The Salad Oil Scandal of 1963 was one of the most notorious financial frauds in U.S. history, centered on the Allied Crude Vegetable Oil Refining Corporation in Bayonne, New Jersey. The company's president, Anthony De Angelis, fraudulently used salad oil as collateral for loans, inflating inventories and deceiving banks and commodity traders out of more than $150 million. The collapse of the scheme in November 1963 triggered a major panic in the commodities market and led to the bankruptcy of several financial institutions.

The scandal was a favorite subject of investigative journalists and became a symbol of corporate fraud in the 1960s. It was referenced in the satirical poetry and prose of the era, including works by Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut, who used the absurdity of the scheme to critique the moral emptiness of American capitalism.