15 Best Mayo Substitutes For Salads & Sandwiches

There's no denying that mayonnaise adds a delicious creaminess to tuna, chicken, potato, and egg salads while lending much-needed moisture to all kinds of sandwiches. With a relatively neutral flavor and just enough tang to let you know it's there (depending on the brand), it can be used in all sorts of ways — you can even use mayo to make a deliciously moist chocolate cake! But as hard as it is for this born-and-raised Southerner to understand, not everyone is a fan of mayo. 

Whether you're looking for a mayo substitute to cut calories and fat from your favorite sandwich, increase the protein in your creamy salads, or boost the flavor in both, there are a lot of great options to choose from. As a lifelong foodie who's worked in the fitness and food industries, I've experimented with my fair share of mayo substitutes over the years. From the obvious to the relatively obscure, I've rounded up my top 15 recommendations — in no particular order. Some are best suited to sandwiches, others should probably be reserved only for salads, but many work deliciously in both.

While you may usually eat it with pita chips or raw vegetables, don't sleep on hummus as a mayo substitute. It's not uncommon to see hummus used as a spread in a pita with falafel or on a Mediterranean veggie wrap, but this chickpea purée also works deliciously outside the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern box. As a substitute for mayo on sandwiches, hummus is incredibly versatile and has nearly as many flavor varieties as you can imagine. You can pair a roasted garlic hummus with a roast beef or steak sandwich. Spread on some roasted red pepper hummus to amp up the flavors in your turkey sandwich. Or you can use lemon hummus to brighten up a sandwich with fresh, roasted, or grilled veggies (possibly my favorite).

Beyond sandwiches, hummus works a treat when substituted in typically mayo-based salads. It has a creamy and somewhat dense texture that works great for binding ingredients together, and you can customize the flavor profiles the same way you might with a sandwich. A lemon dill hummus in your potato salad or spicy hummus in your otherwise bland tuna not only adds flavor, but the average store-bought hummus has more protein and fiber than mayonnaise with fewer calories.

Don't relegate your avocados to toast or guacamole. Just like hummus is nearly synonymous with Mediterranean sandwiches, avocado spread is a go-to for many "California-style" sandwiches — but it works just as well as a substitute for mayonnaise on virtually any other kind of sandwich. While avocado can be relatively high in calories and fat compared to some mayo substitutes, the fat is primarily unsaturated, which is a healthier alternative to the saturated fat you might find in some other sandwich spreads, like in the U.K. where people spread the inside of their sandwiches with butter.

Beyond your sandwiches, avocado is a fantastic binder for cold salads. Avocado egg salad is particularly delicious, but the creamy fruit lends a beautiful texture to virtually any other cold salad, including tuna and chicken. Just be sure to add plenty of seasoning because avocado lacks the added seasonings typically used to make mayo. Try replacing the mayonnaise in our all-American macaroni salad with avocado (along with a generous squirt of citrus to prevent browning), and you might discover your new favorite cookout side dish.

If the flavors of hummus and avocado are too prominent for your tastes, Greek yogurt is a fantastic mayo alternative that adds a tang without overpowering other flavors. While you could certainly spread a bit of Greek yogurt on your sandwich as a substitute for mayo, this is one of those options that's probably best reserved for mixing into your mayo-free salads, at least in its unadulterated form. You can transform Greek yogurt into a tasty sandwich spread with a little bit of mustard (yellow or Dijon) and some spices, but then it's no longer a standalone substitute. If you have time for that, though, great!

Thanks to its delightful tanginess, plain Greek yogurt shines in seafood salads, including those with shrimp, salmon, crab, and canned tuna. Because it comes in different fat percentages, with higher fat contents leading to thicker, heavier yogurt, you have full control over how light or heavy to make your salad, both in calories and in mouthfeel. Regardless of which fat content you choose, Greek yogurt also brings a sizable amount of protein to your salads, perfectly balancing carb-heavy salads that include potatoes or pasta.

Like Greek yogurt, sour cream offers a delicious tang as a sandwich spread or to help bind salads. One of my favorite ways to use it in place of mayo is in potato salad, specifically a loaded baked potato salad. With sour cream, bacon, onion, and shredded cheese, it's a potato salad that easily stands up as a side to summer classic hamburgers or steak. 

Where sour cream really stands out, however, is in recipes with a Southwestern or Mexican flair. While it's true that Mexican crema is different from sour cream, many Americans use sour cream wherever you might typically see crema, like to balance heat and spices. That's why it works perfectly in place of mayo in a Mexican tuna or chicken salad with chopped jalapeños and spices like cumin, chipotle or ancho chili powder, coriander, and Tajin.

Sour cream is also thick and creamy enough to stand up as a sandwich spread. Its tanginess is especially well-suited to smoky, grilled flavors, so try it on a grilled veggie sandwich to balance the smokiness, or on a spicy grilled chicken fajita sandwich to cut the heat.

If sour cream is just a little too sour as a mayo substitute for your sandwich or salad needs, allow me to introduce you to the idea of crème fraîche in those dishes instead. This is a cultured cream with a little less tang but a thicker texture than sour cream, closer to that of cream cheese. Its texture makes it an obvious choice for cucumber sandwiches, but it's also great as a pairing your standard turkey, lettuce, and tomato sandwich.

Crème fraîche and salads are also a natural fit. In fact, it's often used in British takes on American potato salad, and it gives a cheese-like creaminess to macaroni salad that hearkens back to macaroni and cheese while keeping things light and cool. While it is typically more expensive than mayonnaise (and not as readily available), you can easily make your own crème fraîche with just two ingredients: Buttermilk and heavy cream. Or, if you have leftover crème fraîche from another recipe, this is a great way to use it up before it spoils.

If crème fraîche is still too sour for you, give ricotta cheese a whirl. It's mild, to say the least, but it has a creamy texture and subtly sweet, milky flavor that make it one of the more neutral mayonnaise substitutes for both salads and sandwiches. Mild and neutral don't have to mean bland, however. A little salt and pepper on your sandwich, and maybe even a drizzle of olive oil, can really bring out the deliciousness in ricotta cheese. Ricotta is a solid source of protein and calcium, but it's typically lower in sodium than other cheeses, which means you can benefit from using it as a substitute for both mayo and any other cheese on your sandwiches. 

When used in salads, ricotta cheese offers its rich, almost silky texture with a malleable flavor. In tuna salad, fresh dill and lemon juice bring out ricotta's natural freshness and brightness. In chicken salad, chopped apples or dried cranberries highlight the cheese's natural sweetness.

Cottage cheese is having a bit of a moment. Creators on social media are using it to make everything from mashed potatoes to ranch dressing, and even ice cream! If you want to start a bit more simply, however, what better way to incorporate it into your diet than to use it as a mayo substitute? It's perfectly suited to virtually any cold salad, thanks to its mild flavor, and adds a great boost of protein and other nutrients. The fact that it's an unsung nutrition powerhouse is part of what's made it social media's darling as of late.

Similar to Greek yogurt, which comes with different amounts of fat that impact its texture, cottage cheese comes in a variety of curd sizes that do the same. Large curd cottage cheese will offer added texture to your salads, while small curd will be less noticeable. The curd size also corresponds to some flavor differences. Large curd cottage cheese typically leans creamier with an almost sweet taste like ricotta (perfect for a Waldorf-inspired chicken salad or your favorite egg salad), and small curd cottage cheese offers more of a tangy, acidic bite (a delightful pairing for tuna salad or potato salad). 

Although a lot of the mayo substitutes I've mentioned up to this point have brought a unique flavor and texture to sandwiches and salads, there's nothing wrong with keeping things simple. For cold salads, olive oil is about as simple as it gets for a mayo substitute. While you won't get the same binding effect from olive oil that mayonnaise helps provide (thanks to its egg yolks), you will get much-needed moisture and a relatively neutral flavor base that can be easily customized. You can lean into the olive flavor by adding both olive oil and chopped olives into your tuna salad, or use olive oil as the base for a dressing in an easy Mediterranean pasta salad.

I can't, in good faith, recommend using olive oil as a standalone mayo substitute on sandwiches because what you'll end up with is basically just oily bread. Still, its versatility in cold salads makes it a standout substitute for mayo all the same.

Even though olive oil doesn't work too well on its own as a sandwich spread, add some fresh basil, toasted pine nuts, Parmesan cheese, and lemon juice, then put it all into a blender for a sandwich-ready pesto. Even if you've only ever had pesto in pasta dishes or never had it at all, this is one to try. It gives sandwiches a bright, herbaceous flavor that pairs particularly well with any sandwich that also uses tomato. Whether your sandwich includes chicken, turkey, ham, beef, tofu, or vegetables, pesto will make it better.

Pesto is very commonly used in pasta salad recipes, which almost makes it feel like cheating to call it a mayo substitute. That said, it can also be used in tuna and chicken salad, potato salad, or even ham salad. Ham salad isn't one of my favorites, but using pesto instead of mayonnaise helps cut through the richness a bit.

Tahini is a sesame seed paste that's one of the primary ingredients in hummus (right behind chickpeas), but it doesn't get enough credit of its own. Celebrity chef (and my personal favorite Food Network personality) Alex Guarnaschelli gets it, though. The cookbook she wrote with her daughter, "Cook It Up: Bold Moves for Family Foods," contains a recipe for a roasted vegetable sandwich with a tahini dressing that includes olive oil, lemon juice, honey, and toasted coriander seeds. It's delicious, but it also takes time, and if you're just looking for a quick mayo substitute, you may not want to get that far into the weeds. Luckily, a slathering of tahini on your sandwich still offers the savory nuttiness of sesame seeds that's great with a variety of sandwich fillings, from everyday favorites like ham and turkey to more elaborate options.

Tahini is also the perfect texture for adding to salads. It's usually a bit thinner than peanut butter but has an almost velvety texture. Tahini egg salad is one of my favorite variations, but it's also great in other salads, especially with other Middle Eastern seasonings and a sprinkling of toasted sesame seeds to bring it all together. 

This one seems super obvious to me as someone from one of those weird households that puts ranch dressing on everything, but creamy dressings are great in sandwiches and cold salads. Whether it's the aforementioned ranch or something like Caesar, poppyseed, or even a creamy French or Italian dressing, you can get a ton of flavor and moisture from a creamy dressing. While creamy dressings don't coat or absorb into pasta quite as well as some of the other mayo substitutes, they work incredibly well for tuna salad, chicken salad, and potato salad, adding so much flavor that anything else you add (like chopped veggies) is more for texture.

You may more typically think of creamy dressings as going better with fillings like Buffalo chicken, but they're equally delicious as a mayo substitute on a basic ham, turkey, or bologna sandwich. Fattier creamy dressings like buttermilk ranch are a great fit for leaner sandwich proteins, while creamy dressings with a zing, like creamy French or lemon poppyseed, cut through fattier sandwich proteins. Add some crisp lettuce, ripe tomato, and sharp cheese, and you've got yourself a great sandwich.

If creamy dressings aren't for you, or you're just looking for something different, vinaigrettes offer the tangy acidity you'd typically get from mayonnaise but without the same creaminess that can be offputting to some people. While they're texturally quite thin and probably not the best choice to take the place of mayo on a sandwich, they're perfect for adding extra moisture and flavor to salads. I've tried many different vinaigrette flavors, and virtually all of them lend well to combining with pasta, tuna, chicken, potatoes, and pretty much anything else you might think to put in pasta form. 

Dijon vinaigrettes are out of this world in tuna salad, and Italian vinaigrettes seem almost tailor-made for pasta salads. Balsamic vinaigrettes take chicken salad to another level, while red wine and white wine vinaigrettes add the perfect amount of acidity to egg salad to cut through all the richness of the eggs. The best part is that this is true for both homemade and store-bought vinaigrettes, so you're almost guaranteed to have either a vinaigrette or the ingredients for a vinaigrette on hand. 

While some people use the terms aioli and mayonnaise interchangeably, these admittedly similar emulsions are not the same. At its core, the difference between aioli and mayo is that aioli is made with garlic and olive oil, while mayonnaise is made with egg yolks and canola oil (lemon juice, mustard, and salt are also commonly included in varying amounts). They offer a similar creaminess, but the strong garlic flavor of aioli and lack of eggs set it apart from mayo in important ways. 

Still, aioli and mayo are similar enough that the swap is a no-brainer. Use aioli exactly as you would use mayonnaise in virtually any dish (okay, maybe not the chocolate cake), but especially in sandwiches and salads. The pungent garlic flavor adds dimension to meat, egg, pasta, or vegetable-based salads and gives sandwiches much-needed moisture and creaminess. Aioli is a home run on a BLT or turkey club sandwich, especially. The boost of garlic flavor in the spread combined with some crusty bread, perfectly fried bacon, and fresh lettuce and tomato just can't be beaten.

Baba ganoush is a dip made from roasted eggplant, tahini, olive oil, garlic, lemon juice, and salt. It's from the Levant subregion of the Mediterranean (which includes Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria) and is typically served as an appetizer as part of a mezze platter with pita bread, veggies, and other spreads. It's incredibly flavorful and creamy, and you need to add it to your sandwiches and salads, pronto.

Unlike some of the more neutral-flavored mayo substitutes here, baba ganoush packs a flavor punch. It's very smoky from the roasted eggplant and has a bit of earthy bitterness from the tahini. It's also very easy to get wrong, so you're better off trying it from a respected nearby restaurant for the first time rather than trying to navigate store-bought options. That said, once you find a baba ganoush you like, it brings an unmatched savoriness to sandwiches and salads. If you have time, try making our baba ganoush recipe, and you'll have plenty on hand whenever you need it to add flavor to a boring sandwich or lunchtime tuna salad.

If you only think of hummus when you think of bean purées, you're missing out. Pretty much any bean can be puréed into a delicious spread to offer moisture and flavor to your sandwiches (or as a crave-worthy dip, but that's for another time). The first non-chickpea beans I ever made into a purée were red kidney beans — because that's what I had in the pantry. I quickly realized that with a bit of seasoning and olive oil, this was fantastic in sandwiches. Not only do you get tons of great flavor, but beans also bring fiber, protein, and tons of other nutrients to the party. 

If you're unsure about the flavor, white beans like cannellini are a great place to start. Put them into a blender or food processor with a little olive oil, lemon juice, and salt (plus garlic, if you'd like), and your white beans will become a creamy, delicious sandwich spread. Their flavor is relatively mild, but there's a hint of nuttiness that adds a little something more than what you'd get from mayo. Because of the somewhat neutral flavor, you can pair white bean spread with virtually any sandwich filling or use stronger flavored beans like black-eyed peas or even edamame for a flavor bomb. I haven't yet tried mixing puréed beans as a binder for cold salads, but with enough olive oil to thin out the texture, they'd be a great way to add fiber to salads that often lack them (especially tuna, chicken, or egg salad).