Peeling Garlic the Easy Way

July 14, 2016

Cooking with garlic is an easy way to spice up your scratch cooking. Peeling this low-cost and delicious kitchen staple should be pretty easy for most home cooks. Here's a trick that will have you a few cloves of garlic, ready to mince in a jiffy.

Step 1: Select your head of garlic. Each head of garlic is made up of cloves.

Heads of Garlic

Step 2: Separate your cloves.

Cloves of Garlic

Step 3: Using the flat edge of your knife or a spatula, push down firmly on your cloves or "Hulk Smash!" as our Nutrition Educator Jandyl might say. Be careful with this part and make sure the edge of the knife is pointed away from your body and down, away from your hand.

Smash the Garlic

Step 4: Remove the peel from your crushed garlic, it should come off easily in big pieces.

Crushed Garlic

Step 5: Mince

You can now use this to add flavor just about any recipe that calls for a few tablespoons of this delicious aromatic.

If your recipe calls for a lot of garlic you could also follow this guide to quickly peel a whole head.

Garlic has a host of documented health benefits including anti-carcinogenic properties, anti-osteoarthritis, heart protection, antibiotic qualities and reduced blood pressure. Enjoy!