Don't Throw Away Used Cooking Oil: How To Use It For Grilling

It is a real treat to make deep-fried foods at home. Whether it's juicy homestyle fried chicken, a heaping plate of french fries, or cinnamon-sugar-dusted churros. But deep frying does come at a cost, as all of these delicious foods require a pretty hefty quantity of oil to cook. Of course you can reuse fry oil for a time, especially if you clean the used oil up with cornstarch, but eventually it won't be good for cooking anymore. Don't toss it out just yet though. When it is no longer good in the pot, you can use old oil to season and start your grill.

If you have a grill with a cast iron grate, use leftover cooking oil to season it. This will not only keep food from sticking, but will also keep it looking tip-top. Clean the grill well, and then wipe a thin layer of that fry oil onto the grate with a paper towel. Next, bring the grill to high heat for half an hour, and allow it to cool. The grill grate will darken and take on a light sheen, just like a seasoned cast iron pan.

For any grilling using either charcoal or wood, used cooking oil can also allow you to skip the lighter fluid when firing up the grill. Instead of dousing the charcoal or wood with that expensive flammable liquid to get it going, simply soak a wadded-up paper towel in the used oil and use it as a fire-starter. The mechanism works just like an oil lamp or a candle, with the paper towel serving as the wick. The oil itself is not particularly flammable, but when it has the paper towel acting as a wick, it allows the oil to burn, providing a consistent flame for a long time — certainly long enough to get the grill going.

The beauty of using cooking oil as a firestarter is that it is relatively safe. While lighter fluid is highly flammable, cooking oil, generally, is not — unless it is very hot. You can put a lighter right up to a pot of room-temperature oil, and it won't take a flame. It is only with the addition of a wick that we can get it to burn. But don't take this as an excuse to start throwing oil on fires. Grease fires are difficult to safely extinguish, and can easily start when oil is exposed to too much heat. Just stick to an oil-soaked paper towel and you shouldn't have anything to worry about.