Smoking Points of Cooking Fats & Oils

There are a variety of choices for cooking oils and certain ones are better for high temperature frying, while others are better for lower temperature sautéing. As you look at the table below consider that you do not want to do high temperature frying using any oil with a smoking point lower than 375 degrees F. In general, the best choices for frying for the home chef are Canola Oil and Peanut Oil.

For stir frying or sautéing you might instead use coconut oil or extra virgin olive oil. In some instances you will instead want to use butter or drawn butter for lower temperature sautéing, to capture the taste of the butter.

Drawn butter is not as refined as Ghee, yet it is suitable for somewhat higher temperature frying. It has water and milk solids mostly removed from the butter. That is done via heating butter in a Pyrex® type of container in a microwave oven until the water in it starts to cook off, then scraping away any foam from the top, then cooling it, and then decanting the top layer of pure butterfat away from the lower layer of remaining water and milk solids, which are then discarded. Alternatively, best done in advance of when you might use it, you process the container of heated butter, which can be chilled in the refrigerator to solidify the butterfat, making it easier to separate it from any water and milk solids on the bottom, thus avoiding wasting any butterfat.

You will want to consider the cost of an oil before using it in large (2 quart) volumes for deep frying. Canola oil is relatively cheap. Peanut oil is more expensive but still reasonable if purchased in gallon size or larger quantities. You can look up the prices of the various oils from supplier Internet web sites or businesses like Amazon®. The prices you find there will be a lot lower than those of a typical supermarket.

Note that oils for high temperature frying can be used, in general, for about three times, provided you filter out any food particles prior to storing the oil between uses, and remember to wipe excess moisture from the items you plan to fry. The idea is that oils gradually break down chemically, which results in lowering the smoking point temperature. Old, overused oils will impart an off flavor to foods fried in them.