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See why.All-Purpose Vegetable Oils
Vegetable oil should stay behind the scenes, whether you’re baking, sautéing, or making salad dressing. But pick the wrong oil, and your food could taste like old fish.
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See Everything We TestedWhat You Need To Know
Cooking oil is one of the oldest culinary ingredients. Since ancient times, people have made oil from olives, palms, and rapeseed. But many familiar oils in this country came along much more recently. While peanuts are native to the New World, it took the Old World to turn them into cooking oil after explorers brought them back to Europe. (Only a trickle of peanut oil was made in America until World War I, when the military needed it to make glycerin for explosives.) Corn oil is another modern invention: In 1910, a chemist discovered a way to refine it for cooking, and Mazola corn oil was launched the next year. Cottonseed oil was hugely popular in the early 20th century—Crisco, invented in 1911, stands for “crystallized cottonseed oil”—but World War II shortages let soybean oil take the lead. It remained the most widely used oil in postwar America until the mid-1980s, when canola oil hit U.S. supermarkets—with a boost from Canadian oil producers, who cleverly trademarked a more appealing name for rapeseed oil (based on the words “Canada Oil, Low Acid”).
Today, the average grocery store stocks more than a dozen vegetable oils, from canola to corn to soybean, and blends of one or more oils. Add a profusion of vague names like “Vegetable Plus!” and “Natural Blend,” and suddenly vegetable oil can be downright confusing. Are there any real differences in performance that will matter to the home cook?
Why Vegetable Oil is One-Size-Fits-All
Vegetable oil is a workhorse of the kitchen partly because of its neutral taste: Fat conveys flavor, and with no strong taste of its own, vegetable oil highlights other ingredients. That unobtrusive flavor profile makes it ideal not only for frying and sautéing, but also for baked goods—our Fluffy Yellow Layer Cake (March/April 2008), for example—that need more moisture than butter alone can offer, and salad dressings where the stronger presence of olive oil is not preferred. Ideally, so as not to clog our pantry with redundant items, we’d find a one-size-fits-all oil—one that could function seamlessly in everything from rich, creamy mayonnaise or vinaigrette to moist, sweet cake and crisp, golden fried food.
The Importance of Smoke Point
For the last of these tasks, refined vegetable oils have a built-in advantage: a generally high smoke point, the temperature at which wisps of smoke appear, signaling that the oil is breaking down. Cooking in oil past its smoke point gives food an off-flavor. Smoke points are not absolutes; older and less refined oils have lower smoke points, and there is some variation according to the type of oil. Our lineup averaged about 450 degrees: fine for everyday shall...
Everything We Tested
Recommended
- Baking: 3 stars out of 3.
- Frying: 3 stars out of 3.
- Mayonnaise: 3 stars out of 3.
- Vinaigrette: 3 stars out of 3.
In mayonnaise, the “very clean” taste of this blend outperformed the rest. Despite containing canola and soybean oils (which can contribute off-flavors), it was utterly “neutral and balanced” in fries. Still, in cake and vinaigrette, it performed no better than our bottom-ranked oil.
- Frying: 3 stars out of 3.
- Mayonnaise: 3 stars out of 3.
The “clean flavor” of this oil gave mayonnaise a “nice, light” taste. In fries, while a few sensitive tasters noticed some fishiness, the majority gave it the thumbs-up for a neutral taste that let potato flavor “shine through.”
- Frying: 3 stars out of 3.
- Mayonnaise: 3 stars out of 3.
Though criticized by some for being “slightly greasy” in both the mayonnaise and the fries, overall its taste was “neutral” in both applications—just how we like our vegetable oil to be.
- Frying: 3 stars out of 3.
- Mayonnaise: 2 stars out of 3.
While tasters disliked most corn oils in mayonnaise, this brand was the exception, earning low but acceptable scores, with only a few tasters detecting a “cardboard” aftertaste. In fries, it shone: “Great. No negatives.”
- Frying: 2 stars out of 3.
- Mayonnaise: 3 stars out of 3.
This oil contributed to a “pleasant-tasting” mayonnaise with a “creamy” texture. Fries, however, didn’t have that “clean burst of fresh fry flavor,” and some tasters detected an aftertaste “like spent oil.”
- Frying: 2 stars out of 3.
- Mayonnaise: 2 stars out of 3.
Most tasters deemed this oil “inoffensive” in mayonnaise, but some noted a slight “greasy” consistency. In fries, tasters were divided: Half found it an agreeably silent partner to the potatoes; others complained of “weird,” “metallic” off-flavors.
Recommended with reservations
- Frying: 1 stars out of 3.
- Mayonnaise: 3 stars out of 3.
This oil drew accolades for producing a mayonnaise that was “mellow” and “silky.” But it finished last in the fries test; taster complaints ranged from “sour” to “disgusting fish flavor.”
- Frying: 3 stars out of 3.
- Mayonnaise: 1 stars out of 3.
Like the two bottom-ranked corn oils, this product tanked in the mayo tests, producing a sauce with “rancid,” “turpentine-like” flavors. Fries were a different story altogether: “These are great; no off-flavors.”
- Frying: 3 stars out of 3.
- Mayonnaise: 1 stars out of 3.
In mayonnaise, this corn-canola blend exhibited an aftertaste so “pungent,” one taster likened it to “blue cheese.” But like other corn oils, in fries it was a marvel, producing fries with “nutty,” “buttery” flavor.
- Baking: 3 stars out of 3.
- Frying: 3 stars out of 3.
- Mayonnaise: 1 stars out of 3.
- Vinaigrette: 3 stars out of 3.
Two comments summed up the majority opinion of this oil in mayo: “Like licking metal—funky” and “Wow, terrible!” However, french fries tasted “good, unadulterated.” Furthermore, most tasters found it indistinguishable from our top brand in cake and vinaigrette.
Reviews you can trust
The mission of America’s Test Kitchen Reviews is to find the best equipment and ingredients for the home cook through rigorous, hands-on testing.
Lisa McManus
Lisa is an executive editor for ATK Reviews, cohost of Gear Heads on YouTube, and gadget expert on TV's America's Test Kitchen.