Once you roast garlic, you will become addicted! Roasted garlic is mellow, rich, with a creamy texture that is so perfect spread across a slice of baguette, swirled into soups, mixed into mashed potatoes, tossed with roasted veggies, and so much more!
Roasted garlic is blessed by Jesus, I promise you.
It's so heavenly, it must've been spread on the bread at the Last Supper. It's gotta be somewhere in the Bible.
What is Roasted Garlic?
Simply? It's garlic that you pour olive oil all over, wrap up and roast. Not simply? It's like the best thing that's ever happened to garlic.
Raw garlic is sharp, spicy, crunchy, and strong. But when it's roasted, the cloves become incredibly soft, the sharpness mellows, the flavor sweetens, and the smell? Oh, my Lord, if you love the smell of onion and garlic cooking and think that is the best culinary scent ever, you need to roast some garlic. I promise you will swap over to the roasted garlic side.
How to make Roasted Garlic
To roast garlic in the oven you need:
Whole garlic heads. Keeping the head together makes it harder for the garlic to burn.
Good olive oil. It honestly doesn't have to be extra virgin, but good olive oil is needed for flavor. The garlic absorbs some of the oil as it cooks. The oil is also great to use after roasting, in mashed potatoes or on bread.
Aluminum foil. Wrap the garlic in foil to keep the goodness inside while it roasts. It keeps the garlic from burning (or exploding. I've seen some people say their exposed garlic exploded in the oven! So wrap it up!)
1. To roast the garlic, the garlic heads can be cut in half horizontally, or simply have the excess papery skin peeled off, leaving cloves together in their skins as I have shown.
Cutting them horizontally makes the garlic easier to squeeze from the head once they're roasted. But keeping it whole, the skins do tend to split open over the cloves.
2. Place the garlic head in aluminum foil, and pour over the olive oil. Completely douse the garlic cloves in oil, then wrap up tightly and place on a baking sheet so that any oil that may escape doesn't drop to the oven and burn.
3. When it's done, let the roasted garlic cool until you can touch and pull the cloves out.
What do you eat roasted garlic with?
- When your garlic is roasted, the cloves are buttery and soft, their flavor is mellow and smooth so you can eat them simply spread on toast like it's a flavored butter.
- I love adding roasted garlic to all kinds of potato dishes. Mashed potatoes, baked potatoes, twice baked, scalloped potatoes, they are a match made in heaven.
- Add roasted garlic to compound butter.
- Stir it into your soups and stews.
- Use the cloves as a spread on sandwiches.
- Whisk it into salad dressings.
- Mix cloves into hummus.
- Toss them with sauteed veggies like asparagus, green beans, corn, etc.
- Spread on pizza crust in lieu of tomato sauce.
- Add cloves to pasta dishes.
- Make homemade aioli, which is the perfect dipping sauce for fries, spreading on burger buns, and using as a sub for mayo in anything!
How to keep roasted garlic fresh?
Roasted garlic stays fresh in the refrigerator for 2-3 weeks in an airtight container.
Freezing roasted garlic
Freeze the roasted garlic cloves in a single layer on a baking sheet, then transfer them to a freezer-safe zip-top bag. They'll keep for 3-4 months.
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How to Roast Garlic
Ingredients
- 1 head of garlic
- 1 tablespoon 15 mL good olive oil
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
- Cut the head of garlic in half width-wise, then place both halves on a sheet of aluminum foil big enough to wrap around the garlic.
- Drizzle the olive oil over the cut sides of the garlic halves and on top of the skin, then replace the top half onto the bottom half and wrap the aluminum around the garlic to cover it completely.
- Place on a baking sheet or a baking dish and put the garlic into the preheated oven. Roast your garlic for at least one hour.
- Take the baking sheet out of the oven and open the foil, let your roasted garlic cool for 2-5 minutes, then squeeze out the cloves and use as needed.
- Keep in fridge for up to two weeks in an air tight container
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