Ingredient

Sesame oil

There are two sesame oils and confusing them ruins dishes in both directions. Toasted sesame oil is dark, intensely aromatic, and a seasoning added at the end. Light or plain sesame oil is pale, mild, and a cooking fat. A recipe saying "sesame oil" almost always means the toasted one, and using it as a frying oil is a common and expensive mistake.

The two oils

Toasted / dark sesame oil

Pressed from roasted seeds. Deep amber-brown, powerfully nutty and aromatic. A finishing seasoning, used by the teaspoon. Its aroma compounds are volatile and heat destroys them, and it burns readily.

Light / plain sesame oil

Pressed from raw seeds. Pale yellow, mild, faintly nutty. A neutral cooking oil with a reasonably high smoke point, used across South Asia and the Middle East.

Gingelly or til oil

The Indian name, usually for a lightly toasted version, somewhere between the two. Used for cooking in South India.

Blended

Some bottles are toasted oil cut with a neutral oil. Cheaper, less aromatic, and a reasonable compromise for stir-frying.

How to tell

Colour. Dark amber means toasted and means seasoning. Pale yellow means a cooking oil.

Using toasted sesame oil

It is a seasoning. Treat it like a spice rather than like a fat.

• Add it off the heat, at the very end. Its aroma is what you are buying and heat drives it off.
• Use small amounts. Half a teaspoon transforms a dish; a tablespoon overwhelms it. It is one of the easiest ingredients to overdo.
• In dressings, with rice vinegar, soy and a little sugar. The backbone of a great many East Asian dressings.
• Over noodles, rice, dumplings and soup, drizzled at the table.
• In marinades, where it contributes flavour rather than doing any cooking.
• On blanched vegetables — spinach, bean sprouts, broccoli — with soy, garlic and sesame seeds, which is a standard Korean and Japanese side dish.
• Not for frying. It burns, it is expensive, and its flavour is destroyed by the heat. If a recipe genuinely wants you to fry in sesame oil, it means the light one.

Buying and keeping it

Good toasted sesame oil smells intensely of toasted sesame the moment the cap comes off. If it does not, it is old or it is blended.

Look for pure sesame oil on the label rather than a blend, unless a blend is what you want. Japanese and Korean brands are generally reliable and are worth the small premium over supermarket own-brand.

Both kinds go rancid — sesame oil is largely unsaturated — but toasted sesame oil is relatively stable because the roasting produces antioxidant compounds. It still deteriorates. Keep it in the fridge once opened if you use it slowly; it may cloud slightly in the cold, which is harmless and clears at room temperature.

Buy small bottles. A large bottle of toasted sesame oil used by the half-teaspoon will go stale long before it is finished.

What light sesame oil is actually for

The forgotten bottle, and it has a proper job of its own rather than being a lesser version of the toasted one.

• As an everyday frying oil across South India, where it is called gingelly or til oil and is the traditional cooking fat, in the way olive oil is around the Mediterranean.
• In Middle Eastern and North African cooking, where sesame has been a major oil crop for a very long time.
• For deep-frying, where its smoke point is comfortably high enough and it contributes a very faint nuttiness.
• In pickles, particularly South Indian ones, where it is poured over to seal the surface.
• In dressings where you want a slight sesame character without the assertiveness of the toasted oil.
• In baking, in place of a neutral oil, for a faint background nuttiness.
• Not where a recipe says "sesame oil" without qualification, which almost always means the toasted one.

Common questions