Reference chart
Cooking Oil Smoke Points Chart
By &Pixels, the studio that builds MyCalculator.to. Figures are ranges taken from the published sources named at the foot of this page.
Smoke points for 21 oils and fats, given as ranges because the published figures genuinely disagree. Below the chart is the reason they disagree, and a second table for the question people actually arrive with.
What is a smoke point?
A smoke point is the temperature at which an oil starts to break down and smoke continuously. Past it, the fat releases acrid compounds, the flavor turns bitter, and the oil stops doing the job you picked it for. Every oil has one, and refining raises it.
Published smoke points disagree with each other, sometimes by 80F for the same oil. That is not sloppiness on anybody’s part. An oil’s smoke point is set mostly by how many free fatty acids it contains, and that varies with how it was pressed, how far it was refined, how old it is, and whether it has been heated before. Refining strips the compounds that smoke first, which is why the refined and unrefined versions of one oil sit in different parts of this chart.
So the figures below are ranges. A single number would be easier to read and would be wrong.
Smoke points by oil
| Oil or fat | Smoke point (F) | Smoke point (C) |
|---|---|---|
| Safflower (refined) | 500 to 510 | 260 to 266 |
| Avocado (refined) | 480 to 520 | 249 to 271 |
| Rice bran | 485 to 495 | 252 to 257 |
| Ghee, clarified butter | 450 to 485 | 232 to 252 |
| Soybean (refined) | 450 to 495 | 232 to 257 |
| Peanut (refined) | 440 to 450 | 227 to 232 |
| Corn (refined) | 440 to 450 | 227 to 232 |
| Sunflower (refined) | 440 to 450 | 227 to 232 |
| Coconut (refined) | 400 to 450 | 204 to 232 |
| Canola, rapeseed (refined) | 400 to 450 | 204 to 232 |
| Olive (light or refined) | 390 to 470 | 199 to 243 |
| Grapeseed | 390 to 420 | 199 to 216 |
| Beef tallow | 390 to 400 | 199 to 204 |
| Lard | 370 to 390 | 188 to 199 |
| Duck fat | 370 to 375 | 188 to 190 |
| Sesame (unrefined) | 350 to 410 | 177 to 210 |
| Olive (extra virgin) | 325 to 410 | 163 to 210 |
| Coconut (virgin) | 350 | 177 |
| Butter | 300 to 350 | 149 to 177 |
| Walnut (unrefined) | 320 | 160 |
| Flaxseed | 225 | 107 |
Extra virgin olive oil has the widest range here and is the entry most often misreported. A fresh, low-acidity bottle sits near the top of it and handles most pan cooking. An old or low-grade one sits near the bottom.
What each cooking method needs
| Method | Temperature | Oils that clear it |
|---|---|---|
| Sweating, low sauté | 250 to 300F | butter, and anything else on the chart |
| Sauté | 300 to 350F | most oils; virgin coconut and butter are marginal |
| Pan fry | 350 to 400F | refined oils, ghee, lard, tallow, duck fat |
| Deep fry | 350 to 375F | refined peanut, canola, sunflower, soybean |
| Stir fry | 400 to 450F | refined peanut, avocado, rice bran, ghee |
| Sear, wok hei | 450F and above | refined avocado, safflower, rice bran |
Oven roasting is the exception to all of this. The air is at the temperature you set, but the oil on the food is not, so a 425F oven does not require a 425F oil.
The calculators behind this
How to choose an oil by temperature
- Find your method. Look up what you are actually doing in the table above and note the temperature it runs at.
- Pick an oil that clears it. Choose one whose lower bound sits above that range, not its upper bound. The bottom of the range is the honest number.
- Check refined or unrefined. The label matters more than the oil. Refining can move a smoke point by 100F, and unrefined versions sit far lower.
- Judge stability separately. For long or repeated heating, favor a high-oleic oil. Smoke point and oxidative stability are different properties.
- Watch the pan. Continuous smoke means the oil is past its point whatever the chart says. Age and prior heating both lower it.
The part most charts leave out
Smoke point is not the same as oxidative stability, and stability is what governs flavor and the compounds you would rather not create. An oil high in monounsaturated fat, such as high-oleic sunflower or avocado, resists oxidation well even at a moderate smoke point. A polyunsaturated oil with a high smoke point, such as refined soybean, smokes late but oxidizes readily. Choosing on smoke point alone picks the wrong oil about as often as it picks the right one.
To check one oil against one temperature rather than read a table, the smoke point guide does that lookup directly. If you are adapting a recipe rather than choosing an oil, the oven to air fryer conversion is worth a look, because an air fryer runs hotter at the food’s surface than its set temperature suggests.
Formula & Methodology
Did you know? Smoke point is measured by heating oil until a continuous wisp of smoke appears, which is a judgment call made by a person watching a pan. Two labs testing the same bottle can legitimately report figures 20F apart, which is part of why published charts differ.
Sources
- The Culinary Institute of America, The Professional Chef, on fat selection and frying temperatures
- Harold McGee, On Food and Cooking, on free fatty acids and smoke point
- U.S. Department of Agriculture FoodData Central, fat and oil composition