What Oil Should You Use for Different Indian Dishes?

Using one oil for every dish is common, but matching the oil to the dish actually changes the result more than most home cooks expect, particularly across the range of oils this range covers.

Matching oil to dish

Bengali fish curry and pickles suit black mustard oil, whose pungency is part of the traditional flavour of both.
Everyday North Indian sabzi and tempering suit yellow mustard oil, milder and more supportive of other spices.
South Indian tempering and tadka suit a raw pressed sesame oil, which can handle the heat and adds its own nutty note.
A finished dal, salad or vegetable dish suits a small drizzle of flaxseed oil, added raw once cooking is done.
Deep frying and high volume cooking suit an oil with a genuinely high smoke point, discussed further elsewhere in this guide.

Picked this week

The right oil for the dish

Sajerah Farm I · Sajerah

Black Mustard Oil

$2.39 · 1 KG

Najirpur Farm I · Najirpur

Sesame Oil

$3.32 · 1 KG

Khutmili Farm I · Khutmili

Linseed/Flax Seed Oil

$2.85 · 1 KG

Our standards

Choosing oil by dish questions

Can I really taste the difference between oils in a finished dish?: Yes, particularly with mustard and sesame oil, both of which carry a distinct flavour into the final result.
Is it worth keeping more than one oil stocked?: If you cook across regional styles regularly, yes. A single all purpose oil works but loses some of each dish's traditional character.
Which oil is the safest default if I only keep one?: Yellow mustard oil works reasonably well across a broad range of everyday Indian dishes.
Should flaxseed oil ever be my primary cooking oil?: No, it should never be heated, so it cannot serve as a primary cooking oil regardless of the dish.

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