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Home Court Habits: The Secret to Effortless Weight Control
10 Reasons You Aren’t Losing Weight When You Think You’re Doing Everything Right
How To Burn More Calories Without Breaking A Sweat
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Foodists
The Bitter Truth About Olive Oil
Olive Oil and Balsamic Vinegar
Have you ever had homemade hummus turn out bitter? Have you whipped up your own batch of mayonnaise and found an unpleasant aftertaste? Or are you just confused about why I warned against putting olive oil in a blender for my harissa recipe?
The culprit behind these bizarre phenomena is extra-virgin olive oil, which is very sensitive to mechanical agitation. Upon one reader’s request, I set out to explain the unusual behavior of this common ingredient.
But getting to the bottom of this problem was not easy. The internet is teeming with false assumptions and unfounded hypotheses about why olive oil can become bitter when blended. Most people point their finger at the quality of the oil itself, accusing the chef of using a cheap brand that was bitter before they included it in their recipe. I knew this wasn’t true because it has happened to me several times, and I always use excellent olive oil.
Another common hypothesis is that “heat” caused by the friction of high-speed spinning blades makes the “delicate oils” in the olive oil turn bitter. This explanation makes even less sense, because as most of you know olive oil can be heated in a pan to several hundred degrees and does not burn or turn bitter. There is no way the oil gets hot enough to go rancid after a few seconds in a blender.
The only logical and (mostly) scientific explanation I found for the bitter olive oil phenomenon was from Cook’s Illustrated. I am inclined to trust this source because they essentially run their kitchen like a laboratory, which gives them major credibility points in my book. Also, their reason offers a plausible, mechanical explanation that does not depend upon the quality of the oil itself. I have not seen the data with my own eyes, however, and they do not cite their sources.
According to Cook’s Illustrated, extra-virgin olive oil is the only kind of oil susceptible to becoming bitter. Even pure olive oil can handle blending better than the extra-virgin kind. The reason is because extra-virgin olive oil contains a high percentage of molecular compounds called polyphenols (thought to be cancer-fighters), which are normally coated in fatty acids. Under standard conditions, the fatty acids in the oil prevent polyphenols from dispersing in an aqueous environment. This is because oil and water do not mix.
When these fat molecules are broken into droplets in an emulsion, however, the polyphenols are distributed into the solution and their bitter taste can become apparent. When the emulsion is only lightly blended, the bitterness is not perceptible. But a blender or food processor breaks the droplets down into smaller sizes, increasing polyphenol dispersal. These suspended polyphenols can ruin an otherwise delicious recipe.
The easiest way to avoid this problem is to use either pure olive oil or a different kind of oil altogether, such as canola or safflower oil. Alternatively, if you would like to keep the rich taste of extra-virgin olive oil you can hand whisk your emulsion rather than using a blender. Just be careful not to over work the mixture. You can also start your recipe by blending a small amount of stable oil (e.g. canola), then hand whisking your extra-virgin olive oil in at the end.
Have you ever had problems blending extra-virgin olive oil?
http://forms.aweber.com/form/30/split_210533730.htm
I just realized a few days ago that the olive oil I’ve been using the last year (infused with peppers) is actually sunflower oil.
Interesting. I have not tried to use EVOO in anything that required blending or emulsion. I recently have come across a no-soy mayo recipe from Mary Enig’s book/website Eat Fat Lost Fat and am tempted to try it (since I have not had mayo in years now!), but will have to reconsider using extra-virgin olive oil. Thanks for the tip!
Wow, great picture darya!! (I think I love every single one of them) And thanks for the informative post. I would have just as soon believed you without understanding, but I guess I love to know the “whys” too. Thanks!
Because of the versitility, tastiness, and health benefits I declare that Olive Oil is a superfood. Anyone agree/disagree?
I always wondered why that happened! Great post.
@dougSounds delicious ;)—–@EricaGlad I could help. It’s really, really bad to mess up. Ruins everything. Let us know how your experiment goes!—–@KatieWhat would I do without your encouragement? Thanks!—–@ScottLOL, you know how I feel about superfoods.—–@Travis Me too! Luckily it is not that hard to avoid.
I LOVE your blog — so informative!
No i’ve never noticed a problem but I trust Cook’s. Good info!
I think this happens more often than we think. We were just served an olive oil at Buca di Beppo (hardly a temple of cuisine) that was so bitter it tasted like it had been sitting in a rusty can. Now, the oil wasn’t in a recipe, but you have to wonder if the blending process for it was a bit too rough!
Yikes, that oil was probably rancid. That is another way it an get too bitter.
Hi,
All I want to do is disguise the taste,
I’m required to consume a few spoonfuls
a day and hate the taste, I don’t cook
with it just need to consume it, is
there something to mix it with to hide
the tasted?
I’m just suprised more people aren’t in an uprage about all the sub-par olive oil that goes around…..I wonder if there is a difference in the lipid profile of high vs low quality olive oil….my guess is yes. And yes I agree Scott, it is definately a superfood.
Love the pic, Darya. Is your olive oil really that green? Mine is always an orangy color.
The bitterness is a feature, not a bug! F’rinstance: McEvoy’s Olio Nuovo, which you can get in season at the Ferry Building, is polyphenolicious.
My current olive oil is deeply green, cold pressed extra virgin. It has a wonderful deep fruity aroma. When I tried to make a quick mayo tonight it went extremely bitter (i would normally use sunflower oil or something for this, but didn’t have any). I then tasted the oil as is, and found it to have an overly bitter after taste….not nice. Though I used it in a dressing the other night and it wasn’t detectable??? I’m very concerned about rancid oils and I can smell them a mile away. This one doesn’t smell rancid. Any ideas??
To be honest, I have always heard people say Olive Oil rules, guess everything does not come all good.
As soon as I saw the caption of Foodgawker, I knew I had to hop over here to find an explanation for one of my problems! I’ve blended EVOO in the blender before with no problems (like in a couple of salad dressings I make) but every single time I try to pulse my chimichurri in the food processor it gets SO nasty! I started googling stuff to find that EVOO could be the culprit, but never once did anyone say it was the actual *blending* that caused it, the explanation always pointed toward low quality EVOO or something. But I tried it with every brand out there and still no luck. I only put it in the blender because I like a super fine texture, but I guess I’ll have to attempt to get that with a knife. Good post- thanks!
Funny, when I make chimichurri, for some reason it always tastes better if I chop everything by hand rather than use a food processor. Not sure why. As far as the olive oil, good info, I’ll have to keep this in mind,
Great olive oil post. I haven’t noticed that it gets bitter, but I have noticed that when you put it in the food processor it loses some of it’s flavor. I always use a mortar and pestle to make things like pesto or anything with an expensive olive oil – for this and other reasons. What brand of olive oil do you like best? I’m big on Sicilian oils, but after my recent move to Berkeley, I’d really like to find a quality local one.
I like Stonehouse, but I’m a big fan of fruity oil. McEvoy is great if you like a little more bite. You can find both at the Ferry Building. You should come to the farmers market tomorow!
So once its already made, using EVOO, lemon juice, mustard powder and 2 cloves of garlic, how can i make it taste better?
is it a lost cause?
im doing the whole30 and just bought a bunch of this EVOO i had NO idea that it would taste so icky 🙁
any suggestions to cover/mask that taste?
Hi Darya
Great post, photos and explanation! I never knew that extra virgin olive oil could be so sensitive when mixed with other ingredients. I and my husband produce our own 100% extra virgin, hand-picked olive oil “Ginestre 12” from the Abruzzo region in Italy. We have 61 young olive trees and we are relative newcomers to olive oil production.
Nothing beats the flavour of virgin olive oil and I use it every day in all my cooking.
fantastic post! i’m new to your blog and becoming a big fan fast! thanks!
Awesome, thanks for dropping by! Let me know if you have any questions 🙂
I’m really glad I found this post! I have chickpeas soaking right now to make hummous for a party tomorrow, and I always use EVOO. I may use a bit of grapeseed to help it through food processer, than add the olive oil after it’s all done. I’ve never noticed the bitterness per se, but have always been surprised by how much salt I needed to add to make it taste okay.
Never put olive oil IN Hummus. You make the hummus (just garlic, garbonzos, tahini, water for consistency), spread it on a plate and drizzle the olive oil over the top. Put on a few olives cured in oil for saltiness and voila.
Instead of water (or oil) I use aquafaba (chickpea juice) in my hummus. It keeps the calories down and tastes amazing.
Forgot the lemon. 🙂
Thank you for writing this detailed explanation. I recently had a very disappointing homemade aioli experience because of this reason. It emulsified very well and was quite beautiful, but it was so bitter that I had to discard it right away 🙁
I’m very happy you wrote this post for the first time my chimichurri came out bitter. I used a little too much vigin olive oil after reading this article I pressed the exess oil out and it tasted much better.. So I took the rest of the oil out and replaced it with unblended virgin olive oil and let it sit. What did I get? Perfect chimichurri..
Thank you
Amazing! Few things can be fixed once blended. Glad to help.
Very strong, high quality EVOO is bitter. It is a desirable quality. The olives are picked early, on the under-ripe side so to give it that bite. The bitterness is a direct result from the high level of anti-oxidants in the green fruit. To say it’s a problem is to be under-informed.
If you want the generous health benefits from the Mediterranean Diet and EVOO, you should always seek out the bitter stuff. Fact.
If you don’t want it IN your hummus, drizzle it on top after you’ve made it… even better.
Many EEVO’s are bitter and some are *very* bitter. While bitterness can be a sign of a quality product, it can also be sign of rancidity, and rancid oil should be avoided because it might contain toxic compounds. A study several years ago found that many people unwittingly consume rancid EEVOs, because they buy big bottles of the stuff, do not refrigerator their oil, and keep the EEVO well past their shelf life. EEVO purists may cringe, but refrigeration is a good idea if you buy large quantities of any oil. YMMV, but Andrew Weil maintained that rancid oils are “carcinogenic, pro-inflammatory and very toxic.”
Telling the difference between normally bitter oil and rancid oil isn’t easy for most of us.
Thank you I’ve been breaking my head thinking what I was doing wrong with my ( otherwise ) delicious Mayo.I tought I had ( over and over ) dropped some lemon seeds on the mix LOL
I’ll try with another oil.
Marta
Great informatn thanks.. ive just made mayo with extra virgin oil in the blender and it’s terribly bitter! Back to canola oil for me….
I have just made mayonnaise for the first time, and it looks great, but tastes terrible! I didn’t use a blender, just whipped it up by hand with a wooden spoon. I must be machine-like in my efficiency! I used extra virgin olive oil as it was all I had in the cupboard. Is there any way of saving the mayo once it has gone down this bitter nasty route, or is it all over?
Thanks!
Sorry, I’m not a mayo expert. Good luck!
Here’s my absolute, no fail, good tasting mayo:
http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2011/10/two-minute-mayonnaise.html
You need a stick blender and a cup that is just as wide as the stick blender. It really does take less than 2 minutes. I’m not going to say it’s Hellmann’s, but honestly I do like this better, because I made it and it’s pretty darn good anyway.
Here’s a good tip.. try this with egg whites only and more garlic. You’ll make Toum. It’s Lebenese. The texture comes out different and I love garlic.
I bought some EVOO from discount chain Aldi awhile ago. I made whatever I made and threw the bottle out thinking it was bad or I didn’t like the brand. Bitter is the word to describe it.
I just made some garlic mojo in the blender tonight (garlic, orange juice, lime juice, cilantro, salt, pepper, and oops EVOO).
EVOO is definitely the culprit after reading a few websites.
What do you think of the possibility that our so-called olive oil is not really what we think it is?
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/08/olive-oil-fake-larry-olmsted-food-fraud-usda
That stuff is definitely true, but there are plenty of ways to know that your EVOO is real. CA has a certification program, for instance.
Ray Peat, Ph.D., a physiologist who has studied hormones and dietary fats since 1968 says, the polyunsaturated fatty acids or PUFAs in vegetable seed oils are the bane of human health — they actually cause cancer, diabetes, obesity, aging, thrombosis, arthritis, and immune-deficiencies. Peat is not alone, for a growing number of reputable researchers, medical doctors, nutritionists, and health care practitioners share his views. Their discoveries, they say, may save your life. Some of the unsaturated fats in fish are definitely less toxic than those in corn oil or soy oil, but that doesn’t mean they are safe. Fifty years ago, it was found that a large amount of cod liver oil in dogs’ diet increased their death rate from cancer by 20 times, from the usual 5% to 100%. A diet rich in fish oil causes intense production of toxic lipid peroxides, and has been observed to reduce a man’s sperm count to zero. [H. Sinclair, Prog. Lipid Res. 25, 667, 1989.] Avoid foods which contain the polyunsaturated oils, such as canola, corn, cottonseed, flax, safflower, sesame, soy, peanut, sunflower and rice bran oil. All of these oils, even if they’re organic, cold-pressed, unprocessed, bottled in glass, and stored away from heat and light, are damaging. These oils have no shelf life at all, they go rancid within days and when they’re warmed to body temperature, they disintegrate even faster. Once ingested, they bind with cells and interfere with every chemical reaction in the body. The results are hormone imbalances, inflammation, and all kinds of illness.
Has he published anything to this effect in a peer-reviewed medical journal? If the oils you say should be avoided, what are good substitutes? I think you need to cite some publications to back up these claims so people can take this information seriously.
Omg! This has never happened until I used a vitamix this morning to blend my vinaigrette… sad face! I already added to the pasta thinking maybe it was the little bit of onion I ate prior that was effecting my taste. Any suggestions on how to “fix” this? I hate to waste good!
Hi, today was the first time I really taste the bitterness of evoo, first I thought it was the bread or the province herb I mixed with the oil but no it was the oil itself, is there anyway I can smooth this bitterness of evoo?
Thanks
OKAY so I have nade this big mistake. Used extra virign olive oil to make my mayonnaise its a mess! Tastes bitter and unbearable, looks perfectly fine. Can I do anything to fix it? Or have I lost all the time and ingredients put in it.
I did the same. I was making garlic sauce and used extra virgin olive oil in the blender. Now the entire sauce has a very bitter aftertaste. Can I do anything the fix this?
I’ve just bought this bottle of ‘Badia’ Extra Virgin Olive Oil First Cold Press 500 ml.-17 fl.oz. – and I like usually to use some oil and balsamic vinegar on my salad made of: onion, red peppers, tomatoes, ‘feta’ crumb cheese. It was a great looking salad and I thought it will taste good too….BUT….as soon as I took a bite, I’ve felt that something in my salad tastes very bitter. At first I thought that feta cheese went bad so I’ve removed the feta cheese. But it was still tasting bitter. When I’ve tasted the olive oil, the oil was really bitter. I didn’t want to waste my salad, so I’ve washed it and used some dressing on it.
It is for the first time that this happens to me.
I did NOT use the olive oil in blender or mixer – but only pour it directly from the bottle on the salad. The color was really intense yellow, I’ve never seen such yellow color on any kind of oil I’ve used before, including olive oil. I’ve read somewhere that yellow color on olive oil shows that oil is old, was not properly stored before being sold in store.
I was unhappy with the purchase !
Your post was just what I was looking for. I made homemade mayo for the first time & got fancy, substituting EVOO for canola. The recipe was perfect except for the strong bitterness. I used it anyway in my sardine salad sandwich. But then I wondered…had I poisoned myself lol? Other sites point out the polyphenol/bitterness connection but yours is the first post I’ve seen to bring in emulsion and dispersal, so I’m not worried anymore. Here’s to all our health and the kind of bitterness that does no harm lol. Thanks for your post.
Avocado oil works and tastes best.