How To Make Garlic Powder

For those looking to add a spicy and pungent flavor to any dish, garlic is your take. It is one ingredient that holds pride of place in any kitchen. But it happens that many people find fresh garlic too strong for their taste. Indeed though garlic can enhance the taste, the pungency can sometimes be quite revolting which even the cooking cannot diminish. That is when garlic powder comes to the rescue, which when used gives the dish a muted sweet flavor. Moreover with garlic powder, you can have control on the amount that you want to put in without having to worry about adding too little or too much. To get the best garlic powder, you should make it at home. And to make garlic powder is not much of a headache either. The basic process consists of just drying the garlic and grinding it to powder. To help you get started on this, continue reading further to know more.

Making Garlic Powder

• Make garlic powder in small quantities so that it stays fresh and doesn’t become an overwhelming task. One bulb of garlic will yield about half a tablespoon of garlic powder.
• Take ten bulbs of garlic and cut the bottom and top portion of each bulb. Then peel the cloves. Cut each clove into very thin slices. Slices of garlic dries more evenly but you can also keep whole cloves of garlic to dry.
• If you want to prepare garlic powder on a large scale then take all the garlic bulbs and remove their outer wrappers. Then chop off the top and bottom portion of each garlic. Arrange all the garlic in dehydrator trays and place them inside the dehydrator. Take the trays out after a few hours. Now peel the cloves. Drying whole garlic makes it easier to peel them and so you can peel large number of garlic in less time. After peeling the cloves, you can use a food processor to slice the garlic.
• After slicing you should keep the garlic to dry. You can either use a dehydrator or keep them in an oven at 135°F. It will take about two to three days for the garlic pieces to dry. Stir them a couple of times a day so that each of the pieces dries evenly.
• The garlic must be dried completely. Check the garlic to see if they are leathery. If so, then set them to dry for more time. Thoroughly dried garlic will be brittle and snap easily.
• After the garlic has dried thoroughly, grind them into powders. For this you can use a blender or small coffee grinders. Make sure that you grind the slices into fine powders. Shift the powder and remove the large pieces. Then grind them again. You can also store dried garlic in jar and keep them in a cool place. Then you can take the dried garlic and grind them to powder as and when required.
• You can now store this garlic in an airtight container and keep it in a dark place.