Regular vs. Extra-Virgin Olive Oil: What’s the Difference?

Key Points

• The main difference between the two oils lies in how they’re processed.

• Choose extra-virgin oil, the highest quality with more flavor, for dishes you don’t cook.

• Opt for the neutral-flavored regular olive oil for cooking, baking and deep frying at 410°F.

Choosing an olive oil can sometimes feel like choosing a bottle of wine. There are so many different varieties, origins and labels that it can make your head spin. The olive oil world is indeed similar to the wine industry, with its certifying organizations and experts. We know how overwhelming all that information can be, so we’re here to make things easy for you. We’re going to break down the basics and explain the difference between regular and extra-virgin olive oils, beginning with how they’re processed.

What Is Olive Oil?

Olive oil is a plant-based oil made up of monounsaturated fats. It is made by pressing or crushing fresh olives (olives are fruits that grow on trees). Depending on the type of olive, when it was harvested and the way the oil is extracted and processed, olive oil can range in color from dark green to light yellow, and taste spicy to neutral. Olive oil can be used in many ways—in vinaigrettes, marinades, vegetable and meat cookery and in desserts and baked goods. It’s also commonly found in personal care products, including cosmetics and soaps.

What Are the Different Types of Olive Oil?

Olive oils are graded based on how they’re produced, fatty acid level and flavor. There are several different regulating olive oil authorities around the world, and depending on where the oil is produced (Spain, Italy, Greece, Tunisia, Turkey, Morocco, Portugal and California are some of the top producers in the world by volume) and which organization’s standards the producer follows, the parameters for each grade may differ slightly.

The most common types of olive oil used in the U.S. and that you likely see on the shelves while grocery shopping are:

• Extra-virgin olive oil is made from the first cold pressing. It’s the most fruity tasting and most expensive of the oils.

• Olive oil or pure olive oil is a combination of refined olive oil and extra-virgin. “Refined” means that the oil has undergone additional processing to neutralize any defects in taste, aroma or acidity.

• Light and extra-light olive oils have the same monounsaturated fat and caloric content as olive oil. Here, “light” means the blend of refined and extra-virgin oils leans heavily toward refined, so the color, aroma and flavor are lighter relative to the other olive oils.

For the purposes of this article, we’ll simply break down the two major categories of extra-virgin olive oil and “regular” olive oil.

What Is Extra-Virgin Olive Oil?

Extra-virgin olive oil is the highest-quality olive oil. It is an unrefined oil, meaning it is produced by cold-pressing whole olives without any additional heat or chemicals.

To be certified as an extra-virgin olive oil, “the oil must be lab-tested for acidity and peroxide values as well as blind-tasted by a certified tasting panel for flavor defects,” says Marisa Bloch Gaytan, Pasolivo’s Level 2 olive oil sommelier and master blender. Processing and certifying extra-virgin olive oil is labor-intensive and time-consuming, which is why it is significantly more expensive than regular olive oil.

The taste of your extra-virgin olive oil will depend on the type of olive. It can range from buttery and herbal to peppery and bitter.

What Is Regular Olive Oil?

Regular olive oil is a lower-grade product made from mostly refined olive oil. Sometimes, “producers will run the olive paste through the mill multiple times to extract more oil,” says Gaytan, which lowers the quality of the oil. Since regular olive oil doesn’t require strict manufacturing or taste standards, it is much more affordable than extra-virgin olive oil.

Overall, regular olive oil has a more neutral flavor profile than extra-virgin olive oil. It is also usually lighter in color and aroma.

What Are Their Different Uses?

Although extra-virgin olive oil is of higher quality than regular olive oil, there’s a place for both in your kitchen.

Olive oils are safe and effective for cooking. The USDA recommends regular olive oil as a safe oil for deep frying with a smoke point of 410°F, compared to the highest smoke point of soybean or peanut oil at 450°F. However, some research indicates that as the temperature of the cooking method increases, some of the antioxidant content in extra-virgin olive oil may be degraded.

Extra-virgin olive oil is prized for its flavor, which can be lost in some dishes. You may use your more expensive oil for recipes that don’t involve cooking, such as dressings, dips or as a finishing oil. This kind of oil is ideal for making pesto, Apple-Balsamic Vinaigrette or Double-Tahini Hummus.

Olive oil can be used as a substitute for vegetable oil in baking, adding a distinctive flavor. Regular olive oil matches flavor more closely to neutral oils, such as canola or a vegetable oil blend, while extra-virgin olive oils enhance flavors when baking with chocolate and citrus.

Extra-virgin and regular olive oil can be substituted for each other in daily use; however, note their differences. When substituting regular olive oil for extra-virgin olive oil, remember that regular olive oil has a less intense flavor, which will affect the final taste of your dish. The opposite is true when substituting extra-virgin for regular.

How to Select a Good Olive Oil

To choose a good extra-virgin olive oil, Gaytan says to look for one “that has gone through the appropriate steps to be certified as an extra-virgin olive oil. It should also be in a container that completely blocks the oil from the light.” This will help keep your oil fresher for longer.

If possible, she also recommends buying directly from a trusted producer. Although taste is personal, Gaytan likes ones that “have a nice balance between the three positive attributes of olive oil: bitterness, fruitiness and pungency.” Because regular olive oil is more neutral in flavor, choose a brand that aligns with your personal values.

The Bottom Line

The difference between regular and extra-virgin olive oils comes down to how they are processed. Extra-virgin olive oil is unrefined and produced solely through cold-press extraction. It’s more expensive and more flavorful than regular olive oil, and it should be reserved for uncooked dishes because heat will degrade it. On the other hand, regular olive oil is refined. It has a neutral flavor that works in recipes that require cooking or baking, and in some cases, deep-frying.

The Worst Olive Oil On Aldi’s Shelves Is Also The Cheapest

Aldi has some of the most unbeatable prices of any grocery chain, and many of its private-label products are just as good as name brand counterparts. Unfortunately, not every product is up to name-brand par. This rings true especially when it comes to olive oil, as the cheapest option tends to equate with a drop in quality. We sampled six olive oils at Aldi, ranking each one according to ingredients, production, packaging, and price.

The worst olive oil on Aldi’s shelves is also the cheapest bottle from Carlini. Carlini olive oil is a blend of refined olive oil and extra virgin olive oil. Refined olive oil undergoes a heat-treated process that rids the oil of impurities, and in doing so, also removes many of the nuanced flavors, aromas, and healthy antioxidants and polyphenols characteristic of unrefined, or extra virgin, olive oil. While refined olive oil has its place as a cooking oil for high-heat methods like deep-frying, Carlini olive oil is very bland with no discernible aroma. The oil blend is sourced from multiple countries, which is a red flag that indicates a lack of freshness, as olive oils in different countries are harvested at different times of year. An even bigger hazard to the flavor and benefits of Carlini’s olive oil is its clear plastic bottle packaging. Your olive oil bottle color matters more than you might expect. Clear plastic exposes the olive oil to light and leaches harmful chemicals into the oil, degrading its taste and health benefits.

Many of the issues we’ve raised with Calini’s olive oil blend should serve as red flags, informing you what not to look for in a bottle of good olive oil. Now that you know what to avoid, you should also know the cues that indicate the best bottle of olive oil. The first thing to look out for is the packaging. Instead of clear plastic, you’ll want to look for olive oil in aluminum tins or dark green glass bottles. The label should also display a harvested date as well as an expiration date. The harvest date should be within the past 18 months for the freshest taste.

Whether you’re using olive oil for bread dipping or to blend into your next vinaigrette, any high-quality olive oil should be extra virgin — that is, unrefined. Upon opening the bottle, there should be a discernable aroma, ranging from fruity to peppery to grassy. This aroma will translate into an earthy depth of flavor with a slightly bitter finish characteristic of any high-quality olive oil. While some of the best olive oils are pretty expensive, you can find plenty of budget-friendly olive oils on our list of the 20 best olive oils for cooking. Of course, store-brand olive oils will almost always be cheaper than name brands, and we’ve got plenty of recommendations for tasty store-brand olive oils, with Trader Joe’s taking our top spot.

We Asked Chefs To Name the Best Olive Oil and These Are Their Favorites

A mere decade or two ago, most Americans thought of EVOO (aka extra-virgin olive oil) as the starting ingredient for a salad dressing or for sautéing meats and vegetables. But these days, as food trends stack up and home cooks become more experimental, we’re using this heart-healthy fat in coffee, cakes, as an ice cream topping (trust us—it’s incredible!), and so much more.

In lockstep with the booming popularity of olive oil recipes, a growing number of olive oil brands are entering the market, making the already-crowded shelves even more daunting. Similar to how there are dozens of butter options available at most supermarkets, there is a dizzying array of olive oils to choose from now, too. How do you narrow down all of those options to land on the one or two worthy of your shelf space?

We previously sipped our way through 18 bottles to select the six best olive oils money can buy. Now that even more options have joined the party, we decided to ask the pros to chime in with their olive oil obsessions. Whether they’re from legacy brands or are new on the scene, you can drizzle, dress, and pour confidently with these chef-approved options.

Our Panel of Olive Oil-Judging Chefs

• Caroline Chambers, the Carmel Valley, California-based author of the Substack and forthcoming cookbook “What To Cook When You Don’t Feel Like Cooking”

• Brooke Gil, the Austin, Texas-based principal category merchant and olive oil sommelier for Whole Foods Market

• Elaine Gordon, MPH, MCHES, a Baltimore, Maryland-based recipe developer and owner of Eating by Elaine

• Jonathan Gutierrez, executive chef at the Grand Geneva Resort & Spa in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin

• Dominic Iannarelli, chef-owner of Prime & Providence in West Des Moines, Iowa

Qualities of the Best Olive Oil

When you’re shopping for the best olive oil, look for the following features:

• An opaque bottle. Light exposure degrades quality, according to Gil. Whole Foods Market’s olive oil sommelier. Don’t be afraid of the bag-in-a-box format. It’s “highly underrated,” but the benefit is that the oil is never exposed to light or air after it’s packaged.

• Date listings. It should mention the harvest year and the bottling date. Check both, and select the youngest possible product. “Extra-virgin olive oil is the opposite of some wines in that it does not get better with age. The younger the oil, the closer it should theoretically be to the optimal quality it was at bottling,” Gil adds.

• A pleasant flavor and aroma. This feature is tough to tell without tasting, so it might require some at-home experimentation to hone in on what you enjoy (and what you don’t). Since extra-virgin olive oil is the most flavorful and aromatic of all olive oils because it’s cold-pressed, not chemical- or heat-treated, Gil explains that “extra-virgin olive oil is a very personal experience. Explore the various olive varietals by trying a few different oils to learn what you like best,” she suggests. She prefers a pungent and peppery flavor. Gutierrez digs a fruity kind with a peppery finish, while Iannarelli adores extra-virgin olive oils with a grassy element.

• An absence of any signs of spoilage. “Avoid oils that have a bland, musty, or overly bitter taste, as these can indicate poor quality or that the oil has gone rancid,” Gutierrez advises.

The Best Olive Oil, According to Chefs

As we mentioned, there are dozens of trustworthy, terrific extra-virgin olive oils available at the grocery store or online. “It’s hard to choose a favorite; we have so many great brands, and it really depends on the occasion,” Gil says. “When I want to intensify the flavor [of] a dish, savory or sweet alike, I use a more premium EVOO, preferably early harvest for the higher polyphenol content and bolder flavor.”