Question: Is Miracle Whip mayonnaise?
Answer: The short answer is no, Miracle Whip is not mayonnaise. Kraft, the makers of Miracle Whip, specifically indicate on their website that Miracle Whip is a dressing and not mayo.
Miracle Whip’s ingredients are as follows: Water, Soybean Oil, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Vinegar, Modified Cornstarch, Eggs, Salt, Natural Flavor, Mustard Flour, Potassium Sorbate As A Preservative, Paprika, Spice, Dried Garlic. Contains Egg.
Let’s compare the ingredients of Miracle Whip to Hellmann’s, a known real mayonnaise.
Hellmann’s ingredients: Soybean Oil, Water, Whole Eggs and Egg Yolk, Vinegar, Salt, Sugar, Lemon Juice Concentrate, Calcium Disodium EDTA, Natural Flavors.
You can see that Miracle Whip contains the core ingredients of a mayonnaise: soybean oil, vinegar, and eggs. However, notice the order of ingredients in both products. According to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), ingredients are listed in descending order of predominance. This means that the heaviest ingredient is listed first while the ingredient that weighs the least is listed last.
The most predominant ingredient in Miracle Whip is water. In the United States, the FDA is responsible for defining different types of food including mayonnaise. They indicate that mayonnaise must contain 65 percent by weight of vegetable oil. Miracle Whip does not meet this definition, therefore, it cannot be considered a mayonnaise [source].
Photo Credit: Stacy
