Best Olive Oil For Tossing, Dipping & Cooking
As you may have guessed from its name, olive oil is a liquid obtained from olives, produced by pressing whole olives and extracting the oil.
Out of all the cooking oils out there, olive oil has the best reputation because of the “good fats” it contains — olive oil is high in monounsaturated fat content which is full of antioxidants and has been shown to reduce blood pressure. Olive oil is also an anti-inflammatory that can help reduce chances of developing conditions like arthritis, and it has even been linked to lowering the risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and stroke.
TLDR: We’re not doctors, but if you’ve got an ailment, eating olive oil can probably help you.
But it was when I tasted the stuff that I was truly converted. This olive oil is great: It’s grassy and bright and kind of fruity but also buttery? It’s definitely not sweet or overwhelming. It makes sense, somehow, that it’s pressed predominantly from olive groves in Castilla-La Mancha, Spain, where Don Quixote wandered. It actually tastes like a milder version of those green Spanish olives you’d see on a really amazing cheese plate. (Also, why in the world should this be a surprise?) It holds its own if you tip some onto a plate and crack some pepper over it, for dipping bread. It makes fried eggs that much more delicious. It also doesn’t mess with flavor if you use it in a carrot cake. It’s not so precious to be relegated only to special occasions—you can coat your roasted root vegetables in it—but it still does add a certain something that you just don’t get from your typical bottle.
Ok, now you know why you should eat olive oil, but what about how? Not only is olive oil good for you, it tastes pretty damn great too. Olive oil is the most popular type of vegetable oil, and all-around good to use for cooking, both hot and cold food. If you’re cooking at home, odds are you’re using olive oil in something, whether it’s sauteing, pan-frying, or adding to salad dressing and dips.
The 6 Best Olive Oils in 2022
The number of olive oil options on the market can be overwhelming, so we put in the research for you to find out which ones are worth buying. Here are the best Extra Virgin olive oils for various needs to keep in your kitchen.
Zoe’s Extra Virgin Olive Oil is cold-pressed from Spanish Cornicabra olives and is blended with other Spanish varieties of olives. The organic EVOO provides a fresh, fruit fragrance and light sweet taste that differs from other more peppery olive oils. Use it drizzled over vegetables in place of butter or on top of homemade hummus. This is one of the few olive oils we reviewed that comes in a can — storing olive oil in a sealed off, dark place is best — so the can helps preserve the olive oil for longer.
