Can You Use Vegetable Oil in a Deep Fryer?
Frying food at home is sort of terrifying itself. I can relate. You are dealing with a hot, bubbling tub of oil. So to make things a little simpler, let us talk about the best frying oil. If you are the proud owner of a deep fryer, you could have tried multiple dishes already. You probably experienced what works and what does not by guesswork.
When it comes to which oils can be safely and successfully used in a deep fryer, there is no need for guessing games. For several factors, vegetable oil is one of the best oils you can use in a deep fryer. This encompasses all the technical variations of vegetable oils, for instance, sunflower oil, olive oil, and canola oil. These can all be used in deep fryer cooking, but vegetable oil makes a perfect go-to deep-frying oil.
For optimum cost-effectiveness, this is typically a combination of various plant-derived oils mixed together. It is neutral in taste, and while it is not the oil that we would get if we were, perhaps, adding it as a salad dressing, I would love to use it to fry items. And why? Great question. Three explanations are mentioned here. Keep reading to find out more!
Cost
The amount of oil you must use is one of the only negative things about deep frying food. And if you have a deep fryer of the smallest size, you would always need plenty of oil. As you might already know, oil can be costly. Have you seen the price of processed, infused, high-end oils? When choosing one to be used in your deep fryer, you have many to choose from. Some of the various types of oils on the market include:
- Sunflower
- Canola
- Olive
- Extra virgin olive
- Peanut
- Coconut
- Rice bran
However, these oils nearly always cost more than generic vegetable oil.
I would not recommend you to use vast quantities of exotic oil in your deep fryer. I suppose the exceptions are if you are a billionaire. And if you know how the flavors in these oils can influence your dish. I would suggest that you can also reuse vegetable oil numerous times due to its elevated smoke point.
As long as you keep it and refrigerate or freeze it in an airtight bag, you can use vegetable oil over and over again until it begins to get spoilt. After frying, you can also strain the vegetable oil using a strainer lined with cheesecloth. Place the oil straight back for storage in the (clean) deep fryer as long as it has an airtight seal.
Most recent deep fryer models (to avoid splashes and spills) have this functionality. To put tiny quantities into a container for reuse, you might also use a coffee filter and a funnel. But, I would say that combining old and new oil is not advised.
Flavor
Although a lack of flavor in cooking oil is not necessarily an asset, when it comes to deep-frying, it always is. In general, frying food is about incorporating texture and cooking through it, not adding the oil’s flavor. In fried food, taste typically comes from the fried food itself, spices, or batter. To not modify the taste of the food you are cooking, deep frying is better achieved with oil of as neutral or low flavor as possible. Vegetable oil undoubtedly has a neutral taste, and your dish will not be tainted or overshadowed.
Smoke Point
We need to discuss frying oil in the first place before we even consider worrying about reusing it, though. The oil will not be reusable if your frying procedure is wrong. For a deep-fry to work, oil selection is key. Each oil has a particular smoking point.
The smoke point is something you might have already heard about, whether or not you know it, with your deep fryer at home by experimentation. There is a smoke point in each oil, the temperature at which the oil starts to burn and produce smoke. When you sear meat in a cast-iron skillet, you undoubtedly experienced this.
The last scenario you want is the annoying sound of a ridiculously loud smoke detector in your ear while operating a hot oil tank. The smoke point of vegetable oil hovers between 440 ° Fahrenheit and 450 ° Fahrenheit, placing it on the higher end of the scale. We lower the fried chicken to around 350 ° Fahrenheit oil, which leaves a buffer between the oil and the point of smoke.
In conclusion, while deep frying, we will have to use oils with a high smoke point that will not quickly break down because frying happens at high temperatures. I do not consider using olive oil. It is a weak option for deep-frying in the first place because of its significant expense, low smoking point, and predominant taste.
The right oil for frying, in brief, leaves everything simple. This keeps the expenses in check. This leaves the taste manageable. It makes the entire experience of frying pleasant. This is what you want when you look at a container filled with hot triglycerides that are boiling hot.
References
https://thecookingexpert.com/can-you-use-vegetable-oil-in-a-deep-fryer/
https://www.epicurious.com/expert-advice/you-can-reuse-frying-oil-article
