The Strange Hack You Can Use To Clean Deep-Fry Oil

Frying food at home can be really delicious, but the clean up is always a pain. Between waiting for the oil to cool and deciding if it's worth keeping or tossing, the cleanup process isn't exactly quick and easy by any means. Whether you opt to use a coffee filter or a strainer to get the bits and pieces leftover in the oil out, chances are you know it's just as difficult to clean the oil to reuse as it is to funnel it into a container to toss. That's why this latest hack is one you have to try. It makes cleaning deep-fry oil so much easier.

Essentially, you can add gelatin to your used, dirty deep-fry oil to filter and extract any contaminants that remain. According to Serious Eats, gelatin is a protein that forms a matrix similar to that of a web or mesh once it's dissolved in water. That means that you can not only give any water present in your oil structure, but you can also trap both dissolved and undissolved solids that are in it. When you add liquid gelatin to used cooking oil, the oil floats to the top and discards the bits of food in the gelatin, which becomes a congealed disk once the gelatin cools. All you have to do then is pour off the oil and throw away the gelatin disk, you'll be left with clarified oil that's ready to use again (via Lifehacker).

To use gelatin to remove impurities from your cooking oil, all you need is one teaspoon of powdered gelatin and half a cup of water for every quart of oil you want to clarify, according to Lifehacker. Just dissolve the powdered gelatin in simmering water and thoroughly stir it into the dirty oil. Once it is well mixed into the oil, pour the mixture into a container and place it in the refrigerator. Serious Eats says this will help the gelatin to solidify within the oil.

As the gelatin cools and solidifies, the leftover bits will be captured within it. Once you remove the gelatin disc and use the clarified oil, you'll find it largely heats and cooks the same way as fresh oil. There might still be a few tiny pockets of water left in the oil, but with a little shake of the pan, the bubbles from the water should clear. Then, you'll be able to cook anything just like you were using new oil. It's so easy, you'll never try to pick out the burnt pieces from your strainer ever again.