Add a bit more lemon juice, or even a little water, a quarter teaspoon at a time.

Try mixing it in by hand, as well.

Try Part of it, with more Oil.Beat it with a hand mixer.
If you put too much Vinegar, you will make Salad Dressing
Lou

hmm... adding lemon juice didn't seem to help much. I didn't add water cause i wasn't sure if the oil from the recipe and water would mix well together. ?? i tried beating it be hand when adding the extra in, but still is very thick. sigh.... thanks for the suggestions though.

I found this..but it only tells what to do if the mayo get's to thin..but maybe the problem lies in how you made it?

Here is a link that might be useful: Mayo

"I didn't add water cause i wasn't sure if the oil from the recipe and water would mix well together. ??"

What is lemon juice other than strongly flavored water?

Mayonnaise is an emulsion. That means that by definition it's a mixture of oil and water. You shouldn't have trouble adding water or any other liquid as long as you beat well.

While adding the oil, stop your machine to check how the consistancy is getting along. When the mayo has reached the thickness that you want....just stop adding oil! It's as simple as that! Check it for taste and then (if need be)add a bit more lemonjuice, vinegar, or water to thin your mixture.

Here is a web with very helpful instructions. Scroll down to #7 in the instructions.

Here is a link that might be useful: Making Homemade Mayonnaise

@lisbet - I sheepishly admit that I didn't even think to stop adding oil even when it reached a good consistency. I'm such a stickler for doing exactly what the recipe says I kept adding oil till I added all it called for. But I'm going to go back and make it again and I won't add all the oil this time. Thanks for reminding me that sometimes you shouldn't follow a recipe exactly. :)

I had this problem and added the water little by little and its perfect . Thanks for the tip :)

Well, it depends a lot on the size of the egg yolks. I use the smallest jumbo egg yolks I can find and my mayo usually turn out just fine though a little on the thick side. I make 2 cups of mayonnaise when I do. In other words one yolk for one cup of oil.

My jumbo egg yolks weren't small enough for my last jar and my mayonnaise turned out like yours though it was still very delicious. So when I made my mayonnaise today I removed 1 teaspoon of yolks and of course I ate the teaspoon of yolk. I must say that really help with the reduced amount of egg yolks which was more like an egg yolk and a half. I also use an immersion blender with a 2 1/2 cup Ball jar too because it is oh so much faster.

I would use only one egg yolk next time. My recipe has one egg yolk and 3/4 to 1 cup oil with the rest of your ingredients pretty much the same. You do not need two egg yolks for 1 cup of oil. I would have just added more oil to it, and perhaps some more lemon juice.

I agree with Lars: two egg yolks is one too many. The recipe I make only has one per cup of oil. It does have either a teaspoon or tablespoon of water in the addition to the same ingredients you listed. Mine also has a little mustard.

The questions were "Did I maybe add the oil too fast? What makes mayonnaise thicken like mine did?" Not how do I fix it. People seem to want to say what they want to say rather than answer the question posed. Go figure.

Actually there were suggestions of how to fix it (which the OP didn’t follow as she was at that time not an experienced and confident cook) and a lot of information on how to avoid it happening again, as well as the chemistry of mayonnaise to enable her to diagnose any future problems.

Yes to “Adding the oil too fast“ was implied when she was told she should have watched it and stopped when the consistency was right, and a number of reasons were given as to why it had got too thick- too many egg yolk, size of egg yolks, amount of oil, not enough lemon juice or water etc.

If you’re only here to criticise and not contribute I suggest you move on and find another forum to pester.

Colleenoz, that is the problem. There were way to many suggestions about how to fix it. There were not enough answers to the questions. People have a need to try to fix problems (fine) and do not read or listen carefully (not good). Good for those that offered some answers. These are not the ones that I am pointing out. The answer to the question is, the more oil that you add the thicker it gets. That is it, that is all. Simple. I did not see this answer anywhere in the comments. I am not pestering anyone. You are clearly annoyed however. Sorry!

Most of the people who give a critical answer to 15 year old questions around here are trolls. If, instead of criticizing the other posters, half of whom were a digression from four years ago (we don't have nor want thread police), if you had given your answer I'm sure it would have been welcome. I learned, when I learned to make mayonnaise, to use some eggwhite to thin it if needed, since one only considers the too much oil after it's already too thick. But welcome to the Cooking Forum! Do join in, or post your own threads. Introduce yourself. Try to get a screenname to replace the number. But if you're going to be argumentative, do try to do so in current topics. :)

I was trying to establish if it was really too thick. Often, mayo is served as a horrible, runny mess with too high an yolk ratio to oil.

In my experience, adding more oil at a certain point will make the mayonnaise thinner. For two egg yolks, 3/4 cup of oil is not enough, and it is the proportion of egg yolk to oil that is important - too little oil will make the mayo too thick. However, the recipe also does not have enough lemon juice or vinegar, but if she had started with one egg yolk instead of two, the problem would have been lessened.

Lars, what I basically said yesterday but deleted my message because the original post is 15 years old. But I like to use an electric hand beater though it takes longer, than blender where I beat the frothy egg yolk as well as a little of the white into a little oil at a time before increasing the amount of oil. When my oil and egg emulsion starts getting really thick than I add my liquid mixture of Vinegar, Lemon and Water where the dry ingredients were dissolved into the liquids which takes about 3 times during the beating process and at the end. I have much better control of how thick I want my mayonnaise when I do it this way and it just takes a little more water if needed to get my mayonnaise at the perfect thickness

@HU-670825704, lisbet said,

" While adding the oil, stop your machine to check how the consistancy is getting along. When the mayo has reached the thickness that you want....just stop adding oil! It's as simple as that! "

Lars, an emulsion is chemistry. Sure if you add oil after the emulsion is made it will thin it out (just like water) but the added oil has not been emulsified just mixed in. If you continue to add oil and it gets emulsified it will continue to thicken the mayo all the way until the mayo is like a paste. The egg oil ratio has nothing to do with it. Less egg just makes it more difficult to start the emulsion. The egg acts like a catalyst. It will continue to make an emulsion once it has started. Think epoxy, the more catalyst the faster the reaction. But even a small amount of catalyst will cause an entire bottle of resin to catalyze.

According to the scientists, one egg yolk can emulsify a swimming pool of oil. I've tried to imagine it...

It's another of those things that gets over-complicated.

Just whisk oil into an egg yolk. Keep going until you have as much as you want. It's starts more easily if you add a teaspoon of dijon at the beginning.

Then you can add any seasoning you like. Don't expect it to look like hellman's!

The colour and flavour will be determined by the richness of your egg yolk and the oils you use. I like a mix of olive and sunflower. The more oil you add, the thicker it will be. As Plllog says, a yolk can take a lot of oil.

I find all olive is too rich and the flavour too strong. It's your mayo so make it as you like it.