A Mayo Swap Is All You Need To Make Microwave Hollandaise

Many would consider hollandaise sauce — the combination of egg yolks, lemon juice, butter, and water — a must-have for any brunch meal, or, if you're a mega fan, any meal. While most commonly served over eggs benedict, it can also be drizzled over other egg dishes, meats, potatoes, or veggies.

The standard way to prepare a hollandaise sauce requires the emulsion (blending together two ingredients that don't naturally mix together) of clarified butter with egg yolks and lemon juice. The sauce is made within a heat-proof bowl over a pan of simmering water. If it sounds complicated, it certainly is a little less straightforward than other sauces. But, as it turns out, there's a quicker way to whip up a homemade batch of hollandaise sauce: using the microwave.

In order to use the microwave method, you just have to make one replacement by swapping out the egg yolks for mayonnaise. This substitution works because egg yolks are a key ingredient in most mayonnaise recipes, so it's the perfect shortcut to skip over dealing with the eggs in a hollandaise recipe.

To make the easy, egg-free hollandaise sauce, you can refer to our recipe for lemony hollandaise sauce and follow the ingredient list exactly as is, with the one exception of the egg yolks, of course, which will be swapped out for mayonnaise. You can follow the rule of thumb of substituting one egg with three tablespoons of mayo; so, in this case, three egg yolks are called for in the recipe, so you'll need nine tablespoons of mayo.

Add all the ingredients together in a microwave-safe bowl, then pop in the microwave for about 45 seconds. Take it out and give the mixture another stir, then put it back in the microwave for 45 more seconds. Depending on your microwave wattage, it may need a bit more time, so check to make sure it's as hot as you'd like it to be. You can also adjust the level of thickness by how much water you put in; if you want a thicker sauce, leave as is, but if you want a thinner sauce, you can add a bit more water to the mixture.

With less focus on making the sauce, you can put all of your energy into making the perfect traditional eggs benedict to go with the hollandaise.