The Best Cooking Oil Isn't At Your Local Grocery Store

Scan the cooking oil shelves at most grocery stores, and you'll find a wide selection of options and price points. From plastic jugs of inexpensive vegetable oil to small, pricey jars of artisan avocado oil. It's likely you have several oils at home that serve specific needs. Fancy extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) goes on salad or with crusty bread, while canola oil is ideal for frying things up in a shallow pan. But for all the unique options (have you ever cooked with mustard oil?), the fact is that the best choice barely exists on store shelves. That's because blending different oils creates a mix that can improve upon the individual parts.

There are a few different reasons to combine various oils during the cooking process. It could be to save money, enhance the functionality of a fragile oil, to infuse a milder selection with stronger flavors, or to finish a dish with a second option. It can even be the result of deception, an attempt to pass off a combination of cheaper vegetable oils as more expensive EVOO. Whatever the reason — whether at home, in a restaurant, or at the store — the goal is to craft a new product that better serves one of those specific goals. Once you start mixing oils, you may find one formula that works best for adding flavor to fried eggs, and another that is the most delicious dipping oil ever.

Cooking oils vary based on cost, flavor, and the smoke point (the temperature at which oil smokes and breaks down). Low-cost, high smoke point oils are great for frying and deep frying, while specialty, distinctively flavored oils work best in specific dishes, or for cold use, such as when you need to create salad dressings, dips, or drizzles. These smoke points matter: When blending, it becomes important to consider the end goal. If you're making French fries, you don't want much (or any) of a low smoke point oil like flaxseed, which can burn at half the temperature of something like corn oil.

Whether your goal is stretching expensive oils or adding flavor, start with a neutral base. Restaurateur and TV personality Bobby Flay prefers canola oil for most cooking, since it has a high smoke point and neutral flavor compared with, say, olive oil. It's worth noting most vegetable oils are already variable blends made from several seeds, nuts, grains, and fruits.

Adding even a small amount of an oil (or butter) with specific, intense flavors will change the overall flavor of the base oil. Consider how just a pump of almond syrup changes a latte's flavor. At the same time, cutting a more expensive oil with canola oil not only makes the former last longer, but canola's high smoke point makes it easier to sauté in than more sensitive specialty oils. Blending will prevent a lower smoke point oil from overheating.

Experimentation is encouraged here. Get to know which oils have high smoke points, neutral flavor, and are more affordable. Focus on those for a base. When blending, either add the oils together in a bowl and mix before cooking, or begin cooking with the neutral oil, then finish off with a flavorful specialty oil. Measurements are flexible, but a rough ratio of four-to-one (neutral-to-flavorful) works well. You can buy pre-blended vegetable and olive oil, like the jug from Chef's Quality.

The most common blended oil involves combining a little olive oil with vegetable or canola oil. Some restaurants do this to save money. It still imparts much of the flavor of a quality EVOO at a fraction of the price. Though there are specific situations in which vegetable vs olive oil work best, combining them in cakes or breads introduces new flavor dimensions. Alternatively, if high quality olive oil is too strong for some salads, cutting it with canola oil creates a milder dressing.

Sesame oil, popular in many Asian dishes, is a dense oil with a strong, nutty flavor. Sautéing a stir fry or diced meat in vegetable oil, then adding a bit of sesame at the end imparts the rich flavor without overwhelming the dish. Alternatively, if you use an oil spray to reduce calories or waste, cook mushrooms and steak bites in the mild spray, then add a little butter or olive oil at the end for richer flavor.