Oven Roasted Garlic Cloves

As I’ve mentioned in the past, DH is not a fan of garlic and when I use raw garlic it must be used in very small amounts and hidden in ingredients, if at all. Now I’m a person who really likes the flavoring which garlic imparts so I decided to try roasting garlic in the oven to an almost caramelized state to replace the raw tasting fresh garlic in a bunch of dishes and see what DH’s reaction was to it. Of course, I didn’t tell him about it 😉 .

So preheat the oven to 400 F/200 C.

Then I took 4 beautiful heads of garlic and you remove the outer papery skin of the garlic, like so:

Do NOT remove the skin right on the garlic clove. K, now do this for all of them and take a small baking dish, preferably glass/clear with a lid (I used a Pyrex type of dish so I could peek at the garlic heads in the oven). Then chop off the very tips of the cloves leaving the heads all attached to each other, in other words, do not detach the garlic cloves from one another. Also, since the cloves are not all on the same level, turn the garlic heads around and make sure you chop off the tips of all the cloves in the head, like so:

Put the garlic heads packed tightly together in your baking dish and generously dribble olive oil over the tops and gently rub about on the cloves of garlic.

Put the cover on the baking dish and place in the hot oven. Now you will roast them for at least 40 minutes, but I have found that it generally takes closer to an hour since you want them nicely browned and very very very soft.

Now you have a choice. Let them cool and pop them out of their skins.

They can be be used immediately and are literally spreadable. I ate some on toast with a sprinkle of salt and nearly swooned. But even better, they will literally dissolve into anything. I made techina and stirred it in and it melted into the mixture, adding a nutty, sweet garlic flavor that DH couldn’t detect and I actually preferred to the regular rawer garlic taste. I added them to a stew, to cholent, to a tagine etc. etc. It’s an almost buttery taste that is addictive. After using them in a million things, I still had some leftover so I froze them in a ziploc bag, laying it out flat in the freezer so they froze individually and now when I want a clove or two, bam they are available. This has become a new basic staple for me and I bet it will for you as well!

Oven Roasted Garlic Cloves

4 firm whole garlic heads, a note here, they absolutely must be fresh and firm. No using garlic heads that have sprouted green shoots or the whole thing doesn’t work
olive oil

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400 F/200 C.

Carefully remove the outer papery skins on the whole garlic heads. Next, using a sharp knife, cut the tips off the garlic cloves, turning the heads all around to make sure you get all the tops off. Take a small ovenproof baking dish with a lid, preferably a glass one so you can peek and see how they are browning in the oven, and nestle the garlic heads close together in the dish. Generously drizzle the garlic heads with the oil, gently rubbing in and around. Cover with the lid and roast for at least 40 minutes, or as much as an hour or till the garlic heads are nicely caramelized and browned. Let cool and either use right away, popping out of the thin skins and either spreading the cloves on bread or crackers or mixing into techina, soups, stews or anything you wish to add a mellow, sweetly garlicy flavor to. It sort of dissolves into what you mix it into. Alternatively, put the cloves in a ziploc bag spreading them out individually after popping them out of their skins, and freeze. Then you can use as many or as few as you want and they last beautifully in the freezer.