Homemade Truffle Aioli (Truffle Mayo)

Truffle aioli, or truffle mayo, makes a delicious dip for shellfish or vegetables. Just include truffle oil and garlic when whisking together homemade mayo!

During truffle season in Paris, fancy restaurants have five-course truffle tasting menus. And occasionally you can find black truffles themselves in the farmers' markets—for an obscene amount of money, of course. Raw truffles are fantastic thinly shaved over risotto or a creamy pasta dish for a special occasion dinner.

A more reasonably priced option for your truffle fix though is truffle oil, which gives you that same earthy, seductive flavor in a shelf-stable form. I love a bit of truffle oil drizzled over soft-scrambled eggs or tossed with steamed green beans, but using it to make your own easy Truffle Aioli is a bit of decadence we all deserve right now. 

Jump to:

• Why Make This Recipe
• 🥗 Ingredients for Homemade Truffle Mayo
• 🥣 Step-by-Step Instructions
• 🧐 Recipe FAQs
• 👩‍🍳 Expert Tips for Garlic Truffle Aioli
• How to Use Truffle Aioli
• Other Aioli Recipes
• 📖 Recipe
• More About Molly

Why Make This Recipe

• Surprisingly easy to make! This recipe combines my technique for homemade mayo with truffle oil flavoring. Though I love my Hellman’s for most regular uses, every now and then I like to make my own mayonnaise from scratch. All you need is a whisk!
• Delicious condiment for so many different foods. Use truffle mayonnaise as a dip with chilled shellfish or steamed vegetables, or serve it as a topping for a bouillabaisse or other fish stew. (Or, just smear some on a baguette slice and stuff in your mouth, as I did as soon as I finished whisking.) 

🥗 Ingredients for Homemade Truffle Mayo

• Vegetable Oil: Using vegetable oil to make mayonnaise gives you the most mild flavor. Alternatively, you could use grapeseed oil or sunflower oil. If you wanted to add in some olive oil flavor, I would recommend using half olive oil and half vegetable oil so that the olive oil flavor does not overshadow the truffle oil.
• Truffle Oil: Many truffle oils are artificially flavored, and not as delicious as oil made from real truffles. You can sometimes find black truffle oil and white truffle oil at specialty grocery stores, and on Amazon (such as this white truffle oil). Oliviers and Co. also sells high-quality truffle oils and salts, and they ship within the United States.
• Egg: This recipe does include a raw egg yolk, so look for pasteurized eggs if this is a concern for you.

🥣 Step-by-Step Instructions

Whisk together 1 egg yolk, 1 teaspoon dijon mustard, 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice, and ¼ teaspoon kosher salt in a small-medium bowl. I like to use a glass bowl so you can really see what is happening.

In a measuring cup with a spout, combine 1 tablespoon truffle oil and ¾ cup neutral oil. Very slowly, begin to drip the oil into the bowl with the egg mixture, whisking constantly and vigorously.

You are making an emulsion, and emulsions are very tricky. At the beginning, you must literally add the oil drop by drop, making sure it is incorporated before adding more.

The mixture will thicken and lighten little by little at first, and then faster and faster.

Once you have added about ¼ cup of the oil, you can speed up the rate at which you are adding the oil. Continue to whisk constantly, taking a break if your arm tires. If your bowl is moving around a lot, try putting a damp kitchen towel under it.

After you have added about ½ cup, you can speed up even more until all the oil is incorporated.

If your black truffle aioli is too thick, add a teaspoon of water at a time to loosen it up to what you desire. Whisk in a clove of minced garlic and let sit for at least 10 minutes, to allow the flavors to meld. 

🧐 Recipe FAQs

👩‍🍳 Expert Tips for Garlic Truffle Aioli

Want an easier way to make truffle aioli? If you avoid eating raw egg yolks or just really don’t want to make your own mayonnaise, you can also make a faster truffle aioli.

Just whisk ¾ to 1 cup of mayonnaise with a tablespoon of truffle oil, a minced garlic clove, and a bit of lemon juice. You may find the texture to be a little looser than you prefer if you use this method, but it still works! 

Or, try this easy aioli recipe that features lemon and garlic flavors.

What about using a food processor to make aioli? If you are already a home mayonnaise-maker and are on Team Food Processor/Blender/Immersion blender, I salute you. You can absolutely use that technique with this recipe and just add in the truffle oil. Me, I seem to have about a 50% success rate with using a machine to make mayonnaise.

As a result of throwing out several machine-made attempts amid a stream of impolite words, I am now 100% Team Hand Whisk. Yes, it takes a while. Yes, your arm will tire of whisking. But it is much much less easier to mess up as you can see exactly what you are doing.

How to Use Truffle Aioli

Use truffle aioli instead of mayo to make a next-level chicken salad or egg salad dish. May I suggest this Egg Salad with Bacon recipe? Or, use it as a spread on your sandwich du jour. Blend it into mashed potatoes or serve on top of a potato frittata.

Mix it with some dijon mustard and serve as a sauce for crab cakes. Aioli makes a fantastic dip for a crudité platter, or for a bowl of chilled shrimp. Steam artichokes and dip their leaves in truffle aioli sauce to eat, or serve with Roasted Artichokes.

Or serve truffle dip with Baked Potato Wedges or sweet potato fries instead of ketchup. Toss it with steamed green beans or asparagus. In the South of France, a bowl of bouillabaisse often comes with baguette toasts slathered with aioli. It’s fantastic as is, but serving with a truffle aioli instead takes that dish right over the top. 

Other Aioli Recipes

Now that you know how to make homemade aioli, it's time to try your hand at other flavors. Here are some of my favorites:

If you try this easy truffle mayo recipe, I would love to hear from you! Leave a comment below—I read them all, and your feedback is invaluable to me.

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Instagram Users: Now that you've made this truffle aioli recipe, tag me @vanillabeancuisine or #vanillabeancuisine because I'd love to see your results!