How to Roast Garlic in the Oven

 This simple “How to Roast Garlic in the Oven” will set your favourite garlic lover up for everything between a tiny and giant quantity of luscious, buttery cloves of meltingly soft garlic. Make enough to use tonight or enough to stash in the freezer for fast dinner fixes all year long!

Fair warning, though, fan of garlic; this easy method makes it simple to add the caramelized flavor of roasted garlic. You’ll be tempted to add roast garlic cloves to everything with this easy method.

Oven Roasted Garlic

Here’s what you need to make this oven roasted garlic recipe

1. Fresh whole garlic bulb
2. Extra Virgin Olive Oil
3. Salt and Pepper
4. Foil with a baking dish/baking sheet, or a small, high sided baking dish with a tight fitting lid
5. Optional: sprigs of fresh rosemary or thyme

How to Choose Fresh Garlic

When choosing fresh garlic from the bulk bins in most grocery stores or at a farmer’s market, you’ll want to take your time to examine each head individually. Is the paper still tight on it? Does it feel heavy for its size?

Do the outer cloves feel firm? Are the cloves tight against the stem? That’s a good head of garlic!

On the other hand, if it feels light, hollow, or squishy, the cloves are falling off of the head, and the papery skin is discoloured, dark, or otherwise falling off, run away! That’s bad garlic!

I like to bulk buy garlic from local farmers to store for the winter. With just a little bit of know how, you can keep garlic for months!

How to Store Fresh Garlic

Garlic is, after blueberries, the second easiest thing to store for the winter. If you’re wondering how to keep garlic fresh, I have you covered!

You can create the ideal storage conditions by keeping the whole heads of garlic intact in a cool, dry, dark place with plenty of air circulation. Some good ways to do this are:

1. Buy some cheap pantyhose. Drop a head of garlic down each leg into the foot, tie off or cinch with a twist tie, and repeat until hose are full. Hang this from a beam or hook in your closet, basement or root cellar.
2. Store in mesh bags in your closed cool pantry or cabinets.
3. Hang in mesh bags from a hook or beam in your closet, basement or root cellar.
4. Store in a cool place in a mesh bowl under an overturned clay pot.

Some sure fire ways to ruin your fresh garlic include:

1. The fridge. Your garlic should not be stored in the fridge at all. The cold temperature changes the flavor of the garlic. If you chop more than you need for a recipe, wrap tightly with plastic wrap and use within 24 hours. There will be some loss of flavor, but you’ll probably be able to live with it.
2. The freezer. Ditto on the cold temperatures, but the freezer has the added disadvantage of ruining the texture of fresh garlic. Don’t be tempted! Roasted garlic cloves, on the other hand, do GREAT in the freezer!

How Long Does Fresh Garlic Last

Fresh whole bulbs of garlic, if kept unpeeled, and stored in ideal conditions listed above, can last for up to 6 months.

 …And as if fresh garlic (bought inexpensively in late summer) readily available in your home isn’t enough to tempt you, let me share one other thought with you. You can roast a bunch of heads of garlic and freeze* the roasted garlic.

*The earlier caution about freezers and garlic does not apply to lovely roasted garlic.

The beauty of roasted garlic is that it morphs garlic into a sweet, mellow spreadable form of garlic with none of the breath destroying and odour causing effects of raw garlic. It’s garlic gone mild!

There are roughly five billion things a garlic fan can do with roasted garlic. Here are some of delicious ways and easy recipes for future use: Roasted Garlic Whipped Feta, Roasted Garlic Cauliflower Puree, Roasted Garlic Artichoke Goat Cheese Fondue, Roasted Garlic Spinach Alfredo Lasagna | Make Ahead Mondays, and Roasted Garlic Rustic Sourdough Boule, among many others!

You can also add roasted garlic to salad dressing, mashed potatoes, spread it on crusty bread or soft, warm bread, or mixed with butter for the ultimate garlic bread. What are you waiting for? Get roasting!

🧄How to Roast Garlic in the Oven

Here are the basic steps to create oven-roasted garlic.

Preheat oven to 350ºF. 

Trim any funky dangly bits off the root end of the garlic and brush away any loose paper without separating the cloves. This should allow it to stand up solidly.

Lay the bulb of garlic on its side on a cutting board and -using a sharp knife- trim about 1/4 of the top from the flower end of the garlic bulb. This should expose the top of the cloves of garlic.

Line a small baking dish or sheet pan with a piece of aluminum foil roughly twice as large as the dish. Place the garlic heads with the cut side up in the prepared baking dish.

If you do not have foil or don’t use it, you can substitute a very small, high sided baking dish with a tight fitting lid. The dish should be just large enough to hold the garlic snugly with the lid in place.

Drizzle the olive oil evenly over the tops of the cloves of garlic and sprinkle with the salt and black pepper. Top each garlic head with a sprig of rosemary or thyme, if using it.

Bring your foil up around the garlic and crimp it closed or put the lid on your baking dish. Transfer to the oven and roast for between 45 minutes to an hour or until the garlic is deep golden brown and very soft.

Let the garlic rest for several minutes or until it is comfortable to handle.

To extract garlic to use, flip the slightly cooled heads upside down and squeeze from the root end toward the blossom end like a toothpaste tube. The roasted cloves should pop right out easily.

How to Roast Garlic in the Oven

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Rebecca Lindamood

Prep Time 5 minutes mins

Cook Time 45 minutes mins

Cook ModePrevent your screen from going dark

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Learn How to Roast Garlic in the Oven in this simple, scalable tutorial that can roast any amount from 2 heads of garlic to 50 heads of garlic all at once. This recipe will make it easy for you to have roasted garlic on hand all the time!

Equipment

• aluminum foil
• 1 baking dish
• oven

Ingredients

  

1x2x3x

• 2 heads Garlic
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon cracked or ground black pepper

Optional:

• 2 sprigs of fresh thyme or rosemary

Instructions

 

• Preheat oven to 350ºF.
• Trim any funky dangly bits off the root end of the garlic and brush away any loose paper without separating the cloves. This should allow it to stand up solidly.
• Lay the bulb of garlic on its side on a cutting board and -using a sharp knife- trim about 1/4 of the top from the flower end of the garlic bulb. This should expose the tips of the actual cloves of garlic.
• Line a small baking dish that will just hold your garlic with a piece of foil roughly twice as large as the dish. Place the garlic heads with the cut side up in the prepared baking dish.
• If you do not have foil or don’t use it, you can substitute a very small, high sided baking dish with a tight fitting lid. The dish should be just large enough to hold the garlic snugly with the lid in place.
• Drizzle the olive oil evenly over the tops of the garlic and sprinkle with the salt and pepper. Top each garlic head with a sprig of rosemary or thyme, if using it.
• Bring your foil up around the garlic and crimp it closed or put the lid on your baking dish. Transfer to the oven and roast for between 45 minutes to 1 hour and 15 minutes or until the garlic is deep golden brown and very soft.
• Let the garlic rest for several minutes or until it is comfortable to handle.
• To extract garlic to use, flip the slightly cooled heads upside down and squeeze from the root end toward the blossom end like a toothpaste tube. The cloves should pop right out easily.
• Drizzle the cooking oil over the top and use immediately or store in the refrigerator -tightly covered- for up to a week.
• For longer term storage, freeze the roasted garlic cloves whole in an airtight container. Alternately you can smash them, portion into desired sizes (dollops of teaspoons, tablespoons, or in ice cube trays), and transfer to a labeled zipper top when frozen solid.
• Frozen roasted garlic in any of its forms is best used within 6 months of freezing.

Notes

This recipe can be scaled up as much as your baking dishes and oven can handle. Just remember it may take a little longer for a large amount of garlic to roast.

Nutrition

Calories: 83kcalCarbohydrates: 5gProtein: 1gFat: 7gSaturated Fat: 1gPolyunsaturated Fat: 1gMonounsaturated Fat: 5gSodium: 293mgPotassium: 58mgFiber: 0.3gSugar: 0.1gVitamin A: 2IUVitamin C: 4mgCalcium: 26mgIron: 0.3mg

Nutritional information is an estimate and provided to you as a courtesy. You should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe using your preferred nutrition calculator.

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