Infused Olive Oil: Make, Use, and Store Flavored Oils
Flavored oils are great. They can make a fantastic gift, add flavor to your food, and are easy enough to make. Taking the time to learn how to make and store flavored oils is sure to up your cooking game.
How To Flavor Your Olive Oil
When it comes to making those fancy flavored oils that we all love, it is much easier than you might imagine. There are two methods that you can use at home to get some great infused oils. The first is cold infusion. Cold infusion is great with herbs and other aromatics. You can do this in a few ways.
First, you can blend the oil, aromatics and herbs together then strain the mixture. The blender is going to break up the herbs and help them to release their flavor into the oil. Another method of cold infusion you might want to try is to place the herbs or other aromatics directly into the bottle of oil and store it so that the flavor can infuse. The last method is to roast your aromatics so that they release all their flavor then put them into your cold oil after they have cooled.
Another method of infusion is hot infusion. This is just what it sounds like, you heat the oil and the aromatics or whatever you are trying to infuse into the oil and the heat releases the flavor into the oil. This is an easy method, but you need to be very careful as hot oil can be very dangerous.
How To Store Infused Olive Oil
When it comes to DIY infused olive oil, it really does depend on the type of oil and how it was infused when it comes to determining how to store it. With cold infused oils, you do need to store them in the fridge to keep them from going rancid and to prolong their shelf life.
For hot infused oils, you can put them back in the pantry and store them. Olive oil that you have infused with other flavors is not going to keep as long as oil that you purchase from the grocery store due to pasteurization and other preservation that is added to the process. With oils that you have infused, you can get up to a month in the fridge with cold infused oils and up to a month in the pantry with hot infused oils.
It is this short shelf life that makes it a great idea to infuse your oil in small batches unless you are planning on using a lot of it all at once. Infused oil is a great way to get some fantastic flavor relatively easily and without a huge amount of work or money on your part.
Categorized in: Olive Oil Recipes