Olive Oil Cooking Temperature and Thermal Stability

Cooking Temperature — scientific infographic poster

Extra-virgin olive oil has a lower smoke point than many refined seed oils, and smoke point is often treated as a guide to how well an oil tolerates cooking heat. A 2018 study of ten supermarket oils, by authors at a commercial olive-oil testing laboratory in Australia and published in a journal not indexed in PubMed, tested that idea and concluded that, under its conditions, smoke point did not predict how an oil performed when heated; extra-virgin olive oil produced the lowest level of polar compounds after heating, “closely followed by coconut oil.” Indexed domestic-frying studies report a similar pattern for olive oils against seed-oil comparisons, and also report that extra-virgin olive oil loses much of its natural antioxidant content during the first hours of frying. This page sets out what those studies measured, what they found, and where their findings stop.


Table of Contents

  1. What the Smoke Point Measures
  2. What Heating Does to an Oil
  3. The 2018 Ten-Oil Heating Study
  4. Polyphenols and Tocopherols During Heating
  5. Temperatures Used in the Studies
  6. Extra-Virgin Olive Oil and Seed Oils in Frying Studies
  7. Extra-Virgin and Other Olive Oil Grades Compared
  8. What the Studies Do and Do Not Show
  9. Repeated Frying
  10. Limitations and Concerns
  11. Key Research Papers
  12. Connections
  13. Featured Videos

What the Smoke Point Measures

The smoke point is the temperature at which an oil begins to smoke continuously, seen as a bluish smoke. The 2018 study describes this smoke as an indication of the chemical breakdown of the fat into glycerol and free fatty acids; the glycerol breaks down further to acrolein, one of the main components of the smoke. According to the same paper, the smoke point depends greatly on an oil's free fatty acid content and to a lesser degree on partial glycerides; the degree of unsaturation has little influence, while chain length matters, with oils rich in short-chain fatty acids such as lauric acid smoking at lower temperatures (De Alzaa and colleagues, 2018).

Measured by a standard method (AOCS Cc 9a-48), the ten oils in that study smoked at these temperatures before heating: grapeseed 268.00°C, canola 255.67°C, sunflower 254.67°C, rice bran 237.00°C, high-oleic peanut 226.33°C, the grade sold simply as “olive oil” 208.00°C, extra-virgin olive oil 206.67°C, avocado 196.67°C, coconut 191.00°C and virgin olive oil 175.33°C (De Alzaa and colleagues, 2018).

The smoke point is not fixed. The same study reports that every oil's smoke point fell after both heating trials; for extra-virgin olive oil it fell from 206.7°C to 184.7°C after 360 minutes at 180°C, and averaged 191.6°C at the end of the two treatments, while virgin olive oil and avocado oil showed large drops within the first 30 minutes of heating (De Alzaa and colleagues, 2018).

The question the study set out to answer was whether a higher smoke point goes with greater stability under heat. In its data the answer was no: the authors report a positive correlation between smoke point and the final level of polar compounds, meaning the oils with higher smoke points tended to form more polar compounds when heated (De Alzaa and colleagues, 2018).

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What Heating Does to an Oil

A review of deep-fat frying chemistry describes three main reactions in a heated oil — hydrolysis, oxidation and polymerization — and lists the factors that lower an oil's oxidative stability: high frying temperature, the number of fryings, and the oil's content of free fatty acids, polyvalent metals and unsaturated fatty acids. The same review reports that antioxidants slow frying-oil oxidation but become less effective at high frying temperatures (Choe and Min, 2007).

Total polar compounds are the usual yardstick for when a frying oil is spent. Casal and colleagues fried until total polar compounds reached 25 percent, which they describe as the maximum legal value (Casal and colleagues, 2010); the 2018 paper states that many jurisdictions treat a limit of no more than 24 to 27 percent as safe (De Alzaa and colleagues, 2018).

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The 2018 Ten-Oil Heating Study

De Alzaa, Guillaume and Ravetti published the study in 2018 in Acta Scientific Nutritional Health, a journal not indexed in PubMed. The authors work at a commercial olive-oil testing laboratory in Australia, and the analyses were run in an ISO 17025-accredited laboratory. Their design:

Results reported in the paper:

The authors concluded that oxidative stability, secondary oxidation products and total polyunsaturated fat were reasonable predictors of how an oil performs when heated, and that extra-virgin olive oil was the most stable oil when heated, “followed closely by coconut oil and other virgin oils such as avocado and high oleic acid seed oils.” They also noted that because no food was cooked, oxidation may have had a greater effect relative to other deterioration reactions than it would in real cooking (De Alzaa and colleagues, 2018).

The same laboratory group later published a peer-reviewed study with food: four cycles of deep-frying at 180°C for 4 minutes, cooking potato chips, chicken nuggets and broccoli in extra-virgin olive oil, canola or grapeseed oil. All the foods had more antioxidants and monounsaturated fat after cooking in extra-virgin olive oil, the highest polar compounds in food were found with canola and grapeseed oils, and canola and grapeseed oils increased trans fats in the food (De Alzaa and colleagues, 2021).

Indexed frying studies from other groups report a similar direction. In domestic frying sampled every 3 hours and continued until total polar compounds reached 25 percent, all the olive oils tested lasted longer (24 to 27 hours) than a commercial vegetable-oil blend (15 hours); the extra-virgin oil showed less oxidation and hydrolysis and more minor antioxidant compounds, the commercial “olive oil” category behaved similarly, and the blend, despite containing significantly more vitamin E, was highly susceptible to oxidation (Casal and colleagues, 2010). In a potato deep-frying study at 175°C, peanut and canola oils reached the 25 percent limit after 18 to 20 hours while extra-virgin olive oil lasted more than 28 hours (Santos and colleagues, 2019). Allouche and colleagues heated two extra-virgin olive oils at 180°C for 36 hours: tocopherols and polyphenols were the most affected components and degraded fastest, while oleic acid, sterols, squalene and triterpenic compounds stayed fairly constant, and the authors concluded that the oils kept most of their minor compounds (Allouche and colleagues, 2007).

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Polyphenols and Tocopherols During Heating

The 2018 paper explains extra-virgin olive oil's stability by its fatty-acid composition and by its polyphenols, which react rapidly with lipid radicals and are consumed in doing so; it notes that the activation energy of lipid oxidation is higher when antioxidants are present (De Alzaa and colleagues, 2018).

Experiments support a protective role for the polyphenols. Pellegrini and colleagues added increasing amounts of polyphenols extracted from extra-virgin olive oil (25 to 326 ppm) to refined olive oil containing a fixed 300 ppm of alpha-tocopherol, heated the oils at 160 to 190°C for 30 to 120 minutes, and reported that the polyphenols were effective stabilizers of alpha-tocopherol during heating (Pellegrini and colleagues, 2001).

The antioxidants are used up as they work:

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Temperatures Used in the Studies

The studies on this page used these heating conditions:

The papers fetched for this page do not report measured oil temperatures for everyday home sautéing, searing, roasting or wok cooking, so no temperature figures are given here for those methods.

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Extra-Virgin Olive Oil and Seed Oils in Frying Studies

The studies point to two features of the oil:

Not every measure favours olive oil. Velasco and colleagues heated olive oil and conventional sunflower oil at 180°C for 5, 10 and 15 hours and found that, for similar levels of degradation, olive oil contained more monoepoxy fatty acids (oxidized fatty acids formed at high temperature) than sunflower oil: 4.29 to 14.24 mg per gram of oil in olive oil against 5.10 to 9.44 mg per gram in sunflower oil. Used frying oils from Spanish restaurants and fried-food outlets contained 3.37 to 14.42 mg per gram (Velasco and colleagues, 2004).

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Extra-Virgin and Other Olive Oil Grades Compared

Refining strips most of the phenolic fraction from olive oil. In a study of lampante olive oils sampled through each refining step, hydroxytyrosol and tyrosol were completely removed in the early steps, while tocopherols fell significantly (by 7 to 16 percent) in only four of nine samples (Lucci and colleagues, 2020). Colquhoun and colleagues likewise concluded that phenolic content is reduced by chemical extraction and refining (Colquhoun and colleagues, 1996).

The heating results for the grades differ by study:

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What the Studies Do and Do Not Show

  1. Smoke point did not predict heat stability. In the 2018 study the higher-smoke-point seed oils formed more polar compounds, and the authors found oxidative stability, UV coefficients and polyunsaturated fat content to be better predictors (De Alzaa and colleagues, 2018).
  2. Olive oils outlasted the seed-oil comparisons in domestic frying studies. Olive oils took 24 to 27 hours to reach 25 percent polar compounds against 15 hours for a vegetable-oil blend (Casal and colleagues, 2010), and extra-virgin olive oil more than 28 hours against 18 to 20 hours for peanut and canola oils (Santos and colleagues, 2019).
  3. Coconut oil was close to, and on some measures ahead of, extra-virgin olive oil. It had the highest oxidative stability and the lowest polar compounds after 6 hours at 180°C, while extra-virgin olive oil ranked first on the average of both trials (De Alzaa and colleagues, 2018).
  4. The protective antioxidants are consumed. Phenolics and tocopherols fall with each frying session and are largely gone within the first 8 to 12 hours of frying (Andrikopoulos and colleagues, 2002; Santos and colleagues, 2019).
  5. The 2018 study heated oil without food, and its authors note that this may have changed the balance between oxidation and other reactions (De Alzaa and colleagues, 2018).
  6. The 2018 and 2021 studies come from a laboratory group working in the olive-oil sector; the 2018 paper appeared in a journal not indexed in PubMed. The indexed studies by other groups (Casal 2010, Santos 2019) used different oils and conditions, so their figures are not directly comparable.

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Repeated Frying

The 2018 paper describes the physical changes that build up as an oil is heated and fried: rising viscosity, darkening colour, increasing foaming, and a falling smoke point, which may go unnoticed until the oil has been used for a long time (De Alzaa and colleagues, 2018). A review of frying chemistry lists the number of fryings among the factors that lower an oil's oxidative stability, and notes that the reactions depend in part on replenishment with fresh oil (Choe and Min, 2007).

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Limitations and Concerns

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Key Research Papers

  1. De Alzaa F, Guillaume C, Ravetti L (2018). Evaluation of chemical and physical changes in different commercial oils during heating. Acta Scientific Nutritional Health 2(6):2-11. — Full text (journal PDF) (Not indexed in PubMed; no DOI; authors at a commercial olive-oil testing laboratory.)
  2. Casal S, Malheiro R, Sendas A, Oliveira BP, Pereira JA (2010). Olive oil stability under deep-frying conditions. Food and Chemical Toxicology 48(10):2972-2979. — PubMed PMID: 20678538
  3. Allouche Y, Jimenez A, Gaforio JJ, Uceda M, Beltran G (2007). How heating affects extra virgin olive oil quality indexes and chemical composition. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 55(23):9646-9654. — PubMed PMID: 17935291
  4. Pellegrini N, Visioli F, Buratti S, Brighenti F (2001). Direct analysis of total antioxidant activity of olive oil and studies on the influence of heating. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 49(5):2532-2538. — PubMed PMID: 11368632
  5. Grootveld M, Rodado VR, Silwood CJL (2014). Detection, monitoring, and deleterious health effects of lipid oxidation products generated in culinary oils during thermal stressing episodes. AOCS Inform. PubMed: Grootveld culinary oil oxidation (Trade-magazine article; not found in PubMed or Crossref in the 2026-10-14 check, so the link is a topic search. The group's indexed frying work is cited below: Wann 2021.)
  6. Choe E, Min DB (2007). Chemistry of deep-fat frying oils. Journal of Food Science 72(5):R77-R86. — PubMed PMID: 17995742
  7. Aladedunye FA, Przybylski R (2009). Degradation and nutritional quality changes of oil during frying. Journal of the American Oil Chemists' Society 86(2):149-156. — doi:10.1007/s11746-008-1328-5
  8. Andrikopoulos NK, Kalogeropoulos N, Falirea A, Barbagianni MN (2002). Performance of virgin olive oil and vegetable shortening during domestic deep-frying and pan-frying of potatoes. International Journal of Food Science & Technology 37(2):177-190. — doi:10.1046/j.1365-2621.2002.00555.x
  9. Quiles JL, Ramirez-Tortosa MC, Gomez JA, Huertas JR, Mataix J (2002). Role of vitamin E and phenolic compounds in the antioxidant capacity, measured by ESR, of virgin olive, olive and sunflower oils after frying. Food Chemistry 76(4):461-468. — doi:10.1016/S0308-8146(01)00307-7
  10. Velasco J, Marmesat S, Bordeaux O, Marquez-Ruiz G, Dobarganes C (2004). Formation and evolution of monoepoxy fatty acids in thermoxidized olive and sunflower oils and quantitation in used frying oils from restaurants and fried-food outlets. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 52(14):4438-4443. — PubMed PMID: 15237949
  11. Chiou A, Salta FN, Kalogeropoulos N, Mylona A, Ntalla I, Andrikopoulos NK (2007). Retention and distribution of polyphenols after pan-frying of French fries in oils enriched with olive leaf extract. Journal of Food Science 72(8):S574-S584. — PubMed PMID: 17995623
  12. Santos CSP, Cunha SC, Casal S (2017). Deep or air frying? A comparative study with different vegetable oils. European Journal of Lipid Science and Technology 119(6):1600375. — doi:10.1002/ejlt.201600375
  13. Santos CSP, García LM, Cruz R, Cunha SC, Fernandes JO, Casal S (2019). Impact of potatoes deep-frying on common monounsaturated-rich vegetable oils: a comparative study. Journal of Food Science and Technology 56(1):290-301. — PubMed PMID: 30728571
  14. de Alzaa F, Guillaume C, Ravetti L (2021). Evaluation of chemical and nutritional changes in chips, chicken nuggets, and broccoli after deep-frying with extra virgin olive oil, canola, and grapeseed oils. Journal of Food Quality 2021:1-14. — doi:10.1155/2021/7319013
  15. Andrikopoulos NK, Dedoussis GV, Falirea A, Kalogeropoulos N, Hatzinikola HS (2002). Deterioration of natural antioxidant species of vegetable edible oils during the domestic deep-frying and pan-frying of potatoes. International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition 53(4):351-363. — PubMed PMID: 12090031
  16. Wann AI, Percival BC, Woodason K, Gibson M, Vincent S, Grootveld M (2021). Comparative 1H NMR-based chemometric evaluations of the time-dependent generation of aldehydic lipid oxidation products in culinary oils exposed to laboratory-simulated shallow frying episodes: differential patterns observed for omega-3 fatty acid-containing soybean oils. Foods 10(10):2481. — PubMed PMID: 34681530
  17. Moumtaz S, Percival BC, Parmar D, Grootveld KL, Jansson P, Grootveld M (2019). Toxic aldehyde generation in and food uptake from culinary oils during frying practices: peroxidative resistance of a monounsaturate-rich algae oil. Scientific Reports 9(1):4125. — PubMed PMID: 30858398 (The abstract discloses industry funding and consulting by the senior author.)
  18. Colquhoun DM, Hicks BJ, Reed AW (1996). Phenolic content of olive oil is reduced in extraction and refining. Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition 5(2):105-107. — PubMed PMID: 24394520
  19. Lucci P, Bertoz V, Pacetti D, Moret S, Conte L (2020). Effect of the refining process on total hydroxytyrosol, tyrosol, and tocopherol contents of olive oil. Foods 9(3):292. — PubMed PMID: 32150867

PubMed Topic Searches

  1. PubMed: EVOO thermal stability and frying
  2. PubMed: Polar compounds in frying oil
  3. PubMed: Smoke point vs degradation
  4. PubMed: Cooking oil aldehyde formation
  5. PubMed: EVOO polyphenol thermal protection

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Connections

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