A good sauce can supercharge a meal: a squirt of chilli sauce, a drizzle of flavoured oil or a dollop of mustard can rescue a plate and elevate it into something else entirely.
Restaurants like Nandos have practically built their business on the epic sauce selection, and earlier this year Dominos brought out a travel version of its garlic and herb dip for travellers who couldn’t bear to go abroad without it (a travel-friendly 100ml bottle, natch).
What are the benefits of eating garlic?
Garlic has long been celebrated for its numerous health benefits since it is packed with boosting vitamins and chemicals. Adding some to your plate is known to help ease high blood pressure and cholesterol, regulate blood sugar and turbo boost the immune system. It's also chockful of antioxidants and is an anti-inflammatory; excellent if you're recovering from short bouts of illness like a cold.
The key to banking all these benefits is by making a habit of adding fresh garlic to your dishes. Mainlining garlic mayo may not give you the same degree of advantage but it will taste delicious - and, as they say, every little helps.
Are Aioli and garlic mayo the same thing?
It's easy to think the names of these delicious sauces are interchangeable, but there is a difference between the two. Aioli, the sauce of the Mediterranean, is a portmanteau of the Catalan words for oil and garlic. It's usually more expensive as oil has to be added to pureed garlic a drop at a time. It's a very pure, dairy-free sauce made with garlic, olive oil and salt.
Meanwhile, garlic mayo is mayonnaise with - you guessed it - big hits of the earthy, woody vegetable blended it. Traditional mayonnaise uses eggs in its ingredients, but there are vegan versions to get your hands on now too.
Can garlic mayonnaise be used as an ingredient?
While it is delicious and satisfying to dunk hot chips in a pot of cool garlic mayo, a bottle of the stuff can be used to heighten dishes like salads, sandwiches, and tapas like patatas bravas. It's a great addition to the BBQ picnic table and shines best when paired with seafood.
Best garlic mayo at a glance
- Best for harnessing as a secret ingredient: Stokes garlic mayonnaise- £11.82, Amazon
- Best for vegans: LEON Aioli - £7, Amazon
- Best for everyday luxury: F&M smoked garlic mayonnaise - £5.95, F&M
- Best for stashing in the office fridge: M&S roasted garlic mayonnaise - £1.80, Ocado
- Best for premium basic: Hellmann’s garlic squeezy mayonnaise - £2, Amazon
- Best for tapas: Heinz Mediterranean Style Aioli Sauce 215g - £2.30, Sainsbury's
- Best for guilty pleasures: Sauce Shop garlic mayonnaise - £3.49, Sauce Shop
- Best for stocking filler: Diddly Squat Farm smoked chilli mayo - £5.25, Diddly Squat Farm Shop
- Best for proper chips dunking: Charlie & Ivy's smoked garlic mayonnaise - £3.50, Amazon
If you’re looking to shake up your condiment collection with a bottle or tub of garlic mayo, there’s a world of choice out there. But if you’re looking for the cream of the crop, we’ve rounded up our favourites below.
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Stokes garlic mayonnaise
Best for: harnessing as a secret ingredient
Made with British free-range eggs, Stokes’ garlic mayo has many uses besides being solely a dip with salty chips. The brand suggests using the creamy aioli as a seafood dip (whitebait is ideal), coating a steak with it before frying or stirring a dollop through mash for a moreish lift that will have your family thinking you have magical cooking abilities.
Price for three bottles.
Buy now £11.82, Amazon
LEON aioli
Best for: vegans and vegan-adjacent
The colour of fallen snow or very, very good vanilla ice cream, say hello to this punchy, flavourful mayo from Leon. The fast food brand has launched jars of the sauces you’ll find in its salads, rice boxes and wrapped sarnies: this aioli is our favourite by far.
Whether you’ve got a salad, sandwich or veggies to liven up, a few dollops of this sauce will help it sing.
Buy now £7.00, Amazon
F&M smoked garlic mayonnaise
Best for: everyday luxury
For posh picnics and fancy sammies, make a beeline for Fortnums. Once you're done ogling the Oolong and gazing at perfect boxes of truffles, head over to the preserves and spreads department where pots of loveliness are waiting.
One such jar? This golden mayonnaise is from a family-run business that uses roasted garlic cloves for an extra hit of deep, umami flavour. It's perfect for pepping up everything from leftovers to a spread and is also exceedingly agreeable as a dipping sauce.
Buy now £5.95, F&M
M&S roasted garlic mayonnaise
Best for: stashing in the office fridge
If you've ever gone to M&S’s hot counter for lunch, you may have spied this cream-coloured tub hiding beside the salad leaves. Marks & Sparks’ own-brand garlicky offering gives extra zest to its chicken and chips and Caesar salad, taking them to the next level. But considering the high street stalwart charges 30p a squirt at said counter, you don't have to be Martin Lewis to see that buying a tub outright makes for far more cost-effective work lunches.
Buy now £1.80, Ocado
Hellmann’s garlic squeezy mayonnaise
Best for: premium basic
Hellmann’s is to mayo what Heinz is to ketchup - utterly synonymous. Many are familiar with its family-sized jars topped with a blue lid, but if you haven’t dipped into its garlicky twist option, we envy you for all the pleasure that’s about to come.
In short, Hellmann’s’ garlic mayo is heaven. There's exactly the right ratio of pungent garlic running through the creamy sauce, delivered in a consistency that's thick enough to use as a dip but light enough to drizzle on salad and roast veggies.
Kudos for the squeezable tube making it much easier to get every last drop out.
Buy now £2.00, Amazon
Heinz Mediterranean Style Aioli Sauce 215g
Best for: tapas
Though the ‘57 varieties’ claim was made up as a marketing gimmick, few can deny the sheer spectrum of table sauces offered by Heinz.
For its garlicky mayo, the food giant plucked inspiration from the Med, where a version of it can be found on patatas bravas, under fresh salads and anchoring the checkered tablecloth at pizzerias.
Smooth and creamy with a tangy hum of garlic running all the way through, you'll never want to settle for regular mayo ever again.
Buy now £2.30, Sainsbury's
Sauce Shop garlic mayonnaise
Best for: guilty pleasures
If chips are your kryptonite, the situation isn't going to be helped by introducing Sauce Shop's Garlic Mayo into the mix. Still, the combo of hot, perfectly salted fries and cool, creamy mayo is too good to gatekeep.
Made in small batches with free-range eggs, this is everything you want a garlic mayo to be: full of earthy tang but with a creaminess that's rich and indulgent. Aside from chips, it'll do nicely in grilled chicken wraps or kebabs.
Buy now £3.49, Sauce Shop
Diddly Squat Farm smoked chilli mayo
Best for: stockingfiller
Smoky and spicy may seem like the antithesis of mayo, but not if you’re Jeremy Clarkson. The presenter has, as many before him, gone and opened a farm shop selling goods made at his Chipping Norton smallholding.
Sold under the Diddly Squat brand, the range includes pantry essentials jazzed up with unexpected ingredients. This mayo, made with rapeseed oil and free-range eggs, is ideal for condiment connoisseurs who demand flavourbombs in every mouthful.
Buy now £5.25, Diddly Squat Farm
Charlie & Ivy's smoked garlic mayonnaise
Best for: proper chips dunking
With a pretty buttercup yellow shade like this, be careful you don't mistake this mayo for mustard. Crafted by a small business in North Yorkshire, Charlie & Ivy's sauce is made with cold-pressed rapeseed oil, white wine vinegar, free-range eggs and garlic oil.
Buy now £3.50, Amazon
