How to Make Garlic Oil

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By Gardengates
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Make Garlic Oil

Making your own garlic oil is not only easy, it's economical, tasty and useful for so many dishes, raw or cooked. Here's how I do it.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

2 heads/bulbs of fresh garlic (even better if you grow your own!)
2 quarts extra virgin olive oil
Wooden cooking skewers
Containers
(Optional funnel if you want to transfer it into a bottle when done)

Step 1

Peel the cloves in roughly 2 bulbs of garlic. You can use more or less to suit your taste buds.
Step 2

Slide 4 - 8 cloves on each of four to five wooden skewers.
Step 3

Use healthy, un-marred garlic cloves.
Step 4

Set them in a container and pour approximately 2 quarts of extra virgin olive oil over them, filling the container and submersing the garlic.
Step 5

Let steep for 10 days, then remove the garlic. I re-use most of the garlic in cooking. I also decant the olive oil into a more convenient container; a bottle.
Step 6

Keep garlic oil in a cool place or the refrigerator as the garlic in the oil shortens the room-temperature shelf life. I keep a small bottle available outside the refrigerator and top it up from the chilled supply when needed. And I have to admit to going through great quantities since I hardly ever use olive oil without the garlic any more!
Step 7

My kitchen is also free of any vampires. :-)

Comments

Gardengates said

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on 2/20/2009 Thank you, jgod8586, for your wise warning. I've been doing this for decades (as have the people I learned it from) and never had a problem. So I checked into the Center for Disease Control. Apparently, there IS a very small possibility of clostridium botulinum developing in low acid, home canned goods including garlic in oil. To avoid the danger it is recommended to refrigerate the oil. I do that as I mentioned in the article. But thank you for providing a warning that refrigeration is MUCH more important than I was aware of! It is vital that any food preparation should be safe!

jgod8586 said

on 2/19/2009 I'm sure it tastes good.But you should be aware that this mixture poses a risk of giving a person a clostridium botulinum infection.Clostridium botulinum is a bacteria which causes paralyis and inability to breathe.