In order for the food you cook to be not only tasty but also healthy, all the ingredients must be of high quality and fresh. And sunflower oil, an ingredient in many foods, can not only give food a pleasant taste but also increase the nutritional value. Let’s figure out how to store sunflower oil correctly to preserve all its useful properties.
Ways to store oil
A very nutritious product is obtained from sunflower seeds – sunflower oil. It is rich in many vitamins, minerals and other elements that our body so desperately needs.
How to store this important component so that it does not lose all its nutritional properties? It turns out that this is the product, the storage of which involves the implementation of certain rules.
The first rule for storage
Observe temperature conditions. The best storage temperatures for sunflower oil are between 5 and 20 ° C. At lower or higher temperature nutrients begin to break down. Improper storage conditions can even lead to the formation of harmful substances in the oil, and make the product unusable for cooking.
You can keep cooking oil in the refrigerator if the temperature meets the recommendations described.
However, after opening the bottle, the temperature regime of storage changes, keep it between 18 and 25 ° C.
The second rule of oil storage
Protect the oil from the sun. Direct sunlight destroys beneficial vitamin A and certain other minerals. Therefore, it is best to store the bottle in the kitchen cabinet.
The third rule for sunflower oil
Keep track of expiration dates. An expired product may contain harmful substances, as its components have oxidized too long. Any kind of oil, regardless of the method of preparation, can be stored no longer than a month after it has been opened.
The fourth rule
Store in a glass bottle. This applies to crude sunflower oil due to its greater susceptibility to external influences. Before you start using the oil, it is recommended to pour it into a dark glass bottle. Such measures will help to preserve useful vitamins and minerals.
Tips for extending the shelf life of oil
If you follow these tips, you can use the oil without fear for its quality. Sometimes we need to use the oil for more than a month, in that case, you can use one simple trick. Throw a few dry beans or a teaspoon of salt per 1 liter into the bottle. This will extend the storage life by a few more weeks. And if you also want to add a spicy aroma to the cooked food, then you can add a bay leaf to the bottle, which will increase the storage life and bring the flavor.
You can also increase the storage time of refined sunflower oil by freezing. After pouring it into small bottles, put it in the freezer. In such conditions, the product may keep for a year. But re-freezing it is not recommended. It will not lose its properties, and the structure will not be broken since at low temperatures it does not freeze, but only becomes thicker.
Storage of different types of oil
However, not all oils are equally healthy. There are a few different types of sunflower oil. Each type has its nutritional value and storage life. On the shelves of stores, there are only two types of this product: refined and unrefined, as the other types either have an extremely short shelf life or are less suitable for cooking.
Unrefined sunflower oil has a fairly long shelf life. If it is a cold pressed oil, then storage life can be up to 4 months, and if the hot-pressing method was used, the product’s storage life can be up to 10 months. The healthy mineral content in the unrefined oil is lower than at the previous processing stage, due to the addition of extra processing procedures to the stage of direct extraction, like mechanical cleaning and filtration. This oil is best used for salad dressing, and not for frying and stewing.
Refined is the most popular type of sunflower oil, obtained as a result of processing its unrefined counterpart with alkali. This procedure robs the product of most of the nutrients, taste, smell, and brightens it. It increases the storage life and makes suitable to use for frying and stewing.
Thanks for finally writiong about sunflower oil… liked it 🙂