Butter or Oil: What's Best for Your Recipes?

It’s a question I ask myself ALL the time when I’m about to cook something: should I use butter or oil? And the answer is…well, it depends.
There are a few main reasons we cook with fat in the first place: to add flavor, to transfer heat from the pan to the food, and to keep that food from sticking. Butter and oil differ in all three of these jobs, and it basically boils down to what they’re made of.

[srdjan]

Butter when you don't expect very high temperatures, oil when you do.

[kemsat-nh]

Both. Oil to handle the heat, butter to add flavor. I think it works pretty well if you add the butter first, let most of the water evaporate, then add the oil before the butter burns. Alternatively, you can use ghee/clarified butter.

[Kyle]

Ia high heat? Oil. Do you want extra flavor? Butter. Do you want it to be more moist? Oil. It just depends, and sometimes it's both.

[Wad]

Why not use both it’s what I do and my food taste good

[lemonz]

Olive oil always for every application.

[TheRealCHIMShady]

Do not trust anyone using seed or plant oils for cooking for health advice.

[thomasboese]

Never any seed oil, it's man-make trash.
When the body is forced to use trash fat in building cell structures, you get an inferior cell that does not last as long or work as well as a cell build with real animal fat.
Granted, the seed oils are cheap to make, have a long shelve life, and are in most pre-packaged food.

Your choice to make: long health life or cheap food.

[ismailabdelirada]

"It depends" is exactly right. Life is seldom as simple as some of us would like.

But although some foods are best cooked with butter and others with healthy oils, there is one fact that does not change. Some oils will harm us and should never be used; among them are trans fats and most seed oils like "canola" (which is made from rapeseed). Also, "vegetable" oil, which is not made from wholesome vegetables, but from soybeans -- which are hard to digest, and are now all GMO (genetically modified) products filled with pesticides -- are best avoided.

[ReevansElectro]

Use an electric cooktop and get rid of your earth-killing gas stove.