Cooking with Oil: Add Variety to Your Pantry

Expanding the selection of oils in your pantry can increase the variety of cuisines that can be prepared at home. Most kitchens have a frying oil such as vegetable or canola and many home cooks keep olive oil around for the occasional salad dressing or dipping sauce. These oils have many uses and the addition of a few specialty oils can bring more authentic flavors in the kitchen.

At any given time, I will have somewhere between six and 10 oils in my kitchen. My olive oil bottle gets the most use, but I go through several bottles of sesame oil every year. Following are a few suggestions for pantry oils to add to your collection.

Canola Oil
I've grown to prefer canola oil over the vegetable oil I used for years. The smoke point is the same so I can use it for frying chicken or homemade onion rings and it seems to have a more neutral flavor than vegetable oil.

Canola oil is great for making larger quantities of salad dressing that can be refrigerated. It doesn't solidify at cold temperatures likes olive oil so I can make Gramma's L & K Dressing or Poppy seed Dressing and have it ready and on hand for a couple of weeks. Canola oil is also good for quick breads calling for oil in the recipe such as zucchini bread or pumpkin bread.

Olive Oil
This is my favorite oil to cook with. I use a store-brand extra-virgin olive oil for everyday cooking such as sautéing vegetables, baking bread and making marinades. We love to eat homemade bread with a dense crust and often dip it in a higher-grade extra-virgin olive oil seasoned with a few spices.

Peanut Oil
For those not allergic, peanut oil is the best for deep-frying a turkey, making homemade potato chips and stir-frying some Asian foods. It has the highest smoke point and has never seemed to affect the taste of our fried turkey. I love the flavor it adds to potato chips.

Sesame Oil
We love to cook Asian foods in our kitchen and sesame oil makes all the difference, especially with lo mien or fried rice. Just a drizzle over the top just before serving gives that taste you crave from your favorite Chinese carryout.

I also keep a bottle of Hot Chili Sesame Oil. We like our food with a kick and find this oil adds just the right touch to our Vietnamese dishes.

Sunflower Oil
I use sunflower oil for vinaigrettes and sometimes drizzle it on vegetables just before grilling instead of olive oil. I've also learned that it gives Angie Mohr's Homemade Tortillas a great taste!

Truffle Oil
This oil is a luxury that we use sparingly. I've brushed a small amount on sliced bread that I'm baking into bruschetta and drizzled it over Italian soups. The cheese man I bought it from at the North Market in Columbus, Ohio suggested wrapping it in plastic once I broke the seal to keep the truffle aroma from evaporating.

Add variety to your kitchen with a wide selection of cooking oils.