Some of our recipes include deep-frying. Deep-frying can be messy, and when you are finished, you will oil with sediment and food particles left over. Never pour this oil down the drain, do not flush it down the toilet, and do not dump it in a septic system! Oils and fats will clog your plumbing, because the fats congeal in the drain lines. They can also damage municipal sewers. You can reuse oil a few times, depending on what you cooked and whether or not you smoked the oil. This article addresses how to clean and reuse the oil, and how to dispose of oil that is no longer suitable for cooking.
How to clean cooking oil for reuse
- Let the oil cool.
- Use a large, wide-mouthed container to avoid making a mess. I use a 2-quart measuring cup.
- Place a wire kitchen strainer over the mouth of the container.
- Next, line the strainer with several layers of cheesecloth. Coffee filters also work, but are slower, and you will have to wait for the oil to drain into the container before adding more.
- Pour the oil from your pot into the strainer lined with cheesecloth.
- Then, let the oil seep through into the container.
- When the oil has stopped flowing, shake the sediment off of the cheesecloth into your trash.
- Use paper towels to wipe the remaining sediment from the pot, and discard into the trash. Do not dump this into your sink!
- When you have wiped the pot clean of debris and any remaining oil, use hot, soapy water to rinse out the pot.
How many times can you reuse cooking oil?
What you cook in the oil will give it a flavor. If you fry fish in oil, you might use it again to fry shrimp, but you would not want to use it for potato chips, unless you like fish-flavored potato chips. However, frying breaded foods, like our Easy Chinese Fried Chicken or Deep Fried Garlic Pork Ribs will leave sediment. This sediment will shorten the life of the oil. Most of this can be filtered out, but the oil will darken with use and some sediment remains.
For oil used to fry potato chips, and nothing else, you might reuse it 6 or 7 times. For oils used to fry meats, especially with breading or cornstarch (like General Tso’s Chicken) will only be usable two or three times.
Some fine sediment will remain in the oil, and the oil will also change and darken from use.
Cooking oils have a “smoke point”
For deep-frying, you need to use an oil with a high smoke point. This is the temperature at which the oil begins to break down and give off smoke. This temperature varies for each oil, but when you exceed the smoke point, the chemistry of the oil changes, and it should be discarded.
Oils with high smoke points, commonly used for fried foods:
| Oil | Smoke Point |
|---|---|
| Peanut oil | 227–229 °C 441–445 °F |
| Soybean oil | 234 °C 453 °F |
| Caiziyou expeller pressed rapeseed oil (used in Sichuan cooking) | 190–232 °C 375–450 °F |
| Canola oil (a modified rapeseed, containing less than 2% erucic acid) | 220–230 °C 428–446 °F |
| Corn oil | 230–238 °C 446–460 °F |
| Lard | 190 °C 374 °F |
| Sunflower oil (refined) | 232 °C 450 °F |
| Cottonseed oil (refined, bleached, deodorized) | 220–230 °C 428–446 °F |
Disposing of used cooking oil
Your local municipality may have a household waste recycling plan. If so, you should use this and follow their directions.
Used cooking oil can be composted. Adding this used oil to your compost pile will benefit the earthworms feeding on the compost. Used cooking oil can be cleaned and refined into soap, or converted to biodiesel. In fact, local restaurants may be willing to accept your used oil, as they have to dispose of their used oils, and often sell it to biodiesel manufacturers or other recycling businesses.
Combining used oil with dish soap can make it into a useful insecticide or herbicide.
You can also dispose of used oil with your household waste if you first convert it to solid waste, by combining it with sawdust, kitty litter, or sand.
For more information about disposal and recycling options, contact your local government, search the internet, or see https://www.actenviro.com/easy-ways-on-how-to-dispose-of-cooking-oil-safely/.
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