Smoke Point Chart: Every Cooking Oil Compared

The smoke point of a cooking oil is one of the most useful — and most ignored — facts in everyday cooking. It's the temperature at which an oil starts to smoke and break down. Past it, your food tastes burned, the oil's nutritional benefits are degraded, and harmful compounds can form. Knowing the smoke point of every oil in your kitchen turns "which oil should I use" from a guess into a quick lookup.

This is the chart, every common oil, ranked by smoke point — with practical advice on what each one is best at.

Smoke point: every common cooking oil

Below: smoke points are approximate and vary slightly by brand and refining process. The numbers are most accurate for the refined version of each oil; unrefined or "virgin" versions of the same oil typically have lower smoke points.

Why the chart matters

Cooking above an oil's smoke point isn't just an aesthetic problem (smoky kitchen, acrid food). When oils break down at high temperatures, they release:

• Acrolein — a sharply irritating compound that can damage respiratory tissue with prolonged exposure.
• Free radicals — unstable molecules that contribute to cellular damage when consumed.
• Trans fats (in some oils) — heated oxidation can convert some fats to trans-fat structures.
• Harmful aldehydes — produced when polyunsaturated fats are heated repeatedly.

The risks scale with both temperature and time. A few seconds of overshooting an oil's smoke point isn't a health emergency, but daily cooking above smoke points adds up. Matching oil to method is a small habit that compounds.

The hierarchy of cooking heat

To use the chart, you need to know roughly how hot your cooking method is.

Boiling water (212°F). Below the smoke point of essentially every oil. Boil-poaching in oil-water mixtures is fine.

Low-heat sautéing (250-300°F). Butter works. Olive oil works. Most oils work.

Medium-heat sautéing (300-350°F). Extra virgin olive oil works fine. Butter starts to brown. Most cooking oils handle this.

Medium-high sautéing (350-400°F). Most oils still fine. Butter is borderline. Walnut and flaxseed are out of bounds.

High-heat searing and stir-frying (400-500°F). Refined oils only — avocado, peanut, refined sunflower, ghee. Olive oil and butter break down.

Aggressive searing (500°F+). Refined avocado oil or safflower oil only.

Deep-frying (350-375°F oil temperature). Note the oil temperature is below the smoke point — that's deliberate. Use refined peanut, refined sunflower, or refined avocado.

Refined vs. unrefined: the smoke point implications

Most oils come in two forms: refined (filtered, processed for high smoke point) and unrefined (cold-pressed, more flavorful, lower smoke point).

The smoke point difference is significant:

• Avocado oil: Refined 520°F, unrefined 480°F.
• Coconut oil: Refined 450°F, unrefined 350°F.
• Olive oil: Refined ("light") 465°F, unrefined (extra virgin) 375-410°F.
• Sesame oil: Refined 410°F, unrefined (toasted) 350°F.

The trade-off: refined oils handle higher heat but have less character; unrefined oils have richer flavors but lower smoke points. For high-heat cooking, refined wins. For finishing and dressings, unrefined wins. Most home kitchens benefit from keeping both versions of olive oil — light/refined for cooking, extra virgin for everything else.

Special cases worth flagging

Extra virgin olive oil deserves its own note. While its smoke point is lower than the high-heat champions, EVOO has unusual stability for its temperature class. The polyphenols and antioxidants in good EVOO make it more resistant to oxidation than the smoke point alone suggests. It's perfectly safe for sautéing and roasting at temperatures up to 400°F. Don't treat it as fragile in everyday cooking.

Butter has the lowest smoke point of any common cooking fat (302°F). The milk solids burn quickly, which is why aggressive butter sautéing always leaves dark specks. To work around this: clarify the butter (remove the milk solids) to make ghee, or combine butter with a higher-smoke-point oil so the butter contributes flavor while the oil takes the heat.

Toasted sesame oil should never be used as a primary cooking oil. Despite the temptation (it smells incredible), heating it directly destroys the toasted flavor and produces an off-tasting result. Treat it like a finishing oil — drizzled on at the end of cooking — and you'll get the most from it.

Lard and beef tallow are surprisingly versatile high-heat fats. Modern home cooks have mostly forgotten about them, but rendered lard and tallow have moderate-to-high smoke points and produce uniquely good results in pastry, fried potatoes, and traditional dishes. They're also remarkably stable in storage — both keep for months at room temperature.

What about reused oil?

Each time you use an oil, the smoke point drops slightly. Repeatedly reused frying oil eventually starts smoking at temperatures it used to handle easily. The signs:

• Smoke at temperatures lower than the oil used to handle.
• Dark color (deep amber or brown).
• Foaming on the surface when food is added.
• Off-smelling — rancid or fishy.

Once any of these appears, it's time to discard. Most home cooks can reuse frying oil 3-5 times before this point, assuming it's strained between uses and stored cool and dark.

How smoke points are measured (and why numbers vary)

Smoke point isn't a single fixed number — it's a range that depends on the specific batch of oil, how it was refined, how fresh it is, and even how clean the pan is.

Industry smoke point measurements are taken under controlled conditions: a fresh, never-heated oil sample heated slowly under good lighting until visible smoke appears. The temperature varies because:

• Refining process: The same oil from different producers can have smoke points 30-50°F apart depending on how thoroughly the impurities were filtered. More refining = higher smoke point but less flavor character.
• Free fatty acid content: Oils break down over time, generating free fatty acids. The more free fatty acids, the lower the smoke point. A year-old bottle of EVOO smokes at a lower temperature than a fresh one.
• Particles in the pan: Bits of food, salt, or burnt residue from previous cooking lower the practical smoke point of any oil. Clean pans = higher effective smoke point.
• Oil depth: A thin layer of oil reaches its smoke point faster than a deep pool. Frying in a thin pan-fry uses oil closer to its smoke point than deep-frying.

The numbers in the chart above are approximate averages from published industry data. Your specific bottle may smoke at a slightly higher or lower temperature. When in doubt, give yourself 25-50°F of buffer below the listed smoke point.

The polyunsaturated stability problem

Smoke point isn't the only thing that matters when heating oils. The fat composition matters too — and this is where some "high smoke point" oils have a problem.

Oils high in polyunsaturated fats (corn oil, soybean oil, conventional sunflower, conventional safflower) can have respectable smoke points but oxidize easily under heat, generating compounds nobody wants in their food. The smoke point hides this — the oil isn't visibly smoking, but unstable polyunsaturated fats are reacting with oxygen anyway.

Oils high in monounsaturated fats (olive, avocado, high-oleic sunflower, high-oleic safflower) are considerably more stable under heat, even at temperatures approaching their smoke points. This is part of why olive oil performs so well even though its smoke point is lower than seed oils — the monounsaturated fats hold up well.

The takeaway: when choosing high-heat oils, look for ones high in monounsaturated fats. Refined avocado oil, refined high-oleic sunflower or safflower, and ghee are all good. Conventional vegetable oil and corn oil have decent smoke points but are less stable in long, repeated frying.

The role of antioxidants

Some oils contain natural antioxidants that protect them during heating. Extra virgin olive oil, for example, contains polyphenols (oleocanthal, oleuropein, hydroxytyrosol) that shield the oil from oxidation even when the temperature approaches the smoke point. This is why EVOO performs better in real cooking than its modest smoke point suggests.

Refined oils lose most of their antioxidants in processing. They have higher smoke points but less of the protective compounds that keep oil stable during cooking. The trade-off is real but rarely makes a meaningful difference for home cooking — the antioxidant load in any oil is small relative to the actual chemistry of high-heat cooking.

What about animal fats?

Lard, beef tallow, duck fat, and chicken schmaltz all have respectable smoke points (370-400°F) and are remarkably stable when heated. They've fallen out of fashion in modern home cooking, but they're excellent for many traditional applications.

Fried potatoes in beef tallow or duck fat are noticeably better than the same potatoes in vegetable oil. Pie crust made with lard has flakiness that butter alone can't match. These fats deserve a look from any home cook willing to revisit traditional techniques.

Storage note: rendered animal fats keep for months at room temperature when stored airtight. The natural saturated fat content makes them more stable than most plant oils.

The takeaway

Match the oil to the heat. Refined avocado oil for anything 450°F+. Olive oil for everything from 250°F to 400°F. Toasted sesame and finishing oils for after the heat is off. Butter on the stove only for low-heat work, or use ghee instead. The chart above takes 30 seconds to internalize and saves a lifetime of smoking pans, off-tasting food, and wasted ingredients.