Freezing Garlic in Olive Oil

Here’s a quick and easy way to have garden fresh garlic all year long.  Each year I plant a couple of big rows of garlic bulbs in the fall–and late each summer I have a nice harvest of garlic.  We replant the biggest cloves, eat some fresh and store some in the basement, but I always wind up with cloves going in early spring.  That means I’m out of garlic a couple of months before I’m ready to harvest more.

This year I’m trying something new–I’m freezing some of my garlic in olive oil.

It’s a very simple process.  You just mince up your garlic (or put it through your garlic press-my preferred method), pack it into some ice cube trays, and cover with your favorite oil–I chose some olive oil.  Freeze until solid, then pop out and store in a zippered freezer bag or a rigid freezer container.

Why use the oil? Why not just freeze it straight up?  Well you could–but there would be a lot of the garlic exposed to the air and that would increase the chances of freezer burn.  Most of the cases where I use garlic I am also using oil–by using it to cover the garlic it makes a barrier to the air in your freezer, preventing freezer burn.

Each of these cubes is 4 or 5 cloves of garlic–so you probably won’t use a whole cube in your cooking.  Just use a knife to cut off a chunk for fresh tasting garlic all winter.

Of course I still have plenty of garlic stored down in the basement in some net bags.  When we get to late winter I’ll probably use this freezer method to save what’s left before it starts to dry out.