We all love olive oil for its great taste and health benefits. Olive oil is commonly considered to be good for heart health and chronic health.
And we use olive oil for all sorts of cuisines on a daily basis. However, it is extremely important to cook olive oil carefully. There are many things you need to bear in mind when cooking with olive oil.
Today we’re going to talk about heating olive oil in the microwave. Should you microwave olive oil? Can you microwave food with olive oil? Read on for the answer and reasons.
Can You Microwave Olive Oil?
Microwaving is no doubt the easiest way to prepare food. Be it some eggs for breakfast or some popcorn for late-night snacks, the very first cooking method that comes to our mind would be microwaving.
Now it leads you to the question if it is okay to microwave popcorn with olive oil and if you can prepare meals with olive oil in the microwave. All in all, can you use olive oil in the microwave?
However, I’m afraid there won’t be a short and absolute answer to the question. Certainly, you can microwave olive oil, but you have to do it carefully.
And there are reasons behind it.
First, we need to come to an understanding that olive oil is relatively more sensitive to heat when compared to other kinds of oil. It just won’t perform the best under high temperatures.
With that being said, if you have to heat up olive oil in the microwave, there are some ground rules for you to follow.
How to Properly Microwave Olive Oil?
1. Avoid high heat.
It’s recommended to use the low to medium power mode only. When cooking olive oil in the microwave, make sure it’s under low to medium heat.
2. Avoid long cooking time.
Also, you will need to guarantee that the olive oil won’t be cooking for too long in the microwave. It is ideal to maintain the cooking time for olive oil within 30 seconds.
3. Monitor closely
And it is very important to monitor closely during the entire cooking process. You will need to monitor the olive oil closely to make sure it won’t start to smoke.
What Happens If You Microwave Olive Oil?
As we have mentioned above, it is okay to microwave olive oil. However, it just takes some effort to make sure the cooking process goes smoothly.
What happens if you just put some food with olive oil in the microwave oven and cook them at high heat?
There will be several undesirable risks you’d face if you do that.
1. Reaching the Smoke Point
The very first unpleasant outcome would be having the olive oil reach the smoke point. Compared to other kinds of oil, olive oil has a relatively low smoke point.
Having olive oil cooked at high temperature would easily make them reach the smoke point and start to break down.
When this happens, it could release harmful chemicals during the cooking process. This would pose a serious health hazard to your whole family.
2. Flavour Change
When the olive oil reaches the smoke point and breaks down, the flavour of it would alter as well.
When heated beyond its smoke point, the flavour can become bitter and unpleasant, which could directly ruin your whole dish.
3. Nutrient Loss
The high temperature would have the olive oil start to break down and thus destroy some of the valuable nutrients.
Alternative Oil to Use in the Microwave
As discussed earlier, we need to be extremely careful when it comes to microwaving olive oil and cooking food with olive oil. That’s the reason why olive oil is commonly used as finishing touches.
To avoid all the unpleasant outcomes that could happen if you cook olive oil at high heat, it is recommended to use alternative oil in the microwave.
A very popular and common alternative would be vegetable oil. Vegetable oil is a kind of general-purpose oil with a higher smoke point, making it perfect for frying and deep frying. Therefore, it can easily stand the high heat of microwaving.
Also, canola oil, sunflower oil and peanut oil also work well for cooking in the microwave oven.