Our Supermarket Extra Virgin Olive Oil Taste Test:
Buy our winning olive oil:
Watch more Kitchen Tips here:
Olive oil, which is simply juice pressed from olives, tastes great when it’s fresh. The highest grade, called extra-virgin, is lively, bright, and full-bodied at its best, with flavors that range from peppery to buttery depending on the variety of olives used and how ripe they are when harvested. (In general, an earlier harvest yields greener, more peppery oil; a later harvest results in a mellower, more golden oil.) But like any other fresh fruit, olives are highly perishable, and their pristine, complex flavor degrades quickly, which makes producing—and handling—a top-notch oil time-sensitive, labor-intensive, and expensive. But the results couldn’t be more worth it. We use extra-virgin olive oil as a condiment on grilled meat, fish, vegetables, and pastas; a source of richness and body in soups and sauces; and a star player in vinaigrette.
ABOUT US: Located in Boston’s Seaport District in the historic Innovation and Design Building, America’s Test Kitchen features 15,000 square feet of kitchen space including multiple photography and video studios. It is the home of Cook’s Illustrated magazine and Cook’s Country magazine and is the workday destination for more than 60 test cooks, editors, and cookware specialists. Our mission is to test recipes over and over again until we understand how and why they work and until we arrive at the best version.
If you like us, follow us:
34 Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Don't go by best before date, which usually is 24-32 months after it has been bottled and up to 1-2 years after it has been pressed. It's not an indication of freshness. Go by harvest date which is in fall or winter for European or USA stock. Most bottles would be dated in the previous year.
Don't buy in clear containers, dark coloured containers protects against damaging lights. Buy from a single source country, not mixed with other countries.
Yes, and always avoid Spain! The country with the most fakes!
Don't cook with olive oil , use it for topping . for cooking use coconut oil, tallow, lard
Try Greek EVOO from Crete or Kalamata (Messinia region) or Sparta (Lakonia region). Look for acidity, typical evoo's claim to have 0.8%, most of the aforementioned usually have <0.4% or even 0.2%. I hope you find it reasonably priced in your region.
Here's a list that helped me out.
"whinyl.com/bstol-guide/
In the end, I went with #5.
2:12
So my olive oil has no harvest date, it comes in a dark bottle, and the company uses oil from multiple countries(although this specific bottle only mentions Portugal). Chances are I chose wrong. Does anybody know about DCOOP?
Greek
1 Tip For Buying the Best Olive Oil —–> Ask a Greek
Trying to find all those requirements in one product in a U.S. grocery store is almost impossible … 99% of oil is sourced from multiple countries and harvest days are rare as hen's teeth … Not ence green bottles is that popular
"in 2019, this list helped me decide for the best olive oil scafe.shop/tboo2019?tD hope it helps you out too!"
waste of time….put it in the freezer, if becomes solid…it is real, if not is fake!!!!
Can you so this again comparing grocery store olive oil and not the extra virgin kind. We don't know what is real and what really olive oil is good quality and tastes the best. We need to know do and don't of cooking with it! Most people don't use extra virgin, but want the healthier olive oil. Please and thanks!!!
Buy only Greek extra virgin olive oil; Italian oil is fake
Made the bottle dark, so customers can't see how light and unfiltered the oil was inside 😂😂😂
why do you feel single country is best?
To test if your oil has been mixed with vegetable oil, stick it in the refrigerator. If it does not start to congeal, it is not pure olive oil. LOTS of this is going on and if you want a list of fake oil, do a web search.
Good advice. Thank you.
I wish you would have gone one step further and told us who makes the real stuff. I've read many articles out there that say much of the EVO sold in the stores is fake.
That’s it?
Yaa wish i could afford that
I have heard the United States is a dumping ground for crappy olive oil. Ok, I can accept that. But of the crappy olive oil available in the United States, which brand is the least crappy? I went to a local grocer chain that is considered one of the better outlets in the city and looked at their olive oil options. Not one met the minimum standards you provided. As a matter of fact, not one of the brands I looked at provided press dates and not one was a single country origin. I am even open to using a better vegetable, canola, sesame, or petroleum based oil if it’s a better option than a crappy olive oil. HELP!!!
Thank you.
buy no oil at all if you want to live, not heart healthy, the studies are sloppy and wrong. if you use any oil for anything, use it only sparingly. misleading info about medditteranian diet and it's true virtues —>>>less meat overall and more fiber, fruits and veggies. Antioxidants! because what oxidizes is killing us. Not pills, foods will give you probiotics, antioxidants,phytonutrients, eat the rainbow 🎉🎉🎉🌈🎊🎊🎊
I live in the middle of Europe and I can chose between, Italien, Spanish or Greek olive oil. Do you have a preference?
have to be a surelock homes in this day and age to buy a real olive oil.
If you want good olive oil buy the Spanish one. From Córdoba or Jaén. My favorite ones are Oro Bailén, Bravoleum and Castillo de Canena, but there are some other really good ones out there. Also, check the olive variety and find the one you like the most. For me arbequina is the most balanced and picual has a perfect brightness to it. Also the wild olive tree oil is gooooood.
Useful, thanks! I'm going to have so much nerdy fun at the supermarket 🙂
Whatever you say babe.
not a single mention of the controversy surrounding imported olive oil and its purity? Come one, Test Kitchen. Get it together
🇬🇷And that single country is 🇬🇷.
How about addressing the elephant in the bottle – the lack of any US standards for what constitutes olive oil, let alone pure, virgin, or extra virgin, the widespread adulteration of the product, sometimes to the point where none of it came from an olive tree, and ways of determining this?
Very general info, best to google gold medal olive oil awards. Sedona has a spectacular olive oil and it has many medals
I just buy a huge clear plastic bottle from Costco.
This was useless information…