The Best Oil for Frying a Turkey

Every frying oil has a temperature at which it stops behaving like oil and starts breaking down — the smoke point. Past it the oil tastes acrid, releases irritating fumes, and moves measurably closer to its flash point. State Farm’s guidance is unambiguous: if you see the oil smoking, turn the fryer off.

You cook at 350F. You want at least 50F of headroom, and 100F is better, because the moment you lower a cold bird in the temperature swings and the burner works hard to recover.

Buy three gallons for a 30-quart pot and a bird up to about 14 pounds; four to five for a bigger bird or a 44-quart pot; and about three gallons for an indoor electric, which typically needs 2.75.

Those are shopping-list numbers, not pouring numbers. The actual volume depends on the bird displacing oil in your specific pot, which is why you measure with water first — the method is in our oil volume guide. Buy the extra gallon anyway. Running short mid-pour is far worse than having oil left over.

Highly refined peanut oil has the peanut protein removed during processing, and it is that protein — not the oil itself — that triggers an allergic reaction. Refined peanut oil is therefore considered safe for most people with peanut allergies, and it is the standard frying oil in a great many commercial kitchens for precisely this reason.

That is not a license to skip the conversation. Cold-pressed, expeller-pressed and gourmet peanut oils retain protein and are not safe. If someone at your table has a severe allergy, use high-oleic sunflower or canola and tell them what you used. Nobody has ever been upset by being asked.

Let the oil cool completely — the National Turkey Federation is explicit about this, and a pot of 300F oil is exactly as dangerous at 9pm as it was at 2pm. Then strain it through a fine sieve or cheesecloth into the original jugs and store it cold and dark.

Good oil will take two or three more fries. Throw it out when it darkens noticeably, smells sour or fishy, foams at the surface, or begins smoking at a lower temperature than it used to. Never pour it down a drain. Many municipal recycling sites and restaurants take used cooking oil — ring first.