The Homesteader School » Making Your Own Basics » How to Make Homemade Garlic Powder
How to Make Homemade Garlic Powder
Something we often take for granted is those little jars of garlic powder that we buy at the grocery store.
Many people don’t realize just how easy it is to make granulated garlic powder at home, though.
You can make garlic powder from garlic you grew in your own garden or even the store-bought kind. It’s generally preferable to use home-grown, if possible.
There are thousands of different varieties of garlic, and by growing your own you can end up with a garlic powder that has a complex and bold character that is worlds apart from the insipid commercial garlic powder.
When choosing a garlic variety to grow for powdering or even just daily use, I personaly prefer to use a hardneck garlic.
Hardneck garlic has larger cloves that grow around a hard central stem, as opposed to softneck garlic which simply has more smaller cloves on the inside of the larger ones on the outside of the bulb. In my opinion, hardneck garlic is easier to peel because the cloves are larger.
Making garlic powder is relatively simple. You just need some way to dry it, and then a way to grind it. I use two tools for this task.
The first step is to finely dice or slice it. I use my Ninja 1100 blender for this task. I simply peel my cloves, fill the blender about half full, and pulse until it’s mostly a garlic mince/mush. You may need to add water at this step, depending on the blender you use.
The Ninja blender has three tiered blades, unlike any other blender, and because of that particular design it works really well for this purpose.
Having said that, if you need to add water, no worries because it will evaporate out later. It may just add a little longer to your drying time.
The other option is to use a knife or a mandolin slicer to make thin slices of each clove. This is much more labor-intensive but is good for smaller amounts of garlic.
After I have made my garlic “mush,” I spread it out on a dehydrator sheet for my Excalibur 3900 dehydrator. I spread it as thin as possible, and then I let it dehydrate until it is 100 bone-dry.
Once the garlic paste is dry, I break it up and return it back to the blender. Then I just pulse until it is to the powdered consistency that I like.
This garlic lasts indefinitely if kept in a sealed storage away from air and light. I usually seal it up into bags with a vacuum sealer, keeping enough out to have available in my spice rack.
And there you have it – homemade garlic powder. But once you make your first batch, you’ll never want to buy storebought again. Be aware though, your homemade garlic powder will pack a bigger punch than the commercial stuff that’s been sitting on the shelf for a year. Use it wisely!
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Written by Bethany
Bethany loves inside jokes, teaching her kids the proper way to eat peas from the garden, and wearing moon boots. Oh, and she's pretty much addicted to learning new skills. Read her personal blog at Uncle Dutch Farms.
Filed under: Making Your Own Basics
9 Responses to "How to Make Homemade Garlic Powder"
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What a great idea!! I had never considered making this – I just pick it up at the store when we run out.
Joanne recently posted..Yogurt Sundaes
Always a good plan to have some dried provisions at home. especially if you’ve got a big batch that needs using before it goes off. Great advice.
Gary Hemmings recently posted..Diet and Arthritis
Wow this looks great… probably tastes so much better than the kind I usually buy. I’ll have to try this out for sure
Elle recently posted..Favorite German Pancakes
I love this idea. When we move I plan to have an organic garden, and garlic is definitely one of the crops I want to grow. How fun it would be to dry some of it for the off-season. Thanks for the idea!
Carla recently posted..Free Printable Candy Boxes and Kids Valentine Cards
Bethany, I would love to try this, but I do not have a dehydrator. Is there another way to dry it out? Toaster over, perhaps? Or microwave?
Debra Eckerling recently posted..Write On Online – February Meeting
Hi Debra,
Actually you could use a regular oven if it has a very low setting. Another way people dehydrate without a dehydrator is by using a car – if you live in a sunny area, you can actually put trays of food to dehydrate on the dash of your car and it will dehydrate from the heat. If all else fails, spread it out VERY thinly and place it in a warm spot covered with a light towel and it should dry out, though it will take a while. I don’t know if a toaster oven has a low enough temp and a microwave would just cook, wouldn’t remove the moisture.
Great article. I use garlic in practically all my cooking so this is something that I’ll definitely be trying. Hopefully a bit of up front time will translate into lots of time savings down the road.
Jenna recently posted..High Tea In Australia Is Afternoon Tea
Finally, a use for the garlic we have left over. We buy fresh garlic, because it is cheaper than other forms even if we can’t use it all and end up tossing some of it. We invariably do not use it all before it starts to dry out. Even though this would not be as awesome as home grown and fresh dried, it would be a way to salvage the starting-to-dry-out garlic that is left over in the little bag. What do you think, Bethany, would this work?
Susan Critelli recently posted..What College Graduates Don’t Know About America
Hey Susan,
Yep that would work great. Something you could probably do is keep a ziplock bag or gladware type container in the freezer, then peel the garlic & toss it in there as it gets too old to use… then when you have accumulated enough to make it worthwhile, make it into powder.