Frying with Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Hi all,

Some people are unsure if you can fry with extra virgin olive oil, but the research says you can. And if you’re careful with temperature and cooking duration - most of the oil’s healthy properties will survive.

I personally don’t fry with high polyphenol olive oil, as it would be too cost ineffective, so I always have two bottles of EVOO (extra virgin olive oil) on hand at once - one high polyphenol, and one for frying.

For a good frying EVOO I look for a monocultivar oil (an oil made from a single variety of olives) - it’s much more likely to be high quality this way. And if you fry often, go for an unfiltered oil, it will be a richer flavour and it will maintain more of its natural polyphenols.

The downside to unfiltered is it will degrade more quickly than filtered once opened. So, if you don’t fry often or you want to buy more at once - go for filtered. Here’s a good example of a budget friendly, filtered, monocultivar oil from Odysea.

Here’s some eggs fried up earlier in the Ocado oil above. (No butter to be seen 😄)