Where you store your olive oil is a really important factor in keeping it fresh and useable. It is so convenient to store olive oil right to hand right by the side of your stove, but this is just not right to keep it here. If you want to keep your olive oil ready to use daily, the key is to ensure that it is properly stored. Read on to learn how to store olive oil like a pro.
Storing Olive Oil
The worst possible place to keep your oil is on a kitchen windowsill or right beside your stove. It seems natural to do this and kitchens everywhere can be found to be storing oil in these ways. However, it will not take long for oil to go rancid under these conditions, as when olive oil is regularly exposed to heat and light it goes bad.
You should avoid storing olive oil in four main conditions: –
- Light- Olive oil does not like to be exposed to lots of light. You need to try to minimize it as best you can at all times which means thinking carefully about where you keep your oil.
- Time – This refers to how fresh your olives where in the first place when they were made into oil. Although you probably have no control over this you can be aware of it. And the minute you open up your olive oil, you should probably be consuming it as soon as you reasonably can. It is commonly recommended that you use olive oil within six months.
- Oxygen – Again, as soon as you open your bottle of oil and air gets to it, it will begin a slow process of breaking down. It is important to limit exposure to oxygen during storage of your olive oil.
- Temperature – Olive oil hates to get to hot unless you are cooking with it. The ideal storage temperature to keep your olive oil at is around 70 degrees Fahrenheit which is fairly easy to do in a standard kitchen.
Tips to Keep Your Olive Oil Fresh
- When picking up your next bottle of olive oil from the store, look on the label for a harvest date. You should be a little concerned if there is not one on the container, and best avoid buying that bottle of olive oil as it may be more than a few years old.
- It is possible for you to store your olive oil in a refrigerator, although this usually is not thought of as essential if you are able to maintain your oil at the correct temperature in your kitchen. It will most likely solidify in the refrigerator and turn out to be cloudy, so you will have to warm to room temperature prior to using it. Just wait around half an hour on your countertop for the oil to go liquid again.
- To help keep your olive oil safely away from direct sunlight, store it if at all possible in a dark kitchen cupboard. If it is impacted by any kind of sunlight then Ultraviolet rays will erode the olive oil until it is not suitable for consumption. You should store olive oil in glass bottles which are dark-colored and so as a result will help to keep light away from the oil, or you could try storing your olive oil in a metal container. Thinking about the type of container that you are going to use will better protect your olive oil from over exposure direct sunlight. Where you buy your olive oil in bulk, you might want to try pouring it into smaller amounts in smaller bottles so they can be kept in a dark cupboard and just use it as and when you require it.
- Plastic bottles do not guard olive oil from light like glass or metal containers. Evade storing olive oil in plastic containers as there are lots of chemicals that it can pick up from the plastic which may seep into your oil meaning that it will become harmful to use.
Olive oil is an adaptable and tasty oil which is used to create culinary masterpieces when cooking or as an exotic drizzle to finish fine foods. If you store olive oil correctly, then fresh olive oil will last for months to come. To do this right, it is vital to keep your oil away from heat, light, and oxygen. Unhelpfully you will find that olive oil which has not been stored suitably will go sour and taste unpleasant.
Source:
- Olive oil – BBC Good Food
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