Fats aren’t one-size-fits-all in cooking. When you pick a fat for frying, you need to look at several things, including flavour and the temperature they can handle.
Temperature is sometimes called smoke point, or the point at which the fat breaks down and begins to smoke or burn. And different fats handle heat differently, which is why it is important to know how each works when frying:
1 Olive oil: Olive oil has a distinctive taste but a low smoke point. So it’s fine for sauteing, but you wouldn’t want to deep-fry in it.
2 Butter: Butter certainly tastes wonderful, but it is tricky to fry with because the milk solids burn easily. You can make butter work better as a frying medium by clarifying it, or removing the milk solids. It’s easy to do, simply melt the butter, skim off any foam that rises to the top, then pour off the clear fat and leave the remaining milk solids behind in the pan.
3 Clarified butter: Using clarified butter for frying can be an expensive affair because you end up throwing so much of the butter away. For a butter-fried taste that is a little simpler, try mixing vegetable oil with butter — it raises the smoke point and keeps the butter from burning very quickly.
4 Vegetable oils: The most popular frying choices are the common plant-based oils, from canola to vegetable to peanut oil. Peanut oil is popular for deep-frying because it has a very high smoke point, so it can handle a lot of heat. Canola and common vegetable oil handle heat just fine and don’t give distinct flavours to the food being fried, but they are usually a little more expensive than peanut oil.
{{/usCountry}}4 Vegetable oils: The most popular frying choices are the common plant-based oils, from canola to vegetable to peanut oil. Peanut oil is popular for deep-frying because it has a very high smoke point, so it can handle a lot of heat. Canola and common vegetable oil handle heat just fine and don’t give distinct flavours to the food being fried, but they are usually a little more expensive than peanut oil.
{{/usCountry}}Health should also be a factor in choosing a cooking oil. Peanut, canola and olive oils all are high in monounsaturated fats, which are believed to reduce levels of LDL (low-density lipoprotein), or bad cholesterol. Safflower and corn oil are high in polyunsaturated fats, which also are considered more healthful for cooking.
— MCT