The Only Mayo Worth Buying, According to Ina Garten

If you’ve watched enough Barefoot Contessa episodes or paid attention to Ina Garten while she cooks at all, you’re probably familiar with her advice to use “good” ingredients. 

The celebrity cook has shared that she’s particular about the butter she uses. And when she hacks ice cream and turns it into crème anglaise, she uses “good” vanilla. For homemade vinaigrettes, she always tells the audience to use “good” olive oil. 

(In fact, it’s hard to think of olive oil in my head without hearing her voice saying “good olive oil.”)

Garten doesn’t do this to give high-end food producers a bump in sales. She does it because the quality of just one ingredient can make a difference in the outcome of a dish. 

Case in point: Recently, I ordered a hoagie tray from a sandwich store, and it came with an 8-ounce container of mayonnaise for those who wanted to add it to their hoagie. We had a lot of mayo left over. Not being one to waste food, I used it on tuna salad, and it wasn’t as flavorful as usual. The reason? The sub-optimal hoagie-tray mayo.

Ina Garten's Favorite Store-Bought Mayo

On her website, Garten has an “Ask Ina” section, and Nancy from Massachusetts, asked, “For your onion dip recipe, you say to use 'good mayonnaise.' Does that mean homemade or a specific brand?”

Fortunately for all of us who dream of having the time to whip up homemade mayonnaise but rarely do, Garten replied, “By 'good mayonnaise' I mean a good-quality store-bought brand, such as Hellmann's or Duke's.”

When Allrecipes’ writer Kate Walsh asked five chefs which mayonnaise reigns supreme, they all answered Duke’s. Stores don’t carry Duke’s where I live, so I always choose Hellmann’s over the other brands available. 

I have no doubt the tuna salad I made would have tasted better if I had used my usual Hellmann’s. Since it’s the season of all sorts of cold salads made with mayo, perhaps it’s a good time to remind you (and me) that using “good mayonnaise”—like Garten does in her onion dip and her Old Fashioned Potato Salad (take a look at the ingredients, it lists “good mayonnaise”)—makes a difference. 

Recipes Where “Good” Mayonnaise Makes a Difference

Besides tuna salad or potato salad, these dishes, typically made for summer gatherings, will be better if you use Garten's simple trick—using quality mayonnaise—when you make them.

• Deviled eggs
• Pasta salad
• Chicken salad
• Onion dip
• Creamy cucumber salad
• Tomato sandwich