Sometimes I want to avoid oil and oil-related food. How do I remove oil from soup?

  • related: cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/93501/…
    – Ess Kay
    Nov 9 '18 at 14:21
  • I have a "bottom pouring" measuring cup - it lets you dump in a bunch of pan drippings from roasting a turkey, etc. and pours from underneath the oil/fat on top. Works well, but only holds about 1 cup. Have never seen anything bigger in kitchen use, but much larger for doing things like pouring molten metal in foundries, etc.
    – ivanivan
    Nov 10 '18 at 18:05

The easiest way, is to cool (fridge) it down and remove the hardened fat that should have floated to the top.

You could try doing while the soup is hot by using a shallow spoon and spoon the liquid fat from the top, or use absorbant paper to absorb the fat.

In both cases, it will never remove all of the fat, especially if the soup contains meat or is not a clear soup (like a consommé)

  • 1
    Regarding paper: I suggest non-bleached paper if possible. Even surface contact can sometimes transfer that bleach taste if it's not done carefully. Most paper towels I've encountered are bleached.
    – Booga Roo
    Nov 10 '18 at 12:47

You could use an oil skimmer, such as this one from Amazon. It's essentially a sieve with a very fine mesh, it works as fats are much more viscous than water based liquids so stay on top of the skimmer while the water goes through.

I use one to remove meat-based fat and impurities from broths and soups, although vegetable based oils tend to be less viscous so I'm not sure if it would work as well, although cooling it down will make the fat more viscous.

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    Neat tool. Does it work well even on hot soups or do you need to cool it down so the fat is more congealed?
    – Erica
    Nov 9 '18 at 15:34
  • does it work well with "chunky" soups ?
    – Max
    Nov 9 '18 at 16:37

When making soup, I usually pressure-cook it and let it cool in the pressure cooker overnight. Excess cooking oil floats to the top, and can be removed with a spoon, or a turkey baster. I do this as the first step before liquidising, reheating and seasoning.
