Enhance Your Flavors With Infused Olive Oils

Creating an infused olive oil, or any other oil is easy. Creating a herb vinaigrette for dressing is similar to creating an infused olive oil (But without the vinegar), and the same principle applies.

The health benefits of infused olive oil make it a fantastic choice for infusing. Because infused olive oil is so widely used both at home and in the culinary sector, we will show you the way it in a wide variety of applications. But it is important to select a neutral flavored oil such as canola, safflower or sunflower unless the flavoring goes well with olive oil (such as basil).

Cooking oils are quite hardy and have rather a long shelf-life, but because we're changing the pH and adding particles when infusing the oil, the shelf-life can be reduced quite drastically depending on the flavor infusion used.

For items such as nuts, the oil has a tendency to go rancid quickly and consequently has to be kept refrigerated and used within a week or two. There is also the risk of botulism if the oil is not prepared properly.

All moisture has to be evaporated. The more flavoring items used in the oil, the longer it will take to process. Bear this in mind when using delicate flavor items as the long procedure time of other ingredients could ruin the flavor of the delicate item and turn bitter.

When the infused olive oil has been prepared, you can serve it over many dishes such as potatoes, soups, salads, entrees, starches, etc.. A favorite of ours is using truffle infused olive oil drizzled over homemade cream of mushroom soup.

Do keep in mind that if you are attempting to create infused olive oil to watch the temperature to ensure it doesn't heat up too much. Not only will it smoke and potentially ruin your oil, however, the natural flavors of the olive oil can be lost if it is cooked at too high a temp.

Cooking an oil at a high temp for sauteing or pan-frying changes the structure in the oil causing it to become entirely different. This is the way it is never really advised to use high-quality olive oil for high-temperature cooking. Instead, use a lesser quality olive oil or use canola. Olive oil's true health benefits can only be appreciated when it is used at low temperatures.