A few months ago, a customer messaged us on Instagram with a question that's stuck with me since: "My nutritionist told me to switch to olive oil. But my mother's fish curry doesn't taste the same without mustard oil. Am I doing it wrong?"
It's a fair question. And honestly? It's one we get a lot.
Olive oil has spent the last twenty years becoming shorthand for "healthy." Every wellness blog, every nutritionist's Instagram carousel it's usually olive oil in the hero shot. So it makes sense that people assume it's simply the better oil, full stop. But if you actually cook Indian food the real, everyday, high-heat, tempering-and-frying Indian food ; the answer isn't that simple. Let's actually look at it.
Let's start with smoke point, because this is where most of the confusion begins
Here's the thing nobody puts on the wellness carousel: extra virgin olive oil has a smoke point of around 190–210°C. That's genuinely great for a salad dressing or a gentle sauté. But the moment you're doing a proper tadka with mustard seeds crackling, curry leaves popping you're well past that temperature. Same with deep frying, same with getting a good sear on an onion-tomato base.
Cold-pressed mustard oil, on the other hand, holds up to around 250°C. Which, funnily enough, is probably why it became the backbone of North and East Indian cooking centuries before anyone was measuring smoke points with a thermometer. Someone in a kitchen just noticed it didn't burn and break down the way other oils did at high heat. That's not a marketing claim that's generations of trial and error. Something we as Indians should be proud of.
So when an oil gets pushed past its smoke point, it's not just a taste issue. The compounds start breaking down, and you can end up with byproducts that aren't exactly what you were going for in a "clean eating" kitchen. Which means and I'll just say it plainly an oil built for Mediterranean cooking isn't automatically the healthier choice the second it hits an Indian kadhai on high flame. 
Okay, but what about the actual nutrition?
Both oils are genuinely good for you. They're just good in different ways, and I think that gets lost in the "pick a side" framing.
Olive oil's reputation is well earned the monounsaturated fats, the polyphenols, decades of Mediterranean diet research backing it up.
Mustard oil doesn't get talked about the same way, but it probably should. It's got a fairly balanced fat profile roughly a third saturated, a third monounsaturated, a third polyunsaturated and it actually carries a decent amount of omega-3 (alpha-linolenic acid), which most everyday cooking oils just don't have much of. It also naturally contains allyl isothiocyanate that's the compound behind its sharp, distinctive smell which has been studied for antimicrobial properties.
Neither oil is "missing" anything. They're just doing different jobs. And if you ask me, a genuinely clean-eating kitchen has room for more than one oil in the cupboard not one crowned as universally superior. 
And then there's flavor which nutrition comparisons always seem to skip
This is the part that actually matters if you cook every single day, not just for a health chart. Mustard oil's sharpness isn't an accident or a flaw to work around — it's structural. Bengali fish curry, achaar, so many East Indian dishes are built around that specific pungency. Swap in olive oil and you haven't made a healthier version of the dish. You've made a different dish.
Olive oil, meanwhile, is built for exactly the opposite job — dressings, light sautés, anywhere you want its own gentle flavour to actually come through instead of disappearing into the background.
So which one should you actually buy?
Honestly? Both. This doesn't need to be a competition.
- Cold-pressed mustard oil for tempering, frying, anything high-heat and traditionally Indian — because its smoke point and flavour are quite literally built for that job
- Olive oil for dressings, light sautéing, or dishes where you want something milder
The "healthiest" oil is really just the one suited to how you're actually cooking that day used cold-pressed and unrefined, and not reheated or reused past its point.
If your nutritionist told you to switch entirely to olive oil, it's worth asking them: switch for what, exactly? A salad, sure. Your mother's fish curry our recommendation not.
FAQ
Is mustard oil safe for daily cooking?
Yes! cold-pressed, unrefined mustard oil has been a daily staple across North and East Indian kitchens for generations. Look for cold-pressed (kachi ghani) over refined varieties, since cold-pressing keeps more of the oil's natural nutrients intact.
Which has a higher smoke point, mustard oil or olive oil?
Mustard oil, at around 250°C, versus extra virgin olive oil's 190–210°C which is why mustard oil holds up better for tempering, frying, and other high-heat Indian cooking methods.
Can I substitute olive oil for mustard oil in Indian recipes?
You can, but dishes where mustard oil's pungency is central to the flavour like a traditional fish curry or achaar will taste noticeably different, since that sharpness is part of the recipe, not incidental to it.
Shop Organic Cold-Pressed Black Mustard Oil traditionally cold-pressed, FDA-registered, WHO-GMP certified.