Fruity Curried Mayo Sauce or Dip

“Insanely delicious!” declared a friend of mine, when I gave her a sample of this sauce. “This is reeeeeally good!” my husband exclaimed when he tasted this sauce for the first time. They’re not the only ones. I fell head over heels in love with this incredible condiment myself once I’d perfected the recipe. And I’m sure you too, dear reader, will be crazy about this superb sauce!

Is it even possible to achieve sweetness and fruitiness in a sauce without adding sugar? Yes, it is! This healthy, full-bodied sauce or dip is sweet with a slight tang and a hint of curry flavor. It’s my favorite dip with chicken wings, but you can also use it with just about any kind of meat, fish, and veggies.

Tips for making the Fruity Curried Mayo Sauce or Dip

TThis is a fuss-free recipe which is easy to perfect if you keep a couple of things in mind. For the mayo, I recommend using a homemade olive oil-based mayonnaise. There is a very simple recipe for a foolproof mayo in my Low Sugar, So Simple book. (I actually posted the recipe on my Facebook page some years ago, but somebody complained about the photos (!) so I had to remove the photos and the post. Well, you can’t please everybody…)

Apart from an olive oil-based mayo, you can also use an avocado oil-based mayo or a coconut oil- based one. I think I have seen some recipes for those, but I never really experiment with those oils myself since I’ve I always been so happy with olive oil-based mayo — as long as you use mild-tasting olive oil, that is. Very strongly-flavored extra virgin olive oil just isn’t a good fit for mayo.

Never, ever use commercial mayonnaise made with vegetable seed oils like rapeseed oil, sunflower seed oil, soy oil, safflower oil, etc. They are very likely already rancid when you buy them. Plus, since they are a great source of omega-6 fatty acids, they also cause inflammation.

That reminds me: I just graduated as a Certified Nutritional Adviser from the Finnish College of Health Studies. Woohoo! Two years of intensive studies have finally come to an end! I’m still continuing my studies, though; I’m going to graduate as a Nutritional Therapist next spring. (No fake news here: you can check my diploma from the About page here on my blog.)

But back to this citrusy mayo sauce (or dip). This recipe uses two sweeteners: tropical fruit-flavored stevia and powdered erythritol. I really like this sauce or dip on the sweet side, so I like using both. However, if you are happy with less sweetness, you can use only the tropical-flavored stevia. Along with the 100% orange essential oil, it gives this sauce the perfect amount of fruitiness.

Personally, I don’t add salt here, but feel free to add some unrefined sea salt or Himalayan salt, and maybe some freshly ground white pepper, if you prefer a little extra kick.

As you see, this is a very easy sauce to make, so let’s take a look at how to do it:

Have all the ingredients at hand. Take a small bowl. Add the mayonnaise…

…tropical fruit flavored stevia… (actually, the order in which you add the ingredients doesn’t matter: just add them and don’t overthink it!)

…the orange essential oil (be careful not to add too much: 2 drops is plenty, believe it or not!)…

…curry powder…

…and the powdered erythritol.

Mix well.

Cover and refrigerate for 1-2 hours to let the flavors combine.

Enjoy with chicken, meat, fish, or veggies. I have homemade chicken nuggets here.

My fruity mayo sauce experiments

This spring, I suddenly started craving a fruity sauce with my chicken. On a keto diet, fruits are usually a big no-no (depending on your individual tolerance, naturally). I don’t use them, so I had to get fruity flavors into the sauce in other ways.

Actually, I didn’t even know what kind of fruity sauce or dip I was craving. Maybe something rich, with either cream cheese or mayonnaise. A fruity cream cheese sauce sounded more like a dessert, so I concluded that a mayo-based sauce would be the best way to complement chicken.

So, if I’m using mayo, I asked myself, how do I add fruity flavor to the sauce without adding a ton of carbs, especially if I want the sauce to be a little sweet as well? First, I was thinking of orange juice, but that might make the sauce too thin. And orange juice isn’t particularly sweet. Moreover, it does have some carbs.

I didn’t want to use any artificial flavorings or sweeteners. Then I realized I had a bottle of lemon-flavored stevia in my pantry. I also had a bottle of tropical stevia. Now things started to get interesting!

I was sure the stevia wouldn’t be able to make the sauce fruity enough, so I decided to add a little 100% orange essential oil for a more intense orange note. It provides a really fresh and powerful orange flavor – all without carbs. You just have to be extra careful when using it. As with any essential oil, orange essential oil is very powerful stuff: 1 or 2 drops are enough.

Now I had three ingredients: mayonnaise, stevia, and orange essential oil. Maybe I’d get a nice tang and – even more fruitiness – from lemon juice? It’d be worth trying!

And as for additional sweetness, I could add powdered erythritol. Powdered erythritol mixes into cold foods much more smoothly than erythritol crystals.

So there we go: all 5 ingredients carefully selected. Next, I started experimenting. I wanted to make a small batch at first, so I added 1/2 cup (120 ml) homemade mayonnaise to a small bowl. I also added 5 drops tropical-flavored stevia, 2 drops 100% orange essential oil, 2 tablespoons powdered erythritol, and 1 teaspoon lemon juice.

After mixing everything together well I enthusiastically tasted the concoction. Well… I was headed in the right direction, but something essential was missing.

Curry! From the very first teaspoon I tasted I thought the sauce was crying out for curry powder. The result would be just perfect if I replaced the lemon juice with curry powder. Otherwise, the fruitiness and sweetness were just right. But the sauce needed a deeper dimension, which curry powder would supply. Originally, I was prepared to add salt and pepper, too, but the sauce really didn’t need them. The salt in the mayonnaise was enough. And I had also used white pepper when making the mayonnaise, so I checked that off my list, too.

For my next experiment, I made a full batch of sauce with 1 cup (240 ml) mayonnaise, 3 tablespoons powdered erythritol,10 drops tropical stevia, 2 drops 100% orange essential oil, and 1 teaspoon curry powder. I mixed everything together well.

Delicious! I let the sauce rest for an hour after tasting it, and the flavor got even better, as the flavors had mingled and deepened. I had made some really delicious chicken wings (which are going to be next week’s recipe!) and I excitedly dipped one wing in the sauce. It was a divine combination!

I was really happy with the result. It was just what I was looking for: a fruity and sweet — yet slightly tangy — rich mayonnaise-based sauce that killed my fruity sauce cravings in the most delightful way. The curry powder perfected the flavor and complemented the sweet-fruitiness splendidly.

Here we go! I hope you like this sauce — or dip — as much as I do!

Tips for variation

This simple recipe is also wonderful in the sense that you can vary it so easily. If curry isn’t your friend, just replace it with 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice. If you love garlic, by all means add a crushed clove or two. Feel free to add other spices as well. For a sharp kick, a pinch of cayenne pepper does the trick.

Nothing prevents you from experimenting with different flavored stevias, either. I had that lemon stevia lurking in my pantry, but I never really gave it a try to see how it would work with this sauce. Oh yes: now I remember that I made one experiment with Valencia orange stevia, but it didn’t lend that nice fruity flavor I was after — the stevia lent it a bitter and weird aftertaste, plus the orange flavor was far too weak. But maybe you want to try other berry or fruit-flavored stevias? There’s a wonderful berry stevia, and also this pomegranate blueberry stevia is fantastic, too.

If you prefer your sauce less sweet, just reduce the amount of powdered erythritol or omit it altogether.

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