How to Preserve Garlic in Oil

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We grow a lot of garlic here on our homestead. We have always loved eating garlic and every year I just kept planting more and more.

Eventually we decided to start an actual garlic farm.

So yes, we eat a lot of garlic. We also sell a lot of garlic.

We deal with all the garlic bulbs and we also make garlic products.

These are Garlic Scapes which need to be removed from the plant. Every hardneck garlic plant grows one scape.

This is how we preserve the scapes so we can eat them all year round.

We simply HAVE to have Garlic to cook with, even while we are away.

And since we like spending part of the winter in California, we had to come up with a way to preserve peeled garlic.

We are true Garlic Heads and that’s how we came up with the perfect logo for Bradley Creek Garlic Farms!

However, we are not allowed to bring Garlic bulbs with us into the USA, unless they are completely peeled.

Totally understandable, as they are trying to keep foreign dirt (and bugs) out of the country.

Side note: Chinese Garlic has all the roots completely shaved off. This is an easy way to tell where the grocery store garlic comes from.

And we refuse to ever eat garlic from China.

We decided to bring along a few quart Mason jars full of Garlic along with us, so we would have it on hand for cooking.

Look how huge those cloves are!

How to Preserve Garlic in Oil

Here’s how we did it. We filled a quart mason jar with the garlic cloves.

Make sure your mason jar is clean but you don’t need to sterilize the jar for preserving the cloves.

We poured extra virgin olive oil over the cloves.

We only use extra virgin olive oil in our house; it is by far the best oil to use.

We don’t use it for deep frying but we do use it for any other cooking that calls for oil.

Add enough olive oil to completely cover the cloves.

Make sure they are submerged and that no part of the cloves are exposed to the air.

The garlic MUST be completely covered.

Storing Garlic in the Fridge

Add the seal and ring to the mason jar and close tightly.

Then, put the jar in the refrigerator and keep it there.

Remove the cloves as needed for cooking, but be sure to return the jar to the fridge.

The olive oil will solidify and it doesn’t look as pretty as when you first added the oil, but it is much safer to store the jar in the fridge.

We eat a lot of garlic. By far, most of our dinners include garlic.

It is healthy for us and so delicious.

So if you need to preserve garlic in oil, give this a try. At home we just store our garlic in a basket.

It sits on our counter and the garlic last for many months.

Want more Garlic articles?

This Bacon and Garlic appetizer is sure to please and it is so quick to make!

Add this Garlic Scape Pesto to any pasta dish or serve on crackers.

Grow your own Garlic. Here’s everything you need to know! A 4 part series on growing, harvesting, curing and more.

How to prepare a bed for planting garlic.

Want to find out which are The 5 Easiest Vegetables to Grow?

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