olive oil is there a cheaper alternative ?

jenster

as the title says is there a cheaper just as tasty alternative to olive oil for cooking with - what does everyone else use ?

or does anyone know the cheapest place to buy olive oil ?

i seem to use a lot and its becoming very pricey

and sugestions ?

UnderPressure

It is pricey I must admit, I have 2 lots of olive oil normal olive oil for pan frying that kind of thing then extra virgin oil for salads and as a finish to soups and that kind of stuff.

It depends what I am cooking TBH if it is say a nice steak that I am not adding any extra flavours to the I will use the normal olive oil and give it a tiny tiny drizzle of extra virgin when it is cooled, if I am cooking something that I am adding flavour to such as garlic or chilli that kind if thing then to be honest I just use normal sunflower oil.

The only tip I have for buying it is look for the special offers such as the bog offs or special purchases when you can generally buy a big 2 litre bottle for a discounted price.

I would be interested to hear from anyone who has found a cheap place for buying it as I must admit it is pricey, I think a lot of it comes down to "fashion" TBH rather than cost of production, sure it costs more to make but come on 4 or 5 times more??? I doubt it.

stiltwalker

For my ordinary cooking oil I use a blended olive oil from an Asian supermarket, think my last tin cost me £5.99 for 5 litres so it lasts me a couple of months or more instead of ending up buying a bottle every other week from the ordinary supermarket for £2.50 minimum. I have a good oil for using in dressings or for finishing soups. I find that the blended is fine for cooking but if you prefer you can buy large tins of pure olive oil or extra virgin olive oil although they are more expensive but not massively so.

Farway

I always use the Lild Primmadona EV one, seems reasonable price, around £2 I think last time I bought it

Which best buy as well

http://www.lidl.co.uk/cps/rde/xchg/lidl_uk/hs.xsl/3982.htm?

near bottom of the page

Pink.

Hi jenster,

I prefer to use sunflower oil (which is cheaper) for frying/cooking as it has less of a taste to it and I keep olive oil for dressing food.
These previous threads may help:

Cooking with olive oil, cheaper way if you're interested?!

Olive Oil Moneysaving tip

Olive Oil

I'll merge your thread with those later to keep the suggestions together.

Pink

nimbo

my local 99p shop sells it - i got bertoli last time, and the bottle seems to last me ages....

patchwork_cat

Rapeseed oil. This is often available as vegetable oil, but in this form it most likely has been chemically extracted, but then so have lots of olive oils. Rapeseed oil has more monounsaturates than olive, higher omega 3 and vitamin E and a higher smoke point. Some believe it is better for you than olive oil.

meritaten

I tend to use my best Olive oil (about £2.50 from Aldi) for drizzling over salads or roasting veg, for most other purposes I prefer sunflower oil as its a fairly tasteless oil and has a higher burning point than olive oil so i fry with it too. but if making a fairly intense tasting salad dressing then I will use the sunflower oil as I dont see the point in using Olive oil if you cannot taste it!

ceridwen

As usual - cant recall all the articles about the changes that happen in some oils when they are heated (ie not of the beneficial variety...) - from which I tend to think its okay to substitute sunflower oil in something uncooked (but something or other I cant recall happens to heated sunflower oil) OR one can use either olive oil or coconut oil.

I tend to just simplify and use olive oil in everything - as I know thats fine either heated or unheated. I simply dont trust vegetable oil/rapeseed oil (as I recall - rapeseed is often g*netically-m*dified or probably contaminated by it).

So - upshot is I look out for well-priced olive oil. A few days back I got BOGOF olive oil from Sainsburys - dont know if they still have it?

patchwork_cat

Rapeseed oil was originally not GM, but bred selectively. GM foods are everywhere and it will not tell you on the label. If you have an issue with GM rapeseed oil, it is perfectly possible to get non GM buy organic rapeseed oil. Original rapeseed oil was not edible, but with selective breeding the toxic aspect has been bred to hold no danger to public health.

[Deleted User]

I love olive oil and its probably the one thing I won't buy cheap.I try to buy it when its on a special offer .I have some delicious garlic flavoured stuff my brother brought me over from France where he lives back in the summer which is used on special occassions or to cook a decent steak in or with crusty bread just warmed through.
I am off on a day trip in a couple of weeks to Lille and its the one thing I will be on the lookout for .