The mayonnaise you use can make or break your coleslaw, potato salad, or devilled eggs. And without mayonnaise we wouldn’t have tartare sauce or thousand island dressing. Put simply, a good quality mayo is a kitchen must-have.
It’s easy to make (see our mayo recipe below), but even easier to grab from the supermarket shelf. So which store-bought mayos cut the mustard for taste? And what’s in them?
We asked three culinary experts to blind taste-test 29 mayonnaises from brands including Best Foods, Heinz, Kewpie, Thomy and Praise, plus a range of supermarket varieties, to help you choose the best.
Our experts assessed store-bought mayonnaise products for taste, and recommended those that receive a CHOICE Expert Rating of 75% or more. Of the 29 products we tested, five made that cut. They are:
Aldi Colway Real Mayonnaise
CHOICE Expert Rating: 80%
Price per 100g: $0.61
Experts’ summary:
“Mild, pleasant aroma with a slight mustard note and traditional mayonnaise appearance.
Creamy, smooth texture with balanced citrus acidity, subtle sweetness, mustard and whole-egg flavour.”
Woolworths Whole Egg Mayonnaise
CHOICE Expert Rating: 80%
Price per 100g: $0.64
Experts’ summary:
“Creamy, good-coloured appearance with good shape retention and a soft, smooth texture.
Balanced flavour with pleasant vinegar acidity, sweetness, oil and mustard, with a mild, pleasant mayonnaise aroma.”
Aldi Colway Authentic Mayonnaise
CHOICE Expert Rating: 77%
Price per 100g: $0.78
Experts’ summary:
“Slight orange/ivory colour with a mild, pleasant aroma and thick, glossy consistency.
Smooth, creamy and homogeneous texture with a balanced flavour of mustard, vinegar and fat, with some salty and sweet notes.”
Hellmann’s Plant Based Mayo
CHOICE Expert Rating: 77%
Price per 100g: $2.50
Experts’ summary:
“Creamy white, thick and glossy appearance with a smooth, homogeneous texture, though slightly gummy and oil-coating on the palate.
Mild, mellow flavour with mustard, salt and acidity, but a little more acid would improve balance.”
Hellmann’s Light Mayonnaise
CHOICE Expert Rating: 77%
Price per 100g: $2.00
Experts’ summary:
“Creamy, thick and homogeneous appearance with a mild gloss and smooth texture, consistent with a reduced-fat mayonnaise.
Pleasant, balanced flavour with notes of vinegar, mustard and egg, with mild saltiness and acidity.”
There was a mayo that stood out to our experts, but for all the wrong reasons. A mayonnaise should be thick, smooth and creamy but this product didn’t deliver, with our experts giving it the lowest score of all the products tasted.
Coles 97% Fat Free Mayonnaise
CHOICE Expert Rating: 47%
Price per 100g: $0.74
Experts’ summary:
“Translucent, pale appearance with a thick, gummy, glue-like consistency that lacks the characteristics of traditional mayonnaise.
Strong egg-white aroma and an unbalanced flavour dominated by sweetness, with sharp acidity and vinegar notes but limited depth.”
Best and worst tasting reduced fat mayonnaise
We also tested four products from Praise, Hellmann’s and Coles specifically marketed as low or reduced fat options.
Of these, Hellmann’s Light Mayonnaise was our tasters’ pick for the best tasting reduced-fat mayonnaise.
The Coles 97% Reduced Fat Mayonnaise was their least favourite.
Hellman’s light mayo held its own against full-fat options.
While these products are similar in saturated fat content, their total fat content ranges widely from below 1.0 to 26g per 100g.
The Hellmann’s and Praise Whole Egg Light Mayo use oil as their second ingredient, which could explain the high total fat content.
Oil features further down the ingredients list for the Coles and Praise 99% Fat Free Traditional Mayo.
How is reduced fat mayo made?
If you’re watching your weight, reduced-fat (sometimes labelled “fat-free”, “light” or “lite”) options are available.
To achieve this low-to-no-fat status, the bulk of the oil is usually replaced with water, which is why water rather than oil appears first on the ingredients list for the lowest fat mayos.
The amount of egg the mayo contains can also be minimal. Praise 99% Fat Free Traditional Mayo, for example, contains no egg at all. The Coles 97% Fat Free Mayonnaise doesn’t give details of its egg content, although egg is further down its ingredients list.
Two of the four lowest fat mayos in our test are also the highest in sugar
Bear in mind that reduced fat doesn’t necessarily mean healthy. When fat is removed, something else is generally added to provide flavour – usually sugar.
Two of the four lowest fat mayos in our test are also the highest in sugar. To simulate the texture and consistency of traditional mayonnaise, thickeners and stabilisers such as xanthan gum (additive number 415) and maize thickener (1442) can also be added.
Four products from Coles, Heinz, Hellmann’s and Praise are suitable for vegans, whether by design (specifically marketed as vegan) or by default (egg-free to achieve a lower price point or fat-free status).
This egg-free Hellman’s product tasted just as good or better than most of the standard mayos in our test.
Hellmann’s was the standout again with its Plant Based Mayo.
But the Heinz Seriously Good Vegan Mayo and Coles Nature’s Kitchen Plant Based Mayonnaise were rated as “good” by our experts, scoring 73% and 70% respectively.
Praise 99% Fat Free Traditional Mayo only scored 63%. Our experts commented on its strong and sweet flavour, but also noted that it was lacking some traditional mayonnaise characteristics. The first three ingredients used in this product are water, sugar and white vinegar: not exactly what you’d expect from a mayonnaise.
How is vegan mayo made?
Instead of eggs, vegan mayonnaise is made from a plant-based liquid emulsified with oil and acid. To give it the familiar flavour of a mayonnaise, manufacturers use ingredients like vinegar or lemon juice, mustard, salt and sugar as well as stabilisers and thickeners to improve consistency.
The Coles product uses faba bean protein as its egg substitute, while Heinz, Hellmann’s and Praise use maize thickeners and modified corn starch.
A typical mayo recipe calls for an emulsion of oil, egg and acid like lemon juice or vinegar, seasoned with salt and mustard.
The ingredients in store-bought mayonnaise, however, are varied and often more numerous.
While some products stay close to a traditional recipe, many skimp on oil and egg and bump up the salt or include sugar and additives to compensate.
This results in something that’s more like a runny or gummy sweet glue than the naturally dense, smooth and creamy emulsion traditionalists would offer up.
Our expert tasters hard at work as they rate and review 29 products.
In the 29 mayonnaise products we tested:
a variety of oils are used, including (in order of most to least popular) vegetable, canola, sunflower and soybean oil
egg content ranges from 0% up to 9.5% – whole egg is used more often, sometimes in combination with egg yolk, and just four products use yolk only
16 products include lemon juice or juice concentrate as well as vinegar, and 11 use vinegar only. Two products also use lemon oil and two use concentrated lemon juice only.
20 products contain mustard, and many also contain spice extracts for flavour.
Mayos with most and least salt
Salt is a standard ingredient in mayonnaise. Ten of the 29 products we looked at were high in sodium (≥600mg per 100g). The worst offender was Praise Whole Egg Light Mayo with 950mg per 100g.
The product with the least amount of sodium was Woolworths Macro Organic Whole Egg Mayonnaise with 285mg per 100g.
Mayos with most and least sugar
While salt is no stranger to mayonnaise, sugar is a far less common bedfellow. And yet 28 of the 29 products in our test are sweetened – most commonly with sugar (and one product used fructose). This phenomenon didn’t go unnoticed by our expert judges.
Two products can even be considered high in sugar (≥15g per 100g), and have at least double the sugar content of all other products tested:
Coles 97% Fat Free Mayonnaise (18.9g/100g)
Praise 99% Fat Free Traditional Mayo (20.9g/100g)
It’s perhaps unsurprising that these products had taste scores that were among the lowest.
The only unsweetened products in our test are the Kewpie Mayonnaise and the Undivided Food Co Good Fat Mayo (we’ll talk more about this mayo further down).
Why Undivided Food Co Good Fat Mayo isn’t in our test
Undivided Food Co produces a range of products – sauces, mayonnaise, aioli and bone broths – with the aim of using whole ingredients rather than the additives and preservatives that have become so common on the supermarket shelves.
When choosing which products to test, we included anything available from the major supermarkets labelled as mayonnaise or mayo.
While Good Fat Mayo fits the bill, acting as a creamy condiment suitable for dressings, sandwiches and sauces, its formulation is quite different from what we’ve grown to expect from a traditional supermarket mayo.
The product is designed around different ingredients, particularly the type of fats used and the avoidance of highly refined seed oils commonly found in mainstream mayonnaise products.
Since the oil base and supporting ingredients are quite different to what’s used in traditional mayonnaise, the flavour, aroma, mouthfeel and texture will also be different
These ingredients also bump up the price of this product. Good Fat Mayo was the most expensive product we bought, costing $15 for 280g (that’s $5.36 per 100g). It also has the highest egg content of all the products tested at 12%.
The Good Fat Mayo contains olive oil (76%), free-range egg (12%), extra virgin olive oil (5%), apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, mustard powder, sea salt and rosemary extract.
Since the oil base and supporting ingredients are quite different to what’s used in traditional mayonnaise, the flavour, aroma, mouthfeel and texture will also be different to what you’d normally expect from a supermarket product.
We didn’t think Good Fat Mayo was comparable to the rest of the products we tested, so we decided to remove it from the review
When comparing this product to the rest, the experts questioned if it was in the right category. One commented “the texture is smooth, but the colour is inconsistent with a traditional mayonnaise”.
We didn’t think Good Fat Mayo was comparable to the rest of the products we tested, so we decided to remove it from the review.
If you’re one to pay close attention to ingredient lists and want to reduce additive and preservative intake, this product is worth considering. The ingredients closely resemble what we use in our homemade recipe. However, be prepared to pay a premium for this product (or look out for when it’s on special).
In a food processor bowl with the blade attachment, place egg yolks, lemon juice, mustard and salt. Process until combined, approximately 15 seconds. If the blade isn’t contacting the ingredients, add an extra egg yolk.
Keep the food processor running and gradually add oil through the chute or through a mini processor feed hole in a slow, steady stream, approximately 30 seconds.
Scrape down the sides of the bowl and process again until thick and incorporated evenly. Season if required.
Tips
Use a small processor bowl if available, otherwise you may need to double the quantity.
A neutral oil is best to allow the other flavours to stand out. Canola oil, sunflower oil, rice bran oil and ‘light’ olive oil are all good options.
Garlic, capers, herbs, chilli sauce or tomato sauce can be used to flavour the mayonnaise.
A stick blender can be used to make mayonnaise by adding all the ingredients into a narrow, tall jug or cup, placing the stick blender into the jug with the guard touching the bottom, turning on the stick blender to a high speed and very slowly pulling the stick blender up. When the ingredients have started to emulsify, move the stick blender around to combine the ingredients well.
From left to right: Serkan Tamcelik, Brigid Treloar, Petra Sugiarto
Serkan Tamcelik is the executive sous chef at International Convention Centre Sydney (ICC Sydney). He has 18 years’ experience in the hospitality industry, working across fine dining, restaurants and large-scale events. His career includes roles at Rockpool Bar & Grill and Quay, where he worked with acclaimed chef Peter Gilmore, as well as senior culinary positions at Wenty Leagues. Serkan was a national finalist in the 2019 Appetite for Excellence Young Chef of the Year.
Brigid Treloar has been a freelance food consultant for over 30 years. The author of eight cookbooks, she also contributes to newspapers and magazines, reviews restaurants, judges cookery and recipe competitions, and judges chocolate in the Sydney Royal Fine Food Show Competition. Brigid has presented specialist cooking classes around Australia and overseas, and often appears on TV and radio. She’s an industry assessor for Le Cordon Bleu, advises many of Australia’s food companies on product and recipe development, and also provides recipes and cooking information for company websites.
Petra Sugiarto has an academic background in Food Technology and Food Microbiology, with close to 30 years’ experience in the food industry, specialising in dairy products including milk, cream, yoghurt, cheese, ice cream, gelato and dairy desserts. For the past 18 years, Petra has served on judging panels for the DIAA, Sydney Royal Cheese & Dairy Produce competitions and the Australian Grand Dairy Awards (AGDA), and has been Chief Judge for the NSW DIAA for the past three years.
How we test mayonnaise
Products
We tested 29 mayonnaise products with the word “mayonnaise” or “mayo” on the label, available nationally in major supermarket chains. This included “light” or reduced fat versions and vegan products. We excluded uniquely flavoured varieties.
Traditional/whole egg, light/reduced fat and vegan varieties were tested separately.
Price is as purchased in stores (not on special) in August 2026.
Tasting
Mayonnaise samples are put into coded containers so our experts are tasting the mayonnaise samples “blind” (without knowing the brands).
Scores
Experts independently judge all mayonnaise products, scoring each sample for appearance, aroma, texture and flavour.
The CHOICE Expert Rating is completely made up of the taste test score, which is weighted 50% flavour, 20% texture, 15% appearance and 15% aroma.
We recommend mayonnaise with a CHOICE Expert Rating of 75% or more.
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Rebecca Ciaramidaro is a Content producer in the Household team at CHOICE. Rebecca writes about a wide range of children's and household products, ranging from cots and strollers to ovens, BBQs, espresso machines and electric blankets. And also grocery items such as nappies, sanitary pads and laundry detergents.
Previously at CHOICE, Rebecca worked as a Test officer in the kitchen lab.
Rebecca has a Bachelor of Science (Nutrition and Food) from the University of Western Sydney. LinkedIn
Rebecca Ciaramidaro is a Content producer in the Household team at CHOICE. Rebecca writes about a wide range of children's and household products, ranging from cots and strollers to ovens, BBQs, espresso machines and electric blankets. And also grocery items such as nappies, sanitary pads and laundry detergents.
Previously at CHOICE, Rebecca worked as a Test officer in the kitchen lab.
Rebecca has a Bachelor of Science (Nutrition and Food) from the University of Western Sydney. LinkedIn
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