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Deep-frying can feel intimidating to home cooks. While it’s not overly complicated, the cleanup can be a handful: You have to let the hot oil cool before you strain and store it, and only certain types of containers will work for disposing of it. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could deep fry crispy fries or make fresh egg rolls at a moment’s notice without needing to spend extra time cleaning up?
Luckily, there’s a great solution on the market. They’re called oil hardeners, and they take the hassle out of cleaning up after a deep-fry session. Oil hardeners take hot cooking oil and turn it into a solid mass that can be thrown away in the trash within an hour of frying. They’re perfect for at-home chefs that want to make tidying up the mess easy on themselves. And there’s no longer a need to worry about clogging your kitchen drain.
If you’d like to try using an oil hardener at home, there are a few highly-rated options available on Amazon.
Hard Oil from The Kitchen Laboratories
For $15.99, you can let this plant-based hard oil take the stress out of deep frying. It transforms up to 18 cups of cooking oil into a non-toxic hard oil that you can toss out in the trash. To use, turn off the heat source and sprinkle a scoop of it onto hot oil. Stir the pot and wait until it’s completely cooled into a solid state. Then release it from the surface area with a spatula and discard it in the trash.
Hard Oil averages 4.4 out of 5 stars with more than 400 global ratings. Reviewer Susie, who rated it 5 stars, found it to be much better than trying to find containers to put the oil in and dispose of. While another person said it “makes it a dream to clean.”
FryAway Pan Fry Waste
Solidify up to 16 cups of cooking oil for $9.99 with FryAway, available at Amazon. Made from 100% plant-derived fats, this bag comes with four pre-measured packets so all you have to do is open and sprinkle. Each pack solidifies up to 8 cups of oil. One reviewer expressed just how easy it is to use, and suggests using more of the product, rather than less to achieve the desired result.
“It works amazingly well and is so satisfying to be able to pick up all the oil and toss it at once. I used a little too little the first time and it didn’t quite solidify, so err on the side of too much,” the review reads.
SolidiFry
This waste cooking oil solidifier powder works for up to 12 cups of oil. It works the same as the other products: simply add the powder to the hot oil and let it cool before disposing it in the trash. Soldifry, sold for $9.99, can be used to harden hot oil in a regular deep fryer, compact deep fryer, deep-fry pot, wok pan or turkey fryer pot. It has an average rating of 4.1 out of 5 stars and users found it to be easy to use and remove and a good value for the money.
Reviewer Paula found it to solidify oil in a hurry and liked that it stopped garbage bags from leaking oil, while another person found it to make frying enjoyable.
It’s nice to know that when any hard oil goes in the trash without a container, it breaks down more quickly than it would when trapped inside plastic.
So what do you think? Will you be tying this product out the next time you deep-fry?
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