How to Choose the Right Cooking Oil for Indian Food

Ignore the front of the label. Choosing a cooking oil comes down to three things: how it's made, what it tastes like, and what you're cooking.

Process: cold-pressed (wooden ghani) oil is mechanically extracted below 45°C and simply filtered. Refined oil goes through additional industrial steps built for shelf life and neutrality. Different methods, different products.

Flavour: decide whether you want the oil to speak (mustard), murmur (groundnut) or stay silent (sunflower).

Let the dish decide: tadka and pickles point to mustard; deep frying points to groundnut; baking and neutral everyday cooking point to sunflower.

Finally: buy from brands that show you test reports. A lab report is worth more than any claim printed on a label.