If you struggle to peel garlic, you are not alone. I use many cloves of garlic in my meals. And I also grow over 800 bulbs of it yearly, so I have a lot of garlic to deal with! (Although, I have replanted a lot of that garlic so far).
The garlic I grow has particularly tough skin (each variety is slightly different), which is great for our climate but can be a challenge to get started for peeling. And this becomes a huge task if you want to prepare not just a garlicky stew, but projects like a large batches of fermented garlic, pickled garlic, or other kinds of preservation. So what to do?
Here is an easy hack to make peeling garlic a lot easier… and it doesn’t get more simple than this. And no, you don’t need to smash the garlic with a knife. I had no idea this was a way to handle a large number of cloves until I witnessed a chef do this on a cooking show somewhat recently.
How to peel garlic quickly and easily
Ingredients
- Garlic cloves
- Bowl, fork, hot water
- Kettle Optional
- Slotted spoon Optional
- Colander Optional
Instructions
- Boil 2-3 cups of water - you need enough to mostly cover however much garlic you are processing (see image for next step).
- Pour hot water into a bowl, and add garlic.
- Allow the garlic to sit in the water for 30 seconds to a minute.
- Remove the gloves from the water using a utensil (fork, slotted spoon, etc), or pour into a colendar, and then peel once they are cool enough to touch. The skins should pop right off from the clove, often in a single piece.
And you end up with gorgeous peeled garlic in no time!
Do you have other ways to manage large volumes of garlic cloves? Let us know in the comments!
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LJ
Holy cow, what a good idea! Thanks!