Freeze minced garlic without any preservatives,oil ,salt or turmeric for use in everyday cooking. The color, texture and taste of the garlic stays as good as fresh making cooking very fast,easy and convenient.

We have often heard about minced garlic turning green after a few days in the refrigerator. Though perfectly safe to eat, it certainly doesn’t look appealing and also develops a very strong,pungent flavor. Why Garlic turns green is well explained in this article by Serious Eats. Freezing with my procedure prevents garlic from turning bluish green.

Freezing minced garlic has tonnes of benefits-

i) The most important for me is the speed of cooking. When I am in a rush to get dinner ready, I don’t have to worry about peeling and grating garlic.

2) I can snap/break as much as my recipe calls for. If I am cooking for a crowd and need a large amount of garlic or just for my family and need only a teaspoon of minced garlic.

3) Though most people first put the garlic in ice cube trays and then place frozen cubes in the ziploc bags, in my opinion, its just one extra step that can be eliminated. Freeze a thin layer in the freezer bags directly, no need to first put in ice cube trays and then transfer over..

4) The color,flavor and texture of minced frozen garlic does not change,it looks and tastes just like freshly grated garlic.

5) No need to add any oil,turmeric or salt as preservative.

6) Your hands will not smell garlicy each time you cook.

7) Frozen garlic can last 6 months or more in the freezer.

You can also ‘double bag’ the garlic(like the picture above),if you are worried about the smell of garlic travelling all over the freezer-first put in a smaller quart size freezer bag and then place in a larger gallon size bag. I have tried both ways. I don’t think the smell travels in the freezer, even if placed in one bag.

I also mince and freeze ginger. Because ginger has a higher water content, I freeze it a bit differently. I also brown/fry onions and freeze. Since the basis of all Indian curries starts with browned onions, ginger and garlic, I can make dinner in under thirty minutes,definitely a boon when I am trying to get breakfast, lunches and dinner ready before heading to work.

Moving on to the recipe-

Here is the written recipe followed by the step by step pictorial one-

How to Freeze Minced Garlic

Aanchal Gupta

Freeze minced garlic without any preservatives,oil salt or turmeric for use in everyday cooking. The color, texture or taste of the garlic stays as good as fresh making cooking very fast,easy and convenient.

Print Recipe

Prep Time 5

Total Time 5

Servings pounds,1360 gms, 48 oz of minced garlic

Ingredients

3 pounds/48 oz/1360 gms. bag peeled garlic

equipment needed for freezing

3 nos Gallon size Freezer bags
Food processor
Spatula
Rolling pin

Instructions

Put the garlic in a food processor and mince the garlic as fine as desired
Label the Freezer bags before filling
Divide the garlic equally into 3 bags
Take out air from the bag and seal
Flatten the garlic in the bags using a rolling pin
Place flat in the freezer to solidify
Once frozen, just snap as much as needed for your recipe and put the rest back in the freezer

Notes

If you prefer to put in ice cube trays, you can freeze the garlic in ice cube trays and once frozen, put in a freezer safe bag. I find putting in high quality freezer bags very easy and convenient. Don’t put too much garlic into the bags, the thinner the layer of garlic, the easier it is to break the amount that’s needed. Usually 1 pound/16 oz./450 gms. of peeled garlic pods fit perfectly into a gallon size freezer bag. Its important to use Freezer bags and not regular ziploc bags. Freezer bags are thicker and prevent freezer burn. Garlic lasts upto 6 months in the freezer. I have used garlic that’s already peeled. You can buy fresh, peel and then follow the same procedure for freezing.

Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

Here is the step by step pictorial recipe-

Ingredients-

3 pounds/1360 gms./48oz. of peeled garlic