A few years ago we made a quick video for Youtube showing how we preserve minced garlic safely using a science-approved preservation method that banishes food poisoning and botulism concerns, but we never got around adding this safe minced garlic recipe to the blog! It’s high time to share this simple and safe food preservation method for all those cloves of garlic that need preserving whether you grew them yourself, grabbed from the farmer’s market, or want to eliminate grocery store food waste.
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Acidification
There are many minced garlic recipes online that claim you can just cover it with oil or “oil-pack” and everything will be hunky dory. While it’s true you don’t need a ton of preservatives or additives a la modern food processing…there is one key step in the process that makes minced garlic safe to store long-term and still consume safely. That is acidification.
What this step does is it reduces the pH of the garlic below the growth range for botulism (clostridium botulinum) before packing in oil. Similar to how water-bath canning is only for high-acid foods (pickles, jams, etc.), the key to safely preserving garlic at lower temperatures is ensuring the environment is too acidic for the bad bacteria. Don’t let the chemistry jargon intimidate you. All that is required is to soak the minced garlic in a citric acid solution. It’s that simple!
If you want to read more of the science behind how and why acidification works, check out this peer-reviewed journal article in Food Protection Trends.
Minced Garlic Time Savers
Peeling and mincing garlic is labor-intensive, but we’ve found a few tools that help speed the process up. First, use this handy tool for rubbing the peel off the garlic. It doesn’t work perfectly for all cloves, but it definitely speeds up the peeling process. Secondly, ditch the knife and cutting board and use a food processor to mince your garlic into tiny pieces with the magical push of a button.
Safe Minced Garlic Recipe for Preservation
- ⅔ cup minced garlic
- 1 TBSP citric acid
- 2 cups warm water
- Half pint mason jar
Step 1
Peel and mince your garlic into small and equal pieces. We highly recommend using a food processor as mostly uniform minced garlic is key to properly acidifying the garlic. (Don’t want large chunks mixed in with minuscule pieces)
Step 2
Dissolve the citric acid in the warm water and stir in your minced garlic
Step 3
Cover and soak for 24 hours (at a minimum, no worries if you go over a few hours!)
Step 4
Drain in a sieve or colander and rinse with about 1 cup of water.
Step 5
Fill your jar (half pint mason jar works well) with the drained garlic and pour in olive oil to cover.
While the food safety study on this method says this is shelf stable without refrigeration for a few months, we prefer to keep ours in the fridge as we’ve found the flavor stays better longer when chilled.
Happy preserving!
