The Best Type Of Oil To Make French Fries Flavorful Without The Extra Grease

Cooking french fries at home can be fun and easy; but sometimes, our homemade french fries can end up too oily or greasy and not as flavorful as we'd like. If that's an issue you've run into too, fret not. With some experimenting, we've discovered the remedy for this greasy and lack of flavor challenge to help you make better french fries at home: Always use the best type of oil when making french fries, such as peanut oil. Peanut oil is commonly used for frying food. Five Guys famously uses peanut oil to cook their fries. 

Why does this matter, you ask? For one, when you cook french fries in peanut oil, the potatoes retain their potatoey flavor. Peanut oil is relatively neutral-tasting so its flavor will never overpower what you're cooking. Another advantage to using peanut oil is its high smoke point. This allows you to cook food, like french fries, longer and at higher heat without it tasting burnt. The result? Crispy, unburnt, and less greasy fries. We do want to preface, however, that you want to use refined peanut oil rather than cold-pressed peanut oil, as refined peanut oil is the one with the higher smoke point.

If you can't use refined peanut oil, there's another unique neutral oil with one of the highest smoke points you can use instead to make your next batch of homemade french fries the best ones ever. It's safflower oil, made from the oil pressed out of the seeds of safflower plants. 

Canola oil is another great alternative to peanut oil and safflower oil, so if that's the oil you already have stocked in your pantry, use that to make french fries. This oil is also a neutral-tasting one with a high smoke point. 

There are a few other ways to keep your homemade fries less greasy or soggy. One is to rest the just-cooked-up fries over a cooling or wire rack. The oil from the fries will drip down as the fries cool. Be sure to place a sheet of parchment paper or paper towel beneath the cooling rack to catch all the dripping oil. Another way is to use sugar, your ticket to ultra-crispy homemade french fries. You can either submerge pre-fried spuds in sugary water or sprinkle some sugar over the potatoes before frying them.