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I was watching a japanese cooking video for eggplant sauteed with miso (ナスのみそ炒め). And they mentioned they were using サラダ油.

My question's are:

  1. Is this a common oil used in Japanese cooking (kind of like how, in india, when someone says "oil" in a cooking context, it almost always means "mustard oil")
  2. Is it roughly equivalent to american vegetable oil? Or perhaps olive oil?
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  • I often find the Japanese Wikipedia to be helpful in such cases. Articles often include images, so even folks who can't read Japanese can still benefit in many cases. Have a look at the サラダ油 article, and you'll see some useful pictures there.
    – Eiríkr Útlendi
    Sep 13, 2022 at 23:37
  • Or you can google "スーパーの油売り場". For example, almost everything in this picture is categorized as サラダ油, and it's the default oil in Japan when someone says just "oil" in a cooking context.
    – naruto
    Sep 14, 2022 at 0:08
  • Do Americans use “vegetable oil” to saute or fry things, or just put it on salad?
    – aguijonazo
    Sep 14, 2022 at 4:52
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    @aguijonazo, I think the confusion might be that "salad oil", as an English phrase, really does sound like "oil specifically for use in salads". For oil used for cooking, the more common phrasing is probably "vegetable oil" or even just "oil".
    – Eiríkr Útlendi
    Sep 14, 2022 at 5:04
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    @EiríkrÚtlendi - Thanks. Then, #1 and #2 in the question refer to the same kind of things, perhaps except for the "olive oil" part.
    – aguijonazo
    Sep 14, 2022 at 5:25

1 Answer 1

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  1. Yes, it is generally flavorless, cheaper oil sold in large bottles.

  2. In terms of cooking, it should be close to vegetable oil (if what you mean by that fits the description of 1). I think people use 植物油 (literally vegetable oil) and サラダ油 casually in the same sense/almost interchangeably.

Technically, vegetable oil is a collective term for edible oils from vegetables and サラダ油 is a vegetable oil refined in a certain way so as to meet some standard set by JAS. So comparing them may be a category mistake.

I suppose mustard oil is made from something similar to this plant. If this is the case, it is called [菜種]{なたね}油, which is used also as a general-purpose oil in Japan, like making tempura (deep-fried vegetables or seafood).

Added:

  • So サラダ油 is a certain type of vegetable oil, including 菜種油, キャノーラ油, 大豆油 etc.
  • Technically 菜種油 etc do not have to be サラダ油, but virtually it is the case that 菜種油 etc. on the market are サラダ油. That is, 菜種油 etc are サラダ油 that clarifies their ingredients.
  • 植物油 means simply "vegetable oil", which does not necessarily meet the condition for サラダ油. This includes オリーブオイル(olive oil), ごま油(sesame oil) among others, which usually are NOT (considered as) サラダ油.
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    この回答だと菜種油はサラダ油とは違うような雰囲気がしますが、菜種油はサラダ油の代表的な一種ですよね（厳密にはサラダ油でない菜種油というのも存在するのかもしれませんが）。また、個人的には「植物油」といえば普通サラダ油と呼ばないもの（米油・ごま油・オリーブオイルなど）を含む気がするので、そこを interchangeable というのは少し乱暴に感じます。
    – naruto
    Sep 14, 2022 at 1:26
  • 人によるかもしれませんが、レシピに植物油とあったときに通常はごま油やオリーブオイルをつかわない（あるいはそういう風には読まない）というつもりでした。少なくともそれほど意識して区別されてない認識で、だからこそウェブ上に区別を説明したサイトが多数あるのかな、と。少し補足しました。
    – sundowner
    Sep 14, 2022 at 4:38
  • そもそもレシピに「植物油」とだけあることは珍しい気がしますが、そう書いてあるレシピをクックパッドで検索して「植物油」をクリックするとこのページに飛びます。いくつか眺めた感じ sundowner さんの印象とは逆で、むしろ「サラダ油でもオリーブオイル等でも構わないと明示したい場合に総称としての植物油を使う」という頻度が一番高く（これやこれとか）、「植物油はサラダ油の同義語でしょ」という気持ちで書かれていそうなレシピはあまりない印象でした。まあお好きな植物油といっても流石にゴマ油やラー油は対象外なんでしょうがｗ
    – naruto
    Sep 14, 2022 at 5:50

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