Should you use olive or canola oil, or just plain vegetable oil to stir-fry your veges? What about for drizzling on your salad?
- For everyday cooking you’ll usually want a neutral-tasting oil which doesn’t mask the flavour of your food. Regular olive oil and canola oil are good choices. Cold-pressed oils may be too strong in flavour, and are usually more expensive.
- For frying, you’ll need oil with a high smoke point. The smoke point is the temperature to which oil can be heated before it smokes and discolours. Blended vegetable oils and canola, grapeseed and peanut oil have high smoke points. Butter and table spreads have low smoke points, so they suit light sautéing rather than frying.
- For salads and stir-fries you may want an oil with a distinctive flavour – extra-virgin olive oil and avocado oil are good choices.
As a general rule nut oils are best used in cold dishes because cooking heat can destroy their delicate flavours.
Flaxseed oil (sometimes called linseed oil) shouldn’t be heated either … but it’s delicious added to smoothies or salad dressings.
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