese creation, it scores high on the umami factor.
Japanese mayonnaise (マヨネーズ) better known as Kewpie mayo—is a pantry staple in almost every Japanese household. Known for its richer egg flavor and umami goodness, Japanese mayo has become a cult favorite among foodies worldwide. David Chang, the famous chef and founder of the Momofuku restaurant group, even calls it “the best mayonnaise in the world.” I have to agree!
Thanks to its popularity, you can easily find Japanese mayonnaise outside of Japan these days. However, if you wish to make a homemade version, I have two recipes: One is made from scratch, and the other is a short-cut version using ready-made mayonnaise.
Table of contents
What is Japanese Mayonnaise (Kewpie Mayo)?
When most people mention Japanese mayonnaise, they refer to the most popular brand, Kewpie Mayo. It was invented in 1924 by Toichiro Nakashima, who first discovered mayonnaise on his visit to the U.S. and decided to introduce his own mayonnaise so the Japanese people would enjoy it.
Today, Kewpie mayo has become synonymous with Japanese mayonnaise. Everyone recognizes it for its signature squeeze plastic bottle with a Kewpie doll logo and a red cap.
The Japanese are obsessed with this condiment as we use it on sandwiches, okonomiyaki, rice bowls, fusion sushi, salad dressings, and even pizza. In fact, when I was growing up, there were limited choices of dressings, so we used to eat our salad with a dollop of Kewpie mayo (oh, the good old days!)
Many JOC readers told me they were never into American mayo, but they would only use Kewpie mayo as they are enamored by its slightly tangy, creamy, light, yet umami flavor.
What is the Difference Between Japanese Mayo and Regular Mayo?
So, what is Japanese mayo all about and why is it so famous? How does it taste differently?
You’ll first notice that Japanese mayo has a more prominent eggy taste with a hint of fruity sweetness. The texture is also thicker and creamier than regular mayo.
Japanese mayo uses only egg yolks to create a deeper yellow color and a custard-like texture that is smooth and luxurious, as opposed to regular American mayonnaise, which uses whole eggs. While distilled vinegar is used in American brands, Kewpie incorporates rice vinegar and apple cider vinegar to lend a sweeter and subdued tang.
As the flavor is more rounded and packed with umami, it’s no wonder Kewpie mayo is the must-have ingredient in many iconic Japanese dishes!
Where to Buy Japanese Mayo
You can find Japanese mayo, especially the Kewpie brand, at most Japanese or Asian grocery stores or online. Some well-stocked mainstream grocery stores such as Costco, Walmart, and Target might carry it too. If you live outside the U.S., you can find it at Daiso (if there’s one near you) or online.
Note that other brands of Japanese mayonnaise are also sold in a plastic squeeze bottle with a fine tip. The unique tip design allows you to spread the mayo on anything and to create zigzag patterns on okonomiyaki (see picture above). Look for the Kewpie doll logo on the bottle if you only want to purchase the Kewpie brand mayo.
Try my homemade mayo if you can’t find it or prefer to make your own!
7 Important Tips Before Making Japanese Mayonnaise
Mayonnaise is an emulsion of oil, egg yolk, and vinegar. Oil and water in the yolk are a mixture of two liquids that normally can’t be combined.
Emulsifying is done by slowly adding one ingredient to another while mixing rapidly. This disperses and suspends tiny droplets of one liquid through another. Proteins and lecithin in the egg yolk serve as emulsifiers.
Here are a few tips you need to know:
1. Use vegetable, safflower, grapeseed oil, or canola oil
Never use old oil or extra virgin olive oil, as it won’t emulsify well.
2. Make sure the egg yolks are at room temperature
Molecules in cold egg yolks get separated easily, which makes them less ideal for mixing.
3. Use mustard
Not sure about adding mustard? It’s not included just for the taste but also to further stabilize the emulsion as it contains small amounts of lecithin.
4. Add dashi powder for umami flavor
Kewpie mayo includes monosodium glutamate (MSG), which gives an umami flavor. Since I don’t keep a bag of Ajinomoto (the famous MSG brand) at home, I add dashi powder instead to boost a similar umami flavor. The umami from kombu and Katsuobushi in the dashi powder works in the mayonnaise.
5. Gently pour in the oil in a thin, steady stream
Adding oil too quickly will keep the two liquids from combining (emulsifying); hence, you want to pour the oil into a thin and steady stream when combined with the rest of the mixture.
6. Use a blender, mixer, or food processor
The key to making delicious mayonnaise is how small you make the oil molecules. Store-bought mayonnaise may taste better and lighter because household blender/mixer/food processor is not as powerful as commercial ones.
Still, it’s better to use equipment if you already have one in your kitchen. Using a tool helps churn your homemade mayonnaise much faster and more consistently (less arm work, too).
7. Use pasteurized egg yolks or very fresh egg yolks
Pasteurized eggs can reduce or eliminate the risk of being infected by the salmonella bacteria when preparing recipes that call for raw or uncooked eggs (Roughly one egg out of every 20,000 eggs will contain salmonella). If you have an immersion circulator, you can purchase pasteurized eggs or make your own. Also, the quality of the eggs makes a difference. Use fresh, local organic eggs if possible.
The Easy Version: Quick Japanese Mayo
Not everyone has the time to make homemade mayonnaise from scratch. The good news is you can take a shortcut by adding rice vinegar and sugar to the American mayonnaise. So don’t throw away your Hellmann’s Mayonnaise just yet. It’s not precisely the same, but consider this your easy hack when replicating the taste of Kewpie mayo.
For 1 cup of American mayonnaise, whisk together 2 Tbsp rice vinegar and 1 Tbsp sugar.
For 1 Tbsp of American mayonnaise, whisk together ½ tsp rice vinegar and ⅛ tsp sugar.
Signature Japanese Recipes Using Japanese Mayo
- Japanese Egg Sandwich (Tamago Sando)
- Takoyaki
- Okonomiyaki
- Karaage
- Japanese Potato Salad
- California Roll
- Japanese Kani Salad
Also, don’t forget to check out my super easy Spicy Mayo recipe! It’s so good in lobster rolls and sushi rolls like dragon rolls.
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Japanese Mayonnaise (Kewpie Mayo)
Ingredients
- 2 pasteurized egg yolks (at room temperature; from the market, or pasteurize eggs at home)
- 2 tsp Dijon mustard
- 1½ cups neutral oil
- 1 tsp Diamond Crystal kosher salt
- 2 tsp sugar (plus more, to taste)
- ½ tsp dashi powder
- 2 Tbsp rice vinegar (unseasoned)
- 4 tsp fresh lemon juice
Instructions
- Before You Start: This recipe calls for pasteurized egg yolks. If you cannot find pasteurized eggs, use the best, freshest eggs you can find for this recipe. You can also follow my tutorial to pasteurize your eggs using an immersion circulator.
- Gather all the ingredients. Tip: If you reduce the recipe ingredients, there won’t be enough volume for the food processor or blender to do its work, so you may need to hand whisk the ingredients (or use a hand mixer or immersion blender).
- Make sure the egg yolks are at room temperature. Put 2 pasteurized egg yolks and 2 tsp Dijon mustard into the bowl of a food processor or a blender; I used a food processor with a 3-cup bowl for one batch (yields 2 cups) of this recipe. Process for 20 seconds. Tip: Mustard adds flavor and helps to emulsify the mixture, reducing the risk of the mayonnaise breaking.
- With the food processor running, SLOWLY drizzle about one-third of the 1½ cups neutral oil in a thin, steady stream—about ½ cup oil for one batch of mayonnaise. The mixture will begin to thicken and emulsify. Tip: If you add the oil too fast, it won’t emulsify.
- Add 1 tsp Diamond Crystal kosher salt, 2 tsp sugar, and ½ tsp dashi powder and give everything a whirl again.
- Continue to add another one-third of the oil in a thin, steady stream. I use the Stir setting while adding the oil.
- Finally, add 2 Tbsp rice vinegar (unseasoned), 4 tsp fresh lemon juice, and the remaining one-third of the oil and process for an extra 10 seconds, just until the ingredients are combined and emulsified. Tip: Don’t blend the mayonnaise too long, as homemade mayonnaise comes together pretty quickly in the food processor or blender. When blended too long, the emulsion that brought the spread together is more likely to break, either from overprocessing or overheating.
- Taste the mayonnaise and adjust with salt, sugar, or lemon juice to your liking. I personally added 2 more teaspoons of sugar for a total of 4 teaspoons for one batch.
To Store
- You can keep the mayonnaise in an airtight container and store it in the refrigerator for about 4 days.
Thanks for all your recipes! I make mayo a lot, always with some mustard, lemon juice and egg yolks. I will try with Dashi next time, or perhaps some dried fish powder. Usually I prefer to whisk it by hand, It gives me more control on the emulsification. With the food processor I sometimes end up with a thin liquid…
BR, Kristin
Hi Kristian! Thank you very much for reading Nami’s post and sharing your cooking experience with us! 🙂
This is one of your recipes that wasn’t great for me. I know how to make mayonnaise, I made your recipe. It just didn’t cut it in the flavor dept. The consistency was good tho’.
Hi Surati! We are sorry to hear the taste wasn’t your favorite.
We hope you adjust the ingredient and enjoy the homemade Mayonnaise!
Once you find a good balance, homemade would be the best taste!🙂
Thank you for trying Nami’s recipe.
Can I use seasoned rice vinegar and omit the sugar ?
Hi Surati, Thank you for trying Nami’s recipe!
We don’t recommend using seasoned rice vinegar. It has added salt and sugar and it will result in different tastes.
We hope this helps!
Sadly very much did not work for me. Like many others said, it never came close to coming together. I used a small food processor that looked to be the same size as the one in the pictures, I brought the eggs up to room temp, I drizzled the oil very slowly and even used holes in the lid of my processor, the mixture never got warm, and I tried again using an immersion blender and a small amount of the liquid, but it stayed firmly a liquid the entire time. It didn’t look as though it was separated, but after my failure I let it sit for a few minutes and it did look like it had some solids suspended; either it was broken or it would have taken an hour to come together. Bin fodder, I’m afraid.
Hi Chloe, We are sorry to hear this recipe did not work well for you this time.
Blending the ingredients is the most difficult part of making Mayonnaise. However, our readers who use an immersion blender and a tall cup told us that this is easy to blend using the set.
We hope you will give it a try.
If using an immersion blender it needs to be a high powered one such as a BAMIX, the cheap ones just don’t ‘cut the mustard’, pun intended.
My nanny has been making this kind of mayo for YEARS, with a fruity vinegar, so it sort of tastes like this mayo. My advice is to use half the amount of fine salt so it dissolves better, and make 1 yolk with 1 cup of oil as a base for a trial run of mayo before you make a full recipe. So Google a simple recipe, with just 1 egg, 1 cup Canola oil, vinegar, 1 egg. If you can do that, say 3 times in a row, then go for this recipe. It’s how I learned.
That oil drizzle was the hardest trick to learn, but 2nd was knowing how long to blend the mix.
Good luck. Believe me, it’s worth it!
Hello!
I just made this mayonnaise today to go with your Japanese Macaroni Salad. I loved the result but following the precise measures on the recipe I must say it is very tangy compared to Kewpie mayo (which to me it doesn’t taste tangy at all), and had a strong Dijon mustard taste (I swear I put just 2 tsp, even flattened the spoon with a knife before adding it hahaha).
I used the measures in the recipe but didn’t add the extra sugar since I already liked the taste for the salad. Does the extra sugar make the difference for the sourness and the Dijon mustard taste? Or is there a mistake in some of the amounts in the recipe?
I live in Japan and I have broad (and cheap) access to Kewpie, but since I learned how easy is to make mayo with an immersion blender (and how much better is to the store bought one) I usually prefer to make my own, just surprised at the different flavour profile from kewpie mayo in the results (I don’t think it would have gone well with okonomiyaki for example).
Also, I have read in other places about not using olive oil for mayo because it’s harder to emulsify, but honestly I had always thought it was just for the taste, in Spain we have our garlic mayo “alioli” which is only egg yolk, extra virgin olive oil and garlic and never had trouble emulsifying. (Although the original recipe is just garlic and EVOO but good luck emulsifying it, only the bravest and with the strongest arms try it).
Hi Lara! Thank you very much for trying Nami’s recipe and sharing your experience with us.
The sugar makes the taste milder overall and brings up the flavor of the homemade Mayonnaise. So we recommend adding it next time. 😉
As for the Dijon mustard, We are not sure what brand of Dijon mustard you used, but Nami uses the “Grey Poupon” brand.
We think if it was a different brand, it might have a different taste.
Please feel free to adjust for your taste, and we hope you continue to enjoy homemade Mayonnaise!
Just did this with an immersion blender amd the provided cup. Turned out beautifully. Didn’t have to use all of the oil amd added the extra 2 tsp of sugar. Great recipe.
Hi John! Awesome! We are so happy to hear this recipe worked out great for you! 😊
Thank you very much for trying Nami’s recipe and sharing your cooking experience with us!
I’ve tried this recipe 3 times, once in my stand mixer, once in my food processor, and once in my blender. All three times it failed. I’ve been left with a bunch of soupy oil and egg liquid. My eggs were room temperature, I streamed the oil in very slowly, and still it hasn’t worked. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I am very frustrated, especially since it looked like it was going to work halfway through when I tried it for the third time today. But when I added in the last of the oil, it broke.
Hi Elizabeth, We are sorry to hear you are having a difficult time making Homemade Mayonnaise.
How big is your stand mixer or food processor? If you are using two eggs, we recommend using a smaller blender. Nami used 3 cup food processor here.
Next time, try mixing the oil at Step 5 for a bit short time. As Nami mentioned in the recipe, When the mixture is overmixed or overheating too long, the emulsion that brought the spread together is more likely to break, and the mixture becomes watery.
We hope this helps.
I once made a Japanese-style mayo using chickpea flour, and it worked extremely well (base recipe from Power Hungry blog). It keeps for longer and no need for pasteurization or fears of yolks scrambling or not whipping. I used miso and some drops of fish sauce in place of dashi powder or msg and that also worked, so people who can’t find kombu/dashi powder can try that.
Japanese mayo is tangier and ‘umamier’ than regular American-style mayo, so that it can be eaten by itself, but be careful because recipes that call for the more neutral American mayo (like dressings) need to be reworked a bit if using Japanese-style or they will taste weird.
Hi Didina! Thank you very much for reading Nami’s post and sharing your cooking experience and tips with us!
Hey! Where can I find dashi powder?
Hi, Jammies! MSG-free and additive-free Dashi Powder are available at Japanese grocery stores or Amazon shops.
Here is a post link about Dashi powder with Amazon store link:https://www.justonecookbook.com/dashi-powder/
And here is a post with many grocery stores around the world:https://www.justonecookbook.com/japanese-grocery-stores-around-the-world/
We hope this helps! Thank you for trying Nami’s recipe!
How much msg do I use , I don’t want dashi
Hi Loz! Thank you very much for trying Nami’s recipe!
Some dashi contains MSG powder, but MSG itself does not have the Dashi flavor, and we do not think it will be a substitute.
We hope this helps!
Came out perfect the first time. I used an Immersion Blender, and a tall wide mouth cup/glass instead of a bowl. Worked beautifully! I did add more sugar because it was a bit to tart for me. Thank you for sharing your recipe.
Hi Patty! Awesome!
Thank you very much for trying Nami’s recipe and sharing your cooking experience with us.
Have to say this was a total disaster. Tried it 3 times and every time it ended up a yellow liquidy mess. Unsure if it was too big a blender (how big is “too big”) or if I was adding the oil industry too quickly or slowly… Either way it wouldn’t work no matter how much I tried.
Hi Garry! We are sorry to hear that this recipe didn’t work for you.😔
Nami’s blender size is 3 cups. If you are using bigger than this size, we recommend doubling the recipe. Another option is to use an immersion blender.
Thank you very much for trying the recipe.
Hi Gary! I make mayo at home often, and I find that the easiest way to do it is to use an immersion blender and the cup that comes with it (tall, skinny). First, add and blend everything EXCEPT the oil, then very very slowly in a thin stream add the oil of choice. This method works well for all oil emulsions, including hollandaise, and is basically foolproof. Check YouTube for visuals, though I personally do it in two steps instead of one.
I’m gonna try this recipe soon I love kewpie but I’m even more impressed by your amazingly positive feedback in the comments, have a good day!
Hi Will! Thank you! We hope you enjoy homemade Japanese Mayonnaise.😊
You say to substitute Dashi for MSG, yet I have msg and I was curious how much to use. Is it 1:1 to dashi or no?
Hi Jay! Thank you very much for reading Nami’s post!
The Dashi powder is not the same as MSG itself, and we do not recommend using it as a substitute.
https://www.justonecookbook.com/dashi-powder/
No need to drip oil in slowly providing the blender / processor spins fast enough.
I use a tall jug, and to make this i add the egg yolk, vinegar, mustard, sugar, spices and all the oil, then pulse rapidly with a hand blender for a few seconds. It all comes together fine without splitting. Then add seasoning and lemon juice to taste. If its too thick, add a few drops of water and pulse again for a few seconds, too thin add a bit more oil and pulse.
Easy peasy 👍🏼🤤
Hi Ross, Using a tall jug is a great idea!
Thank you very much for sharing your cooking experience and tip with us!