Olive oil: nutrition and how to use it

Fun facts

• Olive trees live a very long time. Around the Mediterranean, some trees are thought to be over a thousand years old and still bear fruit.
• 100g of olive oil has 884 kcal and 100g of fat. A tablespoon is about 13.5g, so around 120 kcal, close to 100g of cooked white rice.
• Most of the fat in olive oil is monounsaturated, a type that holds up fairly well under heat.
• "Extra virgin" means the oil is pressed from the fruit and not refined. Taste it and you may feel a peppery tickle in your throat, a sign the oil is fresh.

Choosing and storing

Pick dark glass or a tin, and check that the harvest or best-before date is far off. Light, heat and air age oil quickly, so keep it somewhere dark and cool, away from the stove, with the cap on tight. Once opened, use it within a few months to keep the aroma.

Cooking it well

Extra virgin oil shines in salads, drizzled over a finished dish, in pan-searing and in moderate oven roasting. Refined (light) olive oil has less flavor and handles higher heat, so it suits stir-frying. Whichever you use, turn the heat down the moment the pan smokes. Our smoke point chart is in this article. At kOBE, the Japanese, Purple and Honey Sweet Potatoes are roasted with a little olive oil, diced and frozen.

Frequently asked questions