Can you fry a turkey in vegetable oil?

Common vegetable oil smokes (and therefore starts to break down) at about 400F (refined canola) whereas peanut oil is up at 440F or so. You typically deep fry a turkey at 350F so you could use vegetable oil, but you won’t have as much margin if the temperature goes higher than desired. Cook time is usually 3–4 minutes per pound. read more

Frying Multiple Turkeys. If you’re cooking multiple turkeys, say for a large party, frying is a convenient option because it’s faster than using an oven. You can reuse most cooking oils until they begin to smoke at low temperatures. At that point, you must use new cooking oil. Note that you shouldn’t reuse oil if you burned the turkey. To store oil for later use, filter it through 100-percent cotton cheesecloth into its original container. read more