The Affordable Substitute You Can Try For Olive Oil

A good bottle of olive oil is hard to beat, whether making a salad dressing, baking, or simply using it as a dip for bread. However, if you're cooking and find yourself short on the product affectionately known as liquid gold, there are better and worse olive oil alternatives to try. To find the best, most affordable option, we turned to an expert.

According to Joanne Gallagher, recipe creator and co-founder of Inspired Taste, there's one oil that clearly stands above the rest. "A top budget-friendly alternative to olive oil that still brings good flavor and versatility is canola oil," Gallagher says. "It's neutral in taste, affordable, and works well for sauteing, baking, and even light frying. I find it great for homemade mayonnaise myself." If you are going to use canola oil to make mayonnaise, consider this tip from Eric Ripert: drizzle the oil in extremely slowly, rather than pouring it in all at once. This will help greatly in the emulsification process.

This recommendation comes with a built-in celebrity chef endorsement. Canola is Bobby Flay's favorite cooking oil, with the chef claiming to use it in 98% of his recipes due to its utility when looking to cook on high heat without adding flavor.

Canola can be a little hum-drum in terms of taste, so Gallagher has other suggestions for those who find canola lacking. "If you're looking for something with a bit more character, avocado oil, sunflower oil, or grapeseed oil are also good choices, offering a mild flavor and high smoke point, though they can be slightly more expensive than canola," she says. Avocado oil is considered one of the best oils for baking, with a notably high smoke point, a neutral flavor, and the nutritional value that comes from its superfood origins.

If you're wondering which oils will not serve you well as an olive oil replacement, the key, according to Joanne Gallagher, is to avoid flavored oils such as unrefined coconut oil or toasted sesame oil. "Unrefined coconut oil can overpower dishes with its strong flavor, especially in savory recipes, unless that's what you're going for. Toasted sesame oil has a very intense aroma and is better used sparingly as a finishing oil, not a base," she says.

She adds that it's not just the flavors that can be problematic with these substitutes. "Flavored oils can have low smoke points and artificial ingredients that don't hold up well to high-heat cooking."