deep frying oil - one time use?

[Anonymous]

I never deep fry anything, not because I'm opposed to it, but because I just find it messy and don't really know how to do it. The couple of times I've tried french fries, they were soggy and gross, so I just don't do it.

My daughter's roommate is Latino, and turned her on to empanadas. My daughter in turn, turned our family on to them. So, the other day, I buy all the ingredients for homemade empanadas, and spent a small fortune. The biggest expense was the quart or 1/2 gallon of canola oil which cost $12. So, I used the entire container, and the empanadas came out perfectly, but now what do I do with all this oil? Can you reuse frying oil? It has little dark pieces in it, and just seems "dirty". What do you do with your oil, do you reuse for anything?

[Anonymous]

You can strain it and reuse it.

[Anonymous]

You can recycle it (paper towels or coffee filters and funnels to get the pieces out) and then reuse for deep frying. We reuse it for wok cooking. As you've no doubt noticed, the oil gets extremely hot so it's safe to cook in again, you just want to strain the particles out. Flavored will carry though so use it in similar cooking.

[Anonymous]

The flavor actually gets better the more you use it (up to a point--you'll know when that is).
Strain it through a coffee filter, put it in a jar (quart mason jar or old rinsed mayonnaise jar), and keep it in the fridge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The flavor actually gets better the more you use it (up to a point--you'll know when that is).
Strain it through a coffee filter, put it in a jar (quart mason jar or old rinsed mayonnaise jar), and keep it in the fridge.

You don't need to keep it in fridge. It is OIL.

[Anonymous]

OP here, thanks everyone, I knew I had to be missing something!

[ThatSmileyFaceGuy]

Yes you can reuse it, think about all those resturaunts using the same oil for days to do their frying. One thing to think about however is what you have fried in it. Frying veggies or your empanadas you can use the same oil over and over for different things. Once you use it for frying meats however, like doing a turkey, you want to use it for the same meats unless you want cross flavors because the meats put their own fats into the oil changing the taste.

[Anonymous]

If you fry fish, make sure you only use that oil for fish in the future. Either that, or anything you fry in it will taste like fish anyway!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The flavor actually gets better the more you use it (up to a point--you'll know when that is).
Strain it through a coffee filter, put it in a jar (quart mason jar or old rinsed mayonnaise jar), and keep it in the fridge.

You don't need to keep it in fridge. It is OIL.

It will also solidify if put in the frig.

[Anonymous]

I've been keeping my frying oil in the fridge for 35 years. It hasn't solidified yet.

Some oils will--olive, for instance. I hope no one's using that for deep frying. (Low smoke point, also too expensive and a waste of the oil.)

After it's been opened and exposed to air, oil will go rancid over time. Keeping it in the fridge--cold and dark--retards that process and lets you keep it a long time.