Algae Cooking Club Is About to Become Your New Favorite Cooking Oil 

Consider your preferred cooking oil. You likely store it somewhere near your stove, easy to grab when you need to drizzle some in a pan for your morning eggs or to marinate chicken for the evening’s dinner. You stock up when you need to, but other than that, you probably don’t give it much thought.

If you’re like many people, your go-to cooking oil likely hasn’t changed in years — but the founders of Algae Cooking Club hope it will now. Like the name suggests, this forward-thinking cooking oil brand uses algae to make its pure, multipurpose oil, and they’re using a bold bottle design, an engaging brand presence, and acclaimed chefs to make sure you can’t wait to try it. 

Why Algae Oil? 

“My sister is the founder of Táche Pistachio Milk, and when I was helping her launch that company, I was drinking oat milk — a lot of oat milk,” says Algae Cooking Club co-founder and CEO Kasra Saidi. “I found out that to make it creamy, you add canola oil to it. That was a whoa moment for me. I was not expecting to be drinking canola oil every morning. I got into understanding just how prevalent seed oils are in our diet.” 

This discovery prompted Saidi, already an innovative brand and product leader, to search for the next alternative oil to seed oils. “I stumbled across algae oil, and the experience of cooking with it just blew my mind,” he says. “It’s such a clean, pure, neutral oil that really helps elevate the flavors of whatever you’re cooking. It doesn’t leave that greasiness in your mouth, and it has 93% omega-9 monounsaturated fat, the good fat that’s in the Mediterranean diet. I was sold the moment I took it home and started cooking with it.”

Algae oil is made in a way that’s entirely different from other oils. While most cooking oils (like olive oil or avocado oil, for example) are produced by pressing the oil from a fruit, seed, or nut using force, Algae Cooking Club’s algae oil is produced through fermentation, similar to beer or kombucha. Microalgae is put in a massive fermentation tank, and over the course of three days, it converts sugar into oil. The end result is what Saidi describes as a “super pure, oleic monounsaturated oil.” 

This fermentation process is also why Algae Cooking Club is able to create fresh oil with very little environmental impact, unlike traditional oils, which require significantly more land, water, and carbon to produce (for example, olive oil requires nearly 2,600 kilograms of water per kilogram of oil, while algae oil requires only about 10 kilograms). It’s a sustainability win just as much as it is a win for their supply chain. 

Cooking With Algae Oil 

Saidi is also quick to explain that Algae Cooking Club didn’t invent algae oil — they’re simply hoping to bring this impressive cooking oil to the mainstream. “We work with a supplier that has been around for a good amount of time,” he says. “Algae oil just hasn’t been celebrated this way yet. What we get really excited about is telling that story and getting people to cook with it, because once people start cooking with it, it’s very hard to go to a different oil.” 

Once the team felt that they had perfected their algae oil formula, they wanted to know how it would be received by the culinary community at large. So, they went straight to the top: They sent a bottle to Daniel Humm, head chef at New York City’s Michelin-awarded Eleven Madison Park. 

“He cooked with it, and he was also blown away,” Saidi remembers. The timing couldn’t have been better, because Eleven Madison Park had recently made the shift to an entirely plant-based menu. “[Humm’s] team was looking for a new high-quality cooking oil, so it was very serendipitous that it came across his table,” Saidi says. “He gets a lot of ingredients thrown his way, I’m sure, but especially when you’re cooking in plant-based food, you really need a high-quality oil that’s going to elevate the flavors of those delicate plants, and this oil does that phenomenally. The clarity of flavor you get is just exceptional.”

With Humm’s stamp of approval, Algae Cooking Club officially launched to the public in February of 2024 — and if their numerous press accolades and the slew of chefs in their corner are any indication, the public is ready for algae oil. 

“The high-heat cooking community loves this oil,” Saidi says. Thanks to its 525 °F smoke point (the highest of any cooking oil), algae oil is the perfect choice for those looking for a neutral-tasting cooking oil that can withstand open flames or other high-heat applications. “For cast iron, stainless steel, or cooking over super high heat in a wok, it elevates flavors and gives you that really delicious fatty mouthfeel, but it’s not greasy. You can get this incredible sear on a protein or mushroom, or if you’re cooking a mushroom, the oil doesn’t start to break down.” 

There’s one more group that Saidi and his team didn’t expect to be so excited about algae oil: the baking community. “If you’re cooking a muffin, a cookie, a brownie, a dense cake, waffles or pancakes, or a flatbread — all of those call for a vegetable oil,” Saidi says. Because algae oil boasts an impressive mono and saturated fat content, it makes a great alternative to the canola or vegetable oils that modern bakers may want to avoid. 

It’s this type of experimentation that the brand is hoping to spark in the kitchen. Because the oil can be used in so many different ways, the folks behind Algae Cooking Club hope it will start to encourage customers to become more open-minded when it comes to their own cooking. “Algae Cooking Club is about just having fun in the kitchen,” Saidi says. “Food curiosity is really what we’re all about.”

Algae Cooking Club’s Favorite Sweet and Savory Recipes Using Algae Oil 

Celebrity chefs and home chefs alike love algae oil for its sweet and savory applications — and these two recipes showcase both sides of the flavor spectrum.

Yakitori Mushrooms With Algae Oil 

Yield: 4 servings 
Active time: 25 minutes
Total time: 1 hour

Ingredients: 

16-20 large mushrooms (shiitake, button, or cremini work well), stems removed

1 bunch of green onions (scallions), cut into 1-inch pieces

1 tablespoon algae cooking oil

1/2 cup soy sauce

1/2 cup mirin (sweet Japanese rice wine)

1/4 cup sake (or water as a non-alcoholic substitute)

2 tablespoons sugar

1 clove garlic, minced

1 teaspoon grated ginger

Instructions: 

Prep the bamboo skewers by soaking them in water for at least 30 minutes.

In a small saucepan, combine soy sauce, mirin, sake (or water), sugar, garlic, and ginger.

Bring the mixture to a simmer over medium heat, stirring until the sugar is dissolved.

Reduce the heat to low and continue to simmer, stirring occasionally, until the sauce thickens slightly, about 10-15 minutes.

Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature. The sauce will thicken further as it cools.

Thread the mushrooms and green onions alternately onto the soaked bamboo skewers. Aim for 3-4 pieces of mushroom and 2-3 pieces of green onion per skewer. 

Brush the skewers with algae cooking oil.

Grill the skewers over high heat, turning occasionally, until the mushrooms are tender and the green onions are slightly charred, about 8-10 minutes.

During the last few minutes of grilling, brush the skewers generously with the yakitori sauce, turning them a couple of times to caramelize the sauce on the skewers.

Maple Oat Chamomile Muffins 

Yield: 12 muffins
Active time: 10 minutes
Total time: 30-35 minutes

Ingredients: 

3 cups whole wheat flour

¾ cups rolled oats

1/3 cup brown sugar, packed

1 tbsp baking powder

1 ½ tsp baking soda

1 tbsp salt

1 ½ tbsp dried chamomile

1 ¼ cups oat milk (or milk of your choice)

1 cup maple syrup

¼ cup algae cooking oil

1 ripe banana, mashed

Instructions: 

Preheat the oven to 325 °F. 

Combine all of the dry ingredients (flour, oats, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and chamomile) and mix well.

Separately, combine the oat milk, maple syrup, and algae cooking oil.

Add the wet mixture to the dry and whisk well to combine. Make sure that all the brown sugar is broken down and not clumped together.

Add the mashed banana and stir to combine.

Lightly grease the muffin tray with algae cooking oil, then divide the batter evenly into the tray.