Martha Stewart's Safe Way To Handle Cooking Oil Sounds Pricey

You've probably heard that you should never pour leftover cooking oil down the kitchen drain, but you might not know exactly what to do with it. As a young newlywed, Martha Stewart once dumped cooking grease in an unconventional spot: outside by the train tracks. Just pouring grease onto the ground, though, isn't good for wildlife and could eventually make its way into the sewer system. That's why Martha Stewart started using paper towels to soak up cooking oils, but this method may not be the most economical anymore.

You can see the suggestion from Martha Stewart in a TikTok video. While the video was posted in 2023, it's clearly from an older episode of one of the icon's television shows. Her use of paper towels to soak up leftover grease is convenient because you can toss them into the trash afterward. However, using a bunch of crumpled paper towels every time you have used oil left in your frying pan can get expensive nowadays.

That's because the cost of the raw materials used to make paper towels has jumped quite a bit since then — a whopping 12% in 2023 alone (per Market.us News). This extra expense has trickled down to shoppers, making paper towels much more expensive than they were when Martha Stewart suggested using them to handle cooking oil. Because of that, it may be time to choose a cheaper alternative.

Fortunately, there are actually a few ways that you can handle used cooking oil without going through dozens of rolls of paper towels. One of the safest ways to dispose of it is to pour it into a sealable container — perhaps an empty milk or soda bottle, the bottle that the oil came in, or a glass jar — that can't leak or tear. Then, you can toss it into the trash, or you can label it as "used cooking oil" and drop it off at a recycling center.

However, the easiest way to safely get rid of used cooking oil is to pour baking soda into the leftover grease. Just sprinkle a decent amount directly into hot oil, and the powder will change the nature of the oil, making it solidify so that you can wipe it out of your frying pan and into the trash.

On the other hand, you can put it into a container and the freezer to solidify it for mess-free cleanup. You have the option to simply throw it out afterward or filter it first so that you can reuse it for cooking later. For instance, you can use leftover bacon grease in many delicious ways, such as frying burgers, popping corn, and baking cornbread.