Can You Use Extra Light Olive Oil For Deep Frying

Don t worry that your food will taste like olives.

Can you use extra light olive oil for deep frying.

Yes you can deep fry with extra virgin olive oil try french fries or churros. If cost is not a factor consider using extra virgin olive oil. It is often claimed that the health benefits start to break down as soon as it is heated but this is simply not true. Much lower concentrations of aldehydes form when shallow frying fish in extra virgin olive oil compared to sunflower oil 23.

However choosing the right types of olive oil for cooking is important. Deep frying with extra virgin olive oil is a hot topic. High quality extra virgin olive oil is pricey and dumping six cups of it in a dutch oven to fry some chicken instead of something more affordable like vegetable oil. Extra virgin olive oil smoking point is only 320 f making it unsuitable for deep frying.

Extra virgin olive oil and canola oil are more in the middle you can stir fry or bake with them but don t deep fry. Compared to commercial vegetable oil blends extra virgin oil had lower levels of oxidation 22. Mediterranean cooks however have been deep frying foods in extra virgin olive oil for a long time. In general when olive oil is used for cooking it s best kept to pan frying only.

There is a lot of culinary myths surrounding olive oil and one of the most common is that it cannot be used for frying. Light olive oil by comparison has a high smoking point meaning you can make it pretty hot. If you re going to deep fry light refined olive oil is a good way to go. The smoke point of extra virgin olive oil and virgin olive oil is 250 degrees fahrenheit considerably lower than the 350 f you need to fry your doughnuts.

Another olive oil deep frying myth is that due to its lower smoking point olive oil cannot be used for repeated frying. Light olive oil with a smoke point of 460 f can be used to deep fry but deep frying with olive oil does not make food healthier than frying with other kinds of polyunsaturated oils. Heating olive oil will neutralize much of the flavor. We know because we hear the myth that it can t be done.

Pure olive oil on the other hand has a smoke point of 410 degrees and can handle the high temperatures needed for deep frying. This is an assumption based on the idea that any oil with a low smoking point will not hold up and will become altered and bitter. Extra light virgin olive oil. And we re not made of money.

In one study researchers used several commercial oils for deep frying and took samples of each oil every three hours.