Description
Salad oil is a blanket term for any edible oil used in salad dressings. It may be corn oil, soybean oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil, canola oil, peanut oil, a light olive oil, or any other fairly bland vegetable.
How to Select
•The choice of oil totally depends upon one’s likes and dislikes.
•You can use any kind of edible vegetable oil for salad dressings and sauces.
•A salad oil must not contain solid crystals that will become waxy and thick on refrigeration.
Culinary Uses
•Salad oil is used for preparing various pourable and spoonful salad dressings, as well as the well-known mayonnaise. It provides a creamy texture and helps spread the flavour of the dressing throughout the salad.
•A salad oil coats the salad ingredients, improving the palatability of the salad by providing some lubrication and imparting a good mouth feel.
•Mayonnaise has around 80 percent salad oil, which improves its viscosity.
•Other thick salad dressings have around 35-50 percent oil, which helps to modify the mouth feel of the starch paste that thickens the product.
How to Store
•It is important to store oil properly to retain its delicate taste, colour and nutritive profile.
•Salad oil is like other oils and can easily go rancid when exposed to air, light or high temperatures.
•So, keep the oil in a cool and dark place, tightly sealed.
Health Benefits
•Salad oil or edible vegetable oil is more healthful than other sources of alimentary fat because of its high content of monounsaturated fat (mainly oleic acid) and polyphenols.
•The high oxidative stability and high content of antioxidants, makes it a healthier option compared to other oils.
