Soy oil, also called soybean oil, is a vegetable oil extracted from the seeds of the soybean plant. It is the most widely produced vegetable oil in the world, with global output reaching nearly 72 million metric tons in the 2025/2026 season. You’ll find it in everything from salad dressings and baked goods to deep fryers and margarine, often listed simply as “vegetable oil” on ingredient labels.
How Soy Oil Is Made
Soybeans contain roughly 18 to 20 percent oil by weight. To get it out, processors crush the beans and then wash them with a chemical solvent that dissolves the fat. The solvent is evaporated off afterward, leaving behind crude soybean oil.
That crude oil still contains phospholipids, pigments, and other compounds that affect taste and shelf life, so it goes through several refining steps. First, water is mixed into the oil to hydrate the phospholipids (a substance also known as lecithin), which are then spun out in a centrifuge. This step alone, called degumming, removes most of the gummy residue. The oil is then bleached to remove color pigments and deodorized with steam to strip out volatile compounds that cause off-flavors. The finished product is the clear, mild-tasting oil you see on store shelves.
Fat Composition
Soy oil is predominantly polyunsaturated fat, which sets it apart from oils like olive (mostly monounsaturated) or coconut (mostly saturated). Its fatty acid breakdown looks roughly like this:
- Linoleic acid (omega-6): about 50 to 55%, the dominant fat
- Oleic acid (omega-9): about 20 to 24%, a monounsaturated fat
- Palmitic acid: about 10 to 11%, a saturated fat
- Alpha-linolenic acid (omega-3): about 7 to 9%, a polyunsaturated fat
Linoleic acid and alpha-linolenic acid are both essential fats, meaning your body cannot produce them on its own. Few common cooking oils deliver as much alpha-linolenic acid (the plant-based omega-3) as soy oil does. That said, the overall ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 is still heavily tilted toward omega-6, which is worth keeping in mind if you’re trying to balance the two in your diet.
Vitamins and Micronutrients
Soy oil is not a rich source of vitamins overall, but it does contain two worth noting. One cup of soybean oil provides about 18 milligrams of vitamin E, an antioxidant that helps protect cells from damage, and roughly 54 micrograms of vitamin K, which plays a role in blood clotting. In a realistic serving of one tablespoon, those numbers are much smaller, but soy oil can still contribute meaningfully to your daily vitamin E intake over time since it shows up in so many prepared foods.
How It Performs in the Kitchen
Refined soy oil has a smoke point of about 450°F (232°C), which makes it suitable for high-heat cooking methods like deep frying, stir-frying, and searing. Its flavor is neutral, so it doesn’t compete with other ingredients the way sesame oil or extra virgin olive oil can. That neutrality is exactly why food manufacturers rely on it so heavily in packaged snacks, baked goods, and fried foods.
High-Oleic Soy Oil
Standard soy oil has one practical drawback: its high polyunsaturated fat content makes it oxidize relatively quickly, which shortens shelf life and can produce off-flavors during prolonged frying. For decades, the food industry solved this by partially hydrogenating the oil, a process that made it more stable but created trans fats. After the FDA determined that partially hydrogenated oils were no longer recognized as safe, the industry needed an alternative.
That alternative is high-oleic soy oil, produced from soybean varieties bred to contain more oleic acid (the monounsaturated fat found in olive oil) and less linoleic acid. The result is an oil that resists breakdown at high temperatures, lasts longer on the shelf, and requires no hydrogenation. It contains less saturated fat than standard soy oil and has become increasingly common in restaurant fryers and processed foods.
Heart Health Effects
The FDA has reviewed the clinical evidence on soy oil and cardiovascular risk and issued a qualified health claim: supportive but not conclusive evidence suggests that eating about 1½ tablespoons (20.5 grams) of soybean oil daily may reduce the risk of coronary heart disease. The key condition is that the soy oil replaces saturated fat in your diet rather than being added on top of what you already eat.
The mechanism is straightforward. In clinical trials, diets containing soy oil lowered total cholesterol and LDL (“bad”) cholesterol compared to diets high in butter, lard, palm oil, or cocoa butter. The unsaturated fats in soy oil are the likely driver. This is consistent with broader nutritional guidance that swapping saturated fats for polyunsaturated fats tends to improve blood lipid profiles.
Global Production
Soy oil is produced on a massive scale. China is the largest processor, accounting for 29% of global output (nearly 21 million metric tons), though much of that is from imported soybeans rather than domestically grown crops. The United States follows at 19% (about 13.8 million metric tons), then Brazil at 17% and Argentina at 11%. Together, those four countries produce roughly three-quarters of the world’s soy oil. The European Union, India, Mexico, and Russia each contribute smaller shares.
Because soybeans are grown primarily for animal feed, with oil as a co-product of crushing, soy oil tends to be inexpensive compared to olive, avocado, or coconut oil. That low cost, combined with its neutral flavor and high smoke point, is a major reason it dominates the global cooking oil market.