What is the best cooking oil for Chinese stir frying? Since Chinese stir frying requires high heat, it's best to use an oil with a high smoking point. Personally, I always recommend a high quality peanut oil. It's not the regular peanut oil you usually see at the grocery store, but the very flavorful and nutty one you'd find at an Asian market. It usually has a rich golden color and smells like peanuts. You can see the pictures of the bottle in this post. This is my default stir frying oil I use because it adds nuttiness to a dish, so I may not even need to use sesame oil as a fragrant finishing oil. You can also use many other types of neutral oil with a high smoking point. For example, grapeseed oil, sunflower oil, canola oil and vegetable oil all work well. My favorite neutral oil is avocado oil - it has the very high smoking point of 500 F (most other oils have a smoking point of 450 F), and it has other health benefits. I also want to add that occasionally you will see butter or coconut oil in a Chinese recipe, if the goal is to add flavor to the dish. Some Chinese stir fries use olive oil for the health benefits. When using butter or olive oil, you should keep the heat no higher than medium and not heat up the pan too hot, so the oil doesn't get overheated and burn. Most of the time I list peanut oil in my recipes, with vegetable oil as an alternative. Because it's a little redundant to list so many different types of oil in a recipe. I hope this helps you get a bit more clarity on what kind of oil to use in Chinese cooking. | 
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