Homemade mayonnaise—and my preferred version, garlicy aioli—is a different critter from Miracle Whip. It’s simply an emulsified sauce, combining egg and oil into a smooth, stable blend. Once you master the technique, seemingly complex, challenging sauces like hollandaise and beurre blanc become easy to whip up.

At its most basic, aioli pairs the rich flavor of olive oil and eggs and the pucker of minced garlic and lemon juice. Leave out the garlic and lemon, and you have a subtle yet creamy homemade mayonnaise. Herbs and other aromatics bump the blend in an even more flavorful direction.

In my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon, I share one of my favorite summertime aioli blends, with garlic scapes and lemon. An easy spin on that taste is to grill the lemon first, as I do alongside Grilled Asparagus, or roast or grill whole garlic cloves. Mince in a tablespoon of fresh dill, and you get one of my preferred garnishes for sushi. Homemade mustard or spice blends quickly change the profile. You can even use the aioli as the base for a scratch-made ranch dressing.

Learn more about using garlic scapes and get the complete recipe for Garlic Scape Aioli in my column.

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When you’re making this week’s recipe, a few of these tips and tricks may come in handy:

• Mayonnaise, like hollandaise, is thickened with egg, which doesn’t combine naturally with oil or butter because of the water in the egg whites. Rapid whisking or a whirl in the food processor changes that.
• If you have a fresh egg source you trust, you’ll love the flavor and texture of the raw egg in mayonnaise. For a lighter sauce, use only the egg white. But if you’re nervous about eating raw eggs, the experts at Cooks’ Illustrated say Egg Beaters can be substituted but the emulsion will be thicker and not as rich. Aquafaba, the liquid left from canned or home-cooked chickpeas, can be substituted for a vegan version, but you will get a bit of the bean flavor in the blend.
• Emulsions can easily “break,” or separate, but don’t let that discourage you. Simply put 1 teaspoon of water in a new bowl and add the broken mayo very slowly while whisking continuously.

Learn more about emulsions and other sauce-making basics in a Twice as Tasty workshop.

Want more Twice as Tasty recipes? Get my books! Click here to order a personally signed, packaged, and shipped copy of The Complete Guide to Pickling directly from me. I also share tasty ways to use pickles in The Pickled Picnic, a digital collection in an easy-to-read PDF format; it’s only available here.