Avocado Oil vs Olive Oil: I Make One and Don't Use the Other

I never use avocado oil.

That's the short answer to a question I get asked often. The longer one is worth a few minutes.

For the last few years I've been making olive oil for a living. My family's grove sits on the Aegean coast in Turkey, on land that's been farmed for olives longer than anyone alive can remember. Most weeks someone asks me which is better — avocado oil or olive oil — and the answer doesn't change. Olive oil, every time. The reason people keep asking is that avocado oil's marketing has been very good lately, and the comparison sounds like a fair fight. It isn't.

The first time I realized Americans cook with avocado oil

When I first brought Heraclea to the United States, I worked with a food broker who also represented an avocado oil brand. That was, honestly, the first time it registered for me that people here cook with the stuff. In Turkey, the question doesn't exist — there's olive oil, and there's the sunflower oil in the back of the cabinet for emergencies.

And I get the appeal. Avocado oil is cheaper than premium olive oil. It's neutral. It has a big number on the smoke point chart. If you've only ever tasted supermarket "extra virgin" — which is often flat, stale, or not really extra virgin at all — then avocado oil seems like a reasonable upgrade. The case for it falls apart only when you taste what olive oil is actually supposed to be. So let me make the comparison honestly, category by category, including the one where avocado oil genuinely wins.

The short answer

For almost everything most home cooks do, olive oil wins. Avocado oil isn't bad — it just doesn't do what the marketing implies, and it gives up the part of the equation that matters most.

Three questions decide it: what do you cook, what flavor do you want, and what do you want the oil to do for your body. Olive oil takes the second and third outright. The first — high-heat cooking — sounds like avocado oil's win on paper, and it's the most misunderstood number in your kitchen.

Smoke point: the most over-discussed number in your kitchen

Avocado oil's smoke point is around 480°F. Olive oil's, depending on the oil, sits between 325°F and 410°F. People look at that gap and assume avocado oil is the cooking oil and olive oil is the salad oil. They're wrong.

The temperature most pans actually reach on a residential stove — even when you think they're screaming hot — sits between 300°F and 400°F. That's inside olive oil's range. You can sauté, roast at 400°F, shallow-fry, sear a steak with the burner cranked. I do all of it with our Mature Harvest, which sits at the top of the range around 405–410°F, and the oil holds up fine. I wrote a full piece on why smoke point is the wrong question, but the heart of it: in controlled heating tests, extra virgin olive oil produced fewer breakdown compounds under sustained heat than avocado oil did, despite the smaller number on the chart. The polyphenols protect it.

The only thing you genuinely can't do comfortably with olive oil is deep-fry. And you probably shouldn't be deep-frying at home in any oil — the issue is the method, not the oil. Restaurants have hoods, dedicated fryers, and disposal procedures. Your kitchen has a smoke alarm.

Health: where this stops being close

Both oils are rich in monounsaturated fats. On that headline number, they're roughly equal — and that's where the marketing comparison conveniently stops.

What avocado oil doesn't have, in any meaningful quantity, is polyphenols. Polyphenols are the compounds that make extra virgin olive oil one of the most-studied foods in nutrition research — tied to lower inflammation and better cardiovascular outcomes in the populations that consume it daily. Our Early Harvest measures 550 mg/kg; the EU requires 250 mg/kg before a producer may even print the polyphenol health claim. Most supermarket olive oil doesn't reach the threshold. Avocado oil isn't in the conversation at all.

If health is why you're asking, the comparison ends here. A good extra virgin olive oil is closer to a functional food — the way oily fish or fermented foods are. Avocado oil is just a fat.

Traceability: the part the avocado oil industry would rather not discuss

Olive oil has a fraud problem; I write about it openly, and the industry has spent two decades building standards, harvest dating, and lab certification in response. Avocado oil has the same problem and almost none of the infrastructure. A 2020 UC Davis study tested avocado oils sold in the U.S. and found 82% were rancid before their best-by date or adulterated with other oils. There is no international standard of identity for avocado oil, no equivalent of the extra-virgin grade, no culture of printing harvest dates.

When you buy our oil, you know the cultivar (Memecik), the place (Milas), the harvest window, and the polyphenol count. When you buy avocado oil, you're trusting a label that no standard polices. I'm biased about which oil tastes better. The traceability gap isn't bias — it's documented.

Flavor: the part no one mentions

Here's what people miss when they reach for avocado oil because it's "neutral" — in olive oil, neutral isn't a feature. It's a bug.

The first time I tasted real extra virgin olive oil, the kind harvested early and pressed within hours, I almost coughed. There's a peppery catch at the back of your throat — that's the polyphenols. Grassy. Slightly bitter. The kind of flavor you reach for, not the kind you cover up.

Most of what's sold as "olive oil" in U.S. supermarkets isn't that. It's blended, refined, sometimes cut with other oils — and it tastes like almost nothing. If that's your reference point, the avocado oil comparison makes sense, because you're comparing two neutral fats. But that's not what olive oil is. When people taste ours for the first time, the reaction I see most is surprise: the bread becomes the whole meal, the tomato salad needs nothing else, the fried egg becomes a thing you remember. None of that happens with avocado oil, because avocado oil is engineered to disappear. Olive oil is designed to show up.

If you love avocados, you already agree with me

Here's the irony I enjoy most. The same households that stock avocado oil are the ones eating avocado toast every morning — and avocado toast is one of the best arguments for olive oil I know. A ripe avocado is creamy, mild, a little grassy. Pour a peppery early-harvest olive oil over it and the whole thing wakes up: brightness, bite, the pepper against the cream. You get the polyphenols on top of the avocado's own fats instead of a refined neutral oil that adds calories and nothing else.

You clearly like the fruit. Drizzle the better juice on it.

Hair, skin, and the other rabbit holes

A lot of people search this comparison for hair and skin, not cooking. Honest answer: both work as moisturizers. Avocado oil is heavier, which some hair types prefer. Olive oil is lighter, and its polyphenols are antioxidant — there's research suggesting topical use can support scalp health. Our Rosemary Infused Olive Oil gets used by a surprising number of customers as a scalp treatment; not what we set out to make, but the notes keep coming. If you're choosing between the two for hair, try olive oil first — cheaper to test, lighter on the scalp, and if it doesn't suit you, you still own a kitchen-grade ingredient.

What I actually cook with

In my kitchen right now there are three olive oils. Early Harvest on the table for finishing — toast, yogurt, labneh, grilled fish. Mature Harvest for everything the stove does — vegetables, potatoes, morning eggs. Garlic Infused for bread and shortcut dressings.

There is no avocado oil. There hasn't been one in years. If you cook the way most home cooks cook — vegetables, eggs, fish, pasta, the occasional roast — you don't need one either.

The bottom line

Olive oil wins on flavor, health, traceability, and nearly all cooking. Avocado oil's real advantages are two: it's cheaper than premium olive oil, and it deep-fries — a job you mostly shouldn't be doing at home anyway. That's the entire case.

If you've been buying both, run the experiment: replace the avocado oil with one good extra virgin olive oil for a month. Pay attention to what you cook differently when the oil tastes like something.

FAQ

Is avocado oil healthier than olive oil?

No. They're comparable on monounsaturated fats, but olive oil carries polyphenols — the antioxidant compounds behind the Mediterranean diet research — which avocado oil lacks in any meaningful quantity.

Is avocado oil or olive oil better for cooking?

Olive oil, for everything except deep-frying. In sustained-heat testing, extra virgin olive oil degraded less than avocado oil despite the lower smoke point on paper.

Which has a higher smoke point?

Avocado oil, ~480°F vs olive oil's 325–410°F. Both clear the 300–400°F range where home cooking actually happens.

Is avocado oil often fake?

Tested U.S. samples have a bad record — a 2020 UC Davis study found 82% rancid or adulterated, and no international purity standard exists for avocado oil.

Is olive oil better for your hair?

Both moisturize. Olive oil is lighter and antioxidant; avocado oil is heavier, which some hair types prefer.

Why does good olive oil taste peppery?

Polyphenols. The pepper in your throat is the health-relevant compounds announcing themselves — it's the taste of an oil that's fresh.

— Berk Bahceci