Palm olein is the liquid fraction of palm oil, separated out through a process called fractionation. It’s the most widely traded form of palm oil in the world and the primary cooking oil in much of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. If you’ve ever used palm oil that stayed liquid at room temperature, or eaten fried snacks, baked goods, or chocolate made with palm-based fats, you’ve almost certainly encountered palm olein.
How Palm Olein Is Made
Palm oil straight from the fruit is naturally semi-solid at room temperature, a mix of higher-melting and lower-melting fats. To make it more useful, manufacturers separate it into two parts through a process called dry fractionation. The palm oil is slowly cooled at a rate of about 0.2 to 3°C per hour, which causes the higher-melting fats to form crystals. Those crystals are then filtered or pressed out, leaving behind a clear, golden liquid: palm olein. The solid portion left over is called palm stearin, which gets used in things like margarine and baking fats.
No chemicals or solvents are involved in standard dry fractionation. It’s purely a physical process, driven by temperature control and filtration. The slow cooling rate is deliberate. Rushing it creates poor crystal formation and a messy separation between the liquid and solid fractions.
What’s in It
Palm olein’s fatty acid profile is roughly split between saturated and unsaturated fats. Palmitic acid, a saturated fat, makes up about 42% of the total. Oleic acid, the same monounsaturated fat found in olive oil, accounts for another 42%. Linoleic acid, a polyunsaturated fat, contributes around 10 to 11%. This balance of saturated and unsaturated fats gives palm olein its distinctive physical properties: liquid enough to pour and cook with, but more stable than oils that are predominantly unsaturated.
Palm oil is also one of nature’s richest sources of tocotrienols, a form of vitamin E. Crude palm oil contains up to 800 mg/kg of tocotrienols, and the vitamin E in palm oil splits roughly 70% tocotrienols and 30% tocopherols. Refined palm olein retains some of these compounds, though processing reduces the levels compared to crude or “red” palm olein.
Physical Properties
Standard palm olein has a melting point that maxes out around 24°C (75°F), which means it stays liquid in warm climates but can turn cloudy or start to solidify in a refrigerator or during cooler weather. Its cloud point, the temperature where it first starts to look hazy, typically falls between 8 and 11.5°C (roughly 46 to 53°F). A lower cloud point generally signals a higher-quality olein with more unsaturated fat content.
Its smoke point sits around 239°C (462°F), which is high enough for deep frying and most commercial cooking applications. That high smoke point, combined with a relatively neutral flavor, is a big part of why the food industry favors it.
Standard vs. Super Olein
Not all palm olein is the same grade. Standard palm olein has an iodine value (a measure of unsaturation) of about 56. Super olein, also called double-fractionated palm olein, goes through the fractionation process a second time, which removes even more of the saturated fats. This pushes its iodine value up to between 60 and 67, meaning it contains more unsaturated fatty acids.
The practical difference: super olein stays liquid at lower temperatures than standard olein, making it better suited for use in cooler climates or in products like salad dressings where cloudiness would be a problem. The trade-off is that super olein is less resistant to oxidation during storage because of its higher polyunsaturated fat content.
How It’s Used in Food
Palm olein shows up across a wide range of processed and prepared foods. Its most common role is as a frying oil, both in home kitchens and in commercial food production. Its high smoke point and neutral taste make it a go-to for deep-fried snacks, instant noodles, and restaurant cooking.
Beyond frying, palm olein is used as a shortening agent in baked goods, where it performs comparably to conventional margarine in producing cake volume, texture, and surface color. It appears in chocolate manufacturing (often blended with other palm-based fats), chocolate spreads, frozen foods, and confectionery products. Its semi-solid consistency at moderate temperatures makes it particularly useful for products that need structure without being hard at room temperature.
Effects on Cholesterol
The health picture for palm olein largely tracks with its saturated fat content. A meta-analysis of clinical trials found that palm oil consumption raised LDL (“bad”) cholesterol by an average of 0.24 mmol/L compared to vegetable oils low in saturated fat, like canola, soybean, or sunflower oil. In randomized trials specifically, the increase was larger: 0.31 mmol/L.
On the other hand, palm oil raised HDL (“good”) cholesterol by 0.09 mmol/L compared to oils containing trans fats. So while it performs better than partially hydrogenated oils (which are now largely banned in many countries), it raises LDL more than most liquid vegetable oils. The overall conclusion from that meta-analysis was straightforward: palm oil’s effects on blood lipids are what you’d predict from its high saturated fat content, and replacing it with oils lower in saturated fat would be expected to improve cholesterol numbers.
That said, palm olein is the more unsaturated fraction of palm oil, so it’s somewhat better in this regard than whole palm oil or palm stearin. But at 42% palmitic acid, it’s still substantially higher in saturated fat than oils like olive, canola, or soybean.
How It Compares to Palm Oil
The confusion between palm oil and palm olein is common, and the distinction matters. Crude palm oil is the unprocessed fat pressed from oil palm fruit. It’s reddish-orange, semi-solid, and contains the full range of both higher-melting and lower-melting fats. Palm olein is what you get after refining and fractionating that crude oil: a clear, golden liquid with a lower melting point, less saturated fat, and a milder flavor.
In grocery stores and food labels across Asia and Africa, “palm olein” is often what’s actually sold as cooking oil. When a product label lists “palm oil” as an ingredient, it may actually contain palm olein, palm stearin, or a blend, depending on the application. Fractionation essentially lets manufacturers tailor the fat’s physical properties to the specific product, using the liquid portion for cooking oils and the solid portion for baking and spreads.