Cheaper alternative to olive oil?

[KevinAndTracy]

We get through a lot of olive oil in our house, it gets used in bread machine, for roasting veg, dressings, frying etc etc

It seems to be in most recipes

Now that the price for olive oil is £££, has anyone switched to an alternative oil and how have you found it?

Would love recommendations for other oils which provide a similar result

Whilst a good olive oil is preferable in cases where you can taste the oil, like dressings, you don't need it in most other cases. In fact, other oils can be better for things like stir frys as they have a higher smoke point.

I use cold pressed rapeseed oil for general cooking and buy it in Aldi or Lidl. It is less than £3 a bottle. I also use a vegetable oil spray in the air fryer - again it has a higher smoke point and prevents cooking odours.

Agree on the cold pressed rapeseed oil. I still use olive oil for some things though.

If you can, buying the 5l tins online can be a significant saving.

I think good olive oil is needed for dressings. But roasting veg and potatoes and frying stuff,you can use vegetable or sunflower which is cheaper. It doesn't really carry a flavour which is good for a lot of cooking. And it makes very good deep fried stuff. The oil makes everything extra crispy.

I love olive oil and cook many things with the extra virgin, cold pressed etc. However, the expense is so high I've turned to unprocessed fats for some high temp cooking. Lard mainly, butter and sometimes goose fat for roasties. I wouldn't go near veg or seed oils anymore because of the chemicals used to purify the oil.

I only use EVOO for dressings and drizzling where you really want the flavour.

Everything else is sunflower/ butter.

This is what I'm doing, I've bought a pot of goose fat from the farm shop and use butter a lot more than. I used to. Having a health crisis at the moment and been reading a lot about foods and upf and nutrition and have decided to move away from seed oils

Another vote for cold pressed rape seed oil. It's also better to cook at high temps with as it has a much higher smoke point than olive oil. Olive oil is great for dressings etc though!

I’ve been using the large tins of ghee for some things recently - it’s got a high smoke point and tastes lovely and buttery. Great for rice, curries etc.

In terms of roast potatoes, if you roast a duck it will render off vast quantities of fat for months of potatoes.

You can get more by cutting any remaining fatty skin into small pieces, putting in a saucepan with a tiny bit of water and boiling it.

The water evaporates and the fat melts off.

Lard, butter, goose fat etc are all saturated fats. There's more concern about those from good quality research than seed oils, as far as I understand. I use this.

I’m a rice bran oil fan.

I only use E.V. olive oil for things where I want an olive oil flavour. Generally I use British cold pressed rapeseed oil, which costs about £3.50 (the olive oil I get is about £9) has a higher frying point so is better and safer for general use.

A 500ml bottle of either lasts a good month or so between 4/5 of us and I feel it's worth spending £5-10 on.

evoo for flavor when uncooked. canola, peanut, sesame, and almond for other use. i like peanut oil for the higher flash point.