Trust me, it’s not easy to find an egg salad without mayo that actually tastes delicious and is still creamy. So, we made our own. It’s perfect anytime of the year, but especially in the long hot summer months.
There’s only one thing I don’t love about traditional egg salad: the mayo. Let me rephrase that. I love the taste of mayo, I just don’t like the junky ingredients and processing involved to make store-bought mayo.
How To Make Egg Salad Without Mayo
Let’s face it: mayo is an essential ingredient in any conventional egg salad recipe that is actually worth eating. Egg salad without mayo would likely be dry, blah and rather unappetizing.
Why would you want to make egg salad without mayo?
Well, unless you make your own mayonnaise from scratch, there is not one single mayonnaise brand that meets our anti-inflammatory “Clean Cuisine” whole foods guidelines.
The Problem with Store Bought Mayo
Every shelf-stable mayo is made with some type of refined omega-6 rich vegetable oil. Most often the oil in mayo is in the form of soybean oil. Even Hellmann’s “Olive Oil” Mayonnaise has more soybean oil than olive oil!
Plus, since the only way to keep the eggs in commercial mayonnaise shelf-stable is to pasteurize them. Which means that all store-bought brands of mayonnaise contain pasteurized eggs. Pasteurized eggs are exposed to very high heat, which decreases their nutritional content. The process specifically reducing the levels of heat-sensitive vitamins, such as riboflavin, thiamin and folic acid.
Thus, I don’t like to use store-bought mayonnaise in egg salad or any other recipe for that matter.
What is a Good Substitute for my Egg Salad without Mayo?
If you Google how to make egg salad without mayo the most popular substitutes are yogurt and avocado. Since I am not a big fan of dairy and because I don’t like the idea of a tangy-tasting egg salad, the yogurt doesn’t appeal to me. The avocado does work, but it leaves your egg salad looking green, which isn’t optimal from a visual standpoint.
Most Convenient Mayo Substitute Option: Hummus
Hands down, the best-tasting and most convenient mayo substitute in egg salad is hummus. It contributes the perfect rich, creamy texture, has a neutral flavor and doesn’t turn your egg salad a funky color.
If you want to make your own hummus, I love the classic hummus recipe by David Lebovitz. His recipe combines tahini with extra virgin olive oil. This type of oil is unrefined, antioxidant and phytonutrient-rich oil that boosts your body’s ability to absorb anti-inflammatory omega-3 fats.
Sometimes we just don’t have enough time to make our own hummus. For a healthy store-bought hummus look for one made with extra virgin olive oil and/ or tahini, such as Baba Foods brand.
Note: be sure to avoid store-bought hummus made with pro-inflammatory, refined omega-6 rich vegetable oils such as soybean oil, pure vegetable oil, canola oil, etc. You even want to avoid hummus brands such as Athenos that list “olive oil” rather than “extra virgin olive oil” on their ingredients list because any olive oil other than “extra virgin” has been processed.
How To Make Egg Salad with Nut-Based Mayo
If you absolutely can’t get past the idea of making egg salad without mayo, then you can substitute the hummus in the recipe below with my homemade mayo recipe. This recipe is uses soaked raw macadamia nuts; just be sure to soak them for at least 30 minutes or up to 2 hours. The longer the soak, the softer they are!
How To Make Egg Salad without Mayo
This recipe is incredibly easy to make. Need help hard boiling your eggs? Check out our hard boiled egg instructions using the steam method. It makes the eggs so easy to peel.
If you want to really boost the health benefits of your egg salad, serve it with a salad and some raw veggies! I came across this TIME magazine article showing that adding eggs to your raw veggie salad can boost the bio-availability of the antioxidants and phytonutrients substantially.
Also, if you are concerned about the nutritional content of your egg salad without mayo, it is important to choose the healthiest and most nutrient-dense eggs. Look for organic pastured eggs such as Vital Farms brand. However, if you had to choose between organic or pastured eggs, going with pastured eggs would be your most nutritious bet. Click HERE to read more.
Kitchen Favorites
Egg Salad without Mayo
Make egg salad without mayo or yogurt, but still creamy delicious egg salad! Our clean eating recipes tastes better and is better for you!
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Total Time: 10 minutes
- Yield: 4 1x
- Category: Salad
- Method: Mixing Bowl
- Cuisine: American
- Diet: Gluten Free
Ingredients
- 6 organic pastured eggs, such as Vital Farms
- 3/4 cup hummus or homemade mayo (made with nuts)
- 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
- 1 teaspoon
- 2 teaspoons lemon juice
- 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
- Unrefined sea salt, to taste
- 1 cup diced celery
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
Instructions
- To make your 6 eggs hard-boiled, check out our quick and guaranteed steam method here.
- Roughly mash the eggs in a large mixing bowl with the hummus, mustard, maple syrup and lemon juice.
- Season with onion powder and salt to taste. Fold in the celery and dill. Serve on toast or on mixed greens.
P.S. Can’t Get Enough Egg Salad?
If you love egg salad as much as I do, be sure to check out my other healthy egg salad recipe HERE! This recipe is a tad more work because it uses homemade mayo, but the results are well worth it.
Jena @Fueling a Fit Fam says
This made a perfect lunch for our family on a Sunday afternoon!Thanks for a great recipe!
Ivy Larson says
Awww, thank you so much for the positive feedback Jena! So happy you all enjoyed it so much =)
Alora says
There are some really good vegenaise options or Whole Foods 365 vegan mayo. If you look around in the natural food sector you’ll find better results in the ingredients than Hellmann’s because Hellmann’s is a conventional brand. I grew up on vegenaise, coconut oil and other dietary replacement items that up until recently were only found in health food stores. Now you can find a lot of these options in just about any grocery store.