What Is Palm oil and How Can I Use It?
If palm oil has turned up in a recipe or caught your eye at the store, here's what you need to use it with confidence and how to choose it, cook it, store it, what to substitute, and 2 recipes to try it in.
Key Points
- Semi-solid oil from the oil palm fruit, high in saturated fat and shelf-stable.
- Red palm oil is orange and earthy, the backbone of West African and Brazilian cooking.
- Refined palm oil is pale and neutral, a hard fat used in margarine, pastry, and packaged foods.
- Swap refined coconut oil for the texture, or annatto in neutral oil to fake the color.
- Linked to deforestation, so look for RSPO-certified or smallholder West African red palm oil.
What is palm oil?
Palm oil comes from the fruit of the oil palm, and it is one of the few vegetable oils that is semi-solid at room temperature. That high saturated-fat content makes it firm and stable, which is why it turns up in everything from West African stews to packaged baked goods.
There are two faces to it. Unrefined red palm oil is deep orange and rich, carrying a savory, earthy flavor from its carotenes. Refined palm oil is pale and near flavorless, used mainly as a cheap, shelf-stable cooking fat.
The red kind is the one that matters in the kitchen. It is the backbone of West African and Brazilian cooking, the color and body behind dishes like Satay Goreng and many a palm-oil stew.
Cooking With Palm Oil
Use red palm oil where you want its color and earthy depth: jollof-style rice, bean stews, and braised greens across West Africa and Brazil. A spoonful tints the whole pot a warm orange and adds a savory backbone.
It stays solid and stable, so it also works for frying and high heat. Refined palm oil is the neutral, hard fat used in margarine and pastry, where it stands in for butter or lard.
For a substitute, refined coconut oil matches the semi-solid texture, while a neutral oil covers the cooking-fat role if you do not need the color.
To mimic red palm oil's hue, stir a pinch of annatto or a little tomato paste into neutral oil, though neither truly copies the earthy flavor.
Store it like any oil, cool and dark and tightly capped. Refined palm oil keeps for a year or more thanks to its saturated fat; red palm oil holds well too but fades in color and flavor with light, so keep it in the dark.
A Note on Sustainability
Palm oil carries real environmental weight. Oil palm is grown across Southeast Asia and West Africa, and expanding plantations have driven deforestation and habitat loss in places like Indonesia and Malaysia.
If that matters to you, look for oil certified by the RSPO (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil), or choose red palm oil from smallholder West African sources.
Quick facts
- In Chinese
- 棕榈油
- British (UK) term
- Palm oil
- en français
- huile de palme
- en español
- aceite de palma
Recipes using palm oil
There are 2 recipes that contain this ingredient.
Bananas with Green Split Peas
West African bananas with green split peas, browned onions, and palm oil. A hearty vegetarian main dish that simmers the peas tender before steaming whole bananas on top.
Satay Goreng
Simplified version of a Malaysian favourite dish. I've cooked this dish for the Malaysia Day celebration at 'Les Roches,' Bluche, Switzerland as a student. It was for the summer batch 1st year to 3rd year students, teachers and admin staff - totalling a little less than a thousand pax perhaps.
