Garlic should be a staple in everyone’s kitchen. It has some pretty amazing health properties and adds a distinct flavor to a variety of dishes. When you purchase a lot of garlic bulbs, you don’t want the cloves to rot. If you are worried about rotting cloves, you can easily turn fresh garlic into homemade garlic powder.
What You’ll Need
In order to transform your garlic cloves into garlic powder, you’ll need a few things. You will need a sharp knife to peel the cloves, a mandolin slicer (or very sharp knife and excellent knife skills), a blender/spice grinder, and a dehydrator (or you can use your oven at its lowest temperature).
The first step to making your garlic powder is peeling the garlic cloves. Then you need to slice them very thinly. If you have chef quality knife skills, thinly slice them with a sharp knife, but using a mandolin may prove to be much faster and easier. Once you have your thin garlic slices, it’s time to spread them out on your dehydrator sheets. If you don’t have a dehydrator, an oven at the lowest temperature will do the trick.
In order to keep the garlic raw, you need to keep your oven below 150 degrees F. If using a dehydrator, it takes about 12 hours, but it should only take a few hours in the oven. Spread the garlic slices evenly across a baking sheet and insert in the oven at the lowest temperature. Make sure to check your garlic slices frequently so that they don’t burn. You don’t have to worry about this in dehydrator.
Once you see that the garlic slices are nice and crisp, remove them from the heat and let them cool. After they have cooled, blend them in your blender or spice grinder for about 30 seconds. Store this powder in a glass jar and use to season your food.
