How to Choose the Right Vegetable Oil (or Butter)

It’s possible to cook without fat, but it’s not fun. Fat not only adds flavor, but also helps brown, helps seasonings stick, and prevents food from sticking to the pan. There are a huge number of cooking fats on the market, but the average kitchen doesn’t have much of it.

In the kitchen, you’ll need two, maybe three, cooking oils: something versatile but flavorful, like olive oil; something neutral that can withstand high temperatures, like vegetable oil, and you’ll probably want some butter because butter is delicious (and good for baking).

How to choose a universal vegetable oil

This is what you’ll use to sauté vegetables, fry extra-crispy eggs in a pan, or whip up a quick vinaigrette. You can even use a high-quality all-purpose oil as a “finishing oil” and drizzle it over hummus, roasted vegetables, or an easy pasta dish. For most people, that oil is olive oil. Olive oil comes in many different forms, but as we said earlier , the most common are the following three:

• “Regular” Olive Oil: The bottle will simply say “olive oil” or “pure olive oil”, trying to rise above its station. It is usually a mixture of extra virgin olive oil and refined oil, which means that at least some of it has been subjected to heat and/or chemical processing. It has a fairly neutral flavor and can be used in versatile dishes.
• Extra virgin olive oil: “EVOO” if you’re a food blogger from the last century. This is a good, unrefined product that has the most color, flavor and antioxidants. It has a decently high smoke point of 410℉, which means you can make a salad dressing and then use it for sautéing and deep-frying, but keep in mind that a good extra virgin olive oil will add flavor to anything you put in it. touches and it Deep frying would be quite expensive considering the amount of oil that is required for deep frying.
• “Light” oil: This oil lacks not calories, but flavor and color. It is refined and has a higher smoke point of 465°F, so feel free to use it for frying.

Another good all-around option is avocado oil, which has a rich, herbaceous flavor and an even higher smoke point of 520℉. (This makes it safe for any cooking, but I still wouldn’t recommend it for deep frying given the price.)

How to choose a neutral oil

Vegetable oil doesn’t have the same glamorous reputation as its cousin, canola oil. Both have a fairly high smoke point (400–425℉), are virtually tasteless, and contain very little fat other than tallow. In some cases this is good.

I like to use vegetable oil for searing steaks (because it lets the meat speak for itself), for deep frying (because it’s cheap), and even for the occasional vinaigrette (when I want to bring out flavors other than olive oil). If you want to taste your oil, choose something tasty like olive oil; if you want to taste the food and only that, use vegetable oil. (Or Crisco, which is essentially “vegetable lard” with a smoke point of 490℉.)

Cheap oil is good

A kitchen without oil is like an egg without salt: technically functional, but not at all fun. I like to keep two types of butter in the kitchen: cooking butter, cheap butter and salted butter; and snack butter, also salted, but not cheap. However, cheap butter is still a good snack option.

The question of salted versus unsalted butter is a hotly debated topic among recipe writers. As someone who almost never bakes, I’m perfectly happy with salted foods (because salt tastes good) and on the rare occasions that I do bake, salted butter has never caused a problem. However, if you’re watching your sodium levels or want to make unusual baked goods, unsalted will roast, simmer, and melt just as well as salted (and brown even better ).

Butter is safe to store at room temperature for a reasonable period of time, provided the room temperature itself is acceptable. Store one stick in an oil holder or butter dish and store it in the refrigerator or freezer, where it will last for three months to a year, respectively.

Use butter for baking, sautéing and frying, but avoid cooking at high temperatures. Browned butter is great, but burnt butter is less tasty. Besides cooking, it also makes an excellent finishing fat; Melt it into potato piles, spread it on toast, drizzle it over popcorn, or spoon it over steak. And if you’re trying to avoid dairy, don’t sleep on those newfangled margarines , which are often marketed as “vegetable butter.” The name may be annoying, but the taste is pretty good.