Walk down any grocery store aisle and you’ll find dozens of mayonnaise options staring back at you. Most of them taste pretty similar, right? Well, not exactly. One brand stands out for all the wrong reasons, and shoppers who’ve tried it can’t stop talking about how weird it tastes. Before you grab that jar thinking all mayo is created equal, you should know about this particularly odd-tasting option that’s been disappointing people left and right. Here’s what makes this brand so different from the rest.
Primal Kitchen mayo ranked dead last in taste tests
When food experts put twelve different mayonnaise brands to the test, they had a clear winner and a clear loser. The testing method was simple but effective: they dipped potato chips into each mayo and judged them based purely on taste. Did it have that classic creamy mayo taste people expect? Was it too salty or too eggy? The judges were looking for that familiar flavor that reminds you of sandwiches and picnics.
The results were pretty shocking. Wild Harvest mayonnaise came out on top with its perfect blend of creamy texture and balanced taste that mixed salty, savory, and slightly sweet notes. But at the very bottom of the list sat Primal Kitchen mayonnaise. The gap between first and last place wasn’t even close. While Wild Harvest got praised for tasting like what mayo should taste like, Primal Kitchen got criticized for having such a strong and unusual taste that it barely resembled traditional mayonnaise at all.
Avocado oil changes everything about how it tastes
Most mayonnaise brands use soybean oil or canola oil as their base ingredient. These oils don’t have much taste on their own, which is exactly what you want in mayo. They let the other ingredients, like eggs and vinegar, create that classic tangy, creamy taste everyone knows and loves. Soybean oil basically disappears into the background, acting as a blank canvas for the other ingredients to work their magic.
Primal Kitchen took a different approach by using avocado oil instead. Now, avocado oil has some benefits, but a neutral taste isn’t really one of them. Even the company itself admits that avocado oil brings a grassy undertone and a buttery, nutty texture to the mix. When you’re expecting that light, neutral mayo taste and instead get something that tastes grassy and nutty, it throws off the whole experience. That oil choice alone makes this mayo taste completely different from what most people are used to and looking for in their sandwiches and salads.
Rosemary extract adds an unexpected herby punch
Here’s where things get even weirder with this mayo. Most traditional mayonnaise recipes keep the ingredients pretty simple. You’ve got oil, eggs, vinegar, maybe some salt, and a bit of lemon juice or mustard. These ingredients work together to create that smooth, slightly tangy taste that doesn’t overpower anything you put it on. The whole point of mayo is that it enhances other foods without stealing the spotlight.
But Primal Kitchen decided to add rosemary extract to their recipe. Rosemary has a really strong, distinctive taste that’s woodsy and peppery. It’s great on roasted potatoes or in Italian dishes, but in mayonnaise? That’s a whole different story. The rosemary flavor comes through loud and clear, giving the mayo a herby taste that fights against whatever you’re trying to eat it with. When you bite into a turkey sandwich, you probably don’t want it to taste like someone dumped herbs all over it. The rosemary makes this mayo taste more like a specialty aioli than regular mayonnaise.
Only seven ingredients sound good, but cause problems
Primal Kitchen markets itself as a cleaner, simpler option with just seven ingredients: avocado oil, organic vinegar, organic eggs, organic egg yolks, salt, rosemary extract, and mustard seed extract. On paper, having fewer ingredients seems like a good thing. Less is more, right? The problem is that those particular seven ingredients don’t work together to create what most people think of as mayonnaise. Sometimes, more ingredients actually help balance out strong tastes and create a smoother, more neutral final product.
Compare that to Wild Harvest mayo, which uses soybean oil and skips the strong herbs entirely. Those ingredient choices make all the difference in creating a mayo that tastes like, well, mayo. The Primal Kitchen formula might look cleaner on the label, but it results in a spread that tastes so different from traditional mayonnaise that it’s almost hard to call it mayo at all. The combination of avocado oil, rosemary, and mustard seed extract creates a taste profile that’s just too strong and distinctive for most regular mayo uses.
Regular recipes don’t work well with this mayo
Think about all the ways you normally use mayonnaise. You spread it on sandwiches, mix it into tuna or chicken salad, stir it into pasta salad, or use it as a base for dips and dressings. All of these recipes count on mayo having that neutral, creamy taste that brings moisture and richness without adding its own strong personality. When a recipe calls for mayonnaise, it’s usually meant to blend into the background and let the other ingredients shine.
With Primal Kitchen mayo, that doesn’t happen. The strong grassy taste from the avocado oil and the peppery rosemary flavor come through in everything you make. Your chicken salad ends up tasting herby when you didn’t want it to. Your potato salad has this weird nutty undertone that wasn’t supposed to be there. Even something as simple as a BLT sandwich tastes off because the mayo is competing with the bacon and tomato instead of complementing them. It’s just not what people are looking for when they reach for a jar of mayonnaise.
What to do if you already bought it
Maybe you already have a jar of this stuff sitting in your fridge right now. Should you just toss it in the trash? That seems wasteful, especially since mayo isn’t exactly cheap. The good news is that there are ways to use it up without suffering through that weird taste every time. The trick is to hide it in recipes where other strong tastes can cover up or distract from the unusual mayo taste.
Try using it in recipes with strong contrasting tastes, like chocolate cake or heavily seasoned quiche. Mayo actually works as a baking ingredient because it adds moisture and fat, and when it’s mixed with cocoa powder and sugar, you won’t taste that grassy rosemary flavor anymore. The chocolate completely masks it. The same goes for a quiche loaded with cheese, onions, and bacon. Those bold ingredients will overpower the mayo, so you can use it up without noticing the off taste that makes it so unpleasant in simpler dishes.
Mixing in other ingredients helps tone it down
Another strategy for dealing with a jar of Primal Kitchen mayo is to transform it into something else entirely. Don’t use it straight as regular mayo. Instead, turn it into a flavored spread or sauce where you’re adding so many other ingredients that the original weird taste gets buried under everything else. This way, you’re not wasting food, but you’re also not forcing yourself to eat something that tastes bad.
Make a spicy mayo by mixing in a bunch of chili paste or sriracha. The heat and garlic from the hot sauce will cover up that grassy, herby taste pretty effectively. Or create a bacon-infused mayo by stirring in strained bacon fat. The smoky, salty bacon taste is strong enough to hide the avocado oil and rosemary. You could also mix in a lot of garlic, lemon juice, and black pepper to make it into more of an aioli-style sauce. The key is adding enough other ingredients that the original strange mayo taste becomes just a minor background note instead of the main event.
Why taste testing with chips makes sense
You might wonder why the taste testers used potato chips instead of spreading the mayo on bread or mixing it into a salad. Actually, chips make perfect sense for this kind of test. A plain potato chip doesn’t have much taste of its own besides salt and potato. It’s a neutral vehicle that lets you taste the mayo clearly without other ingredients getting in the way. When you dip a chip into mayo and eat it, you’re getting a pure taste of what that mayonnaise really tastes like.
If they had tested the mayo in sandwiches, the bread, meat, cheese, and vegetables would have changed how everything tastes. The point was to judge each mayo on its own merits, not how it performs in a complex recipe. This simple testing method revealed what each brand truly tastes like, and that’s exactly when the problems with Primal Kitchen became obvious. Without anything to hide behind, that grassy avocado oil taste and peppery rosemary flavor stood out in the worst way possible compared to other brands that tasted clean and neutral.
Better mayo options are sitting right next to it
The great thing about this whole situation is that fixing it is super easy. There are so many other mayonnaise brands on that same grocery store shelf, and most of them taste way better than Primal Kitchen. Wild Harvest came out on top in the ranking, but honestly, most traditional mayo brands like Hellmann’s, Kraft, or Duke’s will give you that classic taste you’re looking for. They all use neutral oils and skip the weird herb additions.
Next time you’re standing in the mayo aisle, just reach for literally anything else. Read the ingredient list if you want to be sure. Look for mayos made with soybean oil or canola oil, not avocado oil. Make sure there’s no rosemary extract hiding in there. Stick with the basics and you’ll end up with a mayo that actually tastes like mayo. Your sandwiches, salads, and dips will turn out the way they’re supposed to, without any surprise grassy or herby tastes showing up where they don’t belong. Sometimes, the most popular brands are popular for a good reason.
Mayonnaise is supposed to be one of those reliable kitchen basics that never lets you down. It should taste creamy, slightly tangy, and blend perfectly into whatever you’re making without causing problems. Primal Kitchen mayo just doesn’t deliver on that promise. Between the avocado oil and the rosemary extract, it tastes too different from regular mayo to work in most recipes. Save yourself the disappointment and choose a different brand that actually tastes the way mayonnaise is supposed to taste.
