Fresh garlic is the starting point of countless savory recipes. Check out our favorite ways to peel garlic using the crush and shake methods. Super easy and perfect for a variety of meals!
How To Peel Garlic
This is the first post in a series of our favorite cooking tips + tricks in the kitchen!
Fresh garlic is the starting point of countless savory recipes. From pasta sauces to soups, it’s always a good idea to keep a stash of garlic in the kitchen. Knowing how to peel fresh garlic will get you cooking in no time. Here are two ways to peel garlic quickly and easily.
Watch How To Peel Garlic
How To Peel Garlic: Crush Method
Crushing garlic is quick and can be incorporated into your normal cooking prep seamlessly. All you need is garlic and a chef’s knife.
Step 1: Loosen up the head of garlic. Separate the cloves and pull aside however many cloves you need.
Step 2: Place one clove on the cutting board.
Step 3: Position the flat side of your knife on top of the clove of garlic, holding the handle tightly. Place the heel of your other hand on the flat side of the knife and push down firmly until you hear a crunch.
Step 4: Pull of the loosened skin of the garlic clove and discard. Slice, chop, or mince the garlic as needed. You can also use a garlic press if you want to make it easy on yourself. Repeat with remaining garlic cloves.
This crush method of peeling garlic is quick and perfect for when you need just a few cloves of peeled garlic.
How To Peel Garlic: Shake Method
Shaking garlic is surprisingly effective and uses a standard quart-size mason jar.
Step 1: Loosen up the head of garlic and place all the cloves into a quart size mason jar. Screw the lid on tightly.
Step 2: Shake vigorously for about 15-20 seconds. Take a look at the garlic to see if most of the cloves have been peeled. Shake for a few more seconds if necessary.
Step 3: Unscrew the lid and pour garlic cloves onto cutting board. Separate the skins for the cloves. Chop, mince, slice garlic as needed.
This shake method of peeling garlic is a quick way to peel large amounts of garlic all at one time.
How To Store Peeled Garlic:
Peeled garlic can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for about 3-5 days. Check for signs of spoilage before using.
For longer storage, spread garlic on a sheet pan and freeze for 1 hour. Transfer frozen cloves to an airtight container for up to 6 months. Note: Freezing garlic can change the texture of the garlic.
How To Remove Garlic Smell From Hands:
Garlic tastes amazing, but can leave your hands smelling pretty pungent. To remove garlic smell from your hands, wet your hands and rub them on a stainless steel surface. This can be the inside of a sink, a big stainless steel pot, or even a stainless steel bar of soap made especially for this purpose.
Related Tools:
These are affiliate links to share the stuff we love! ♡
Garlic Press – We love our garlic press! Makes perfectly minced garlic, sans smelly hands.
Cutting Board – This is our all-time favorite go-to cutting board in the kitchen.
Mason Jar – If you’re going the shake method route! Also useful for about a million other things in the kitchen.
Stainless Steel Soap Bar – For when you love the smell of garlic but just not on your hands. 🤗
Recipes For Garlic Lovers:
Basic Garlic Butter Tomato Sauce
Garlic Herb Spaghetti with Chicken Meatballs
Sheet Pan Garlic Ginger Chicken and Broccoli
Chili Garlic Instant Pot Noodles
Garlic Butter Capellini Pomodoro with Shrimp
Spring Roll Bowls with Sweet Garlic Lime Sauce
Garlic Basil Chicken with Tomato Butter Sauce
Spicy Shrimp with Cauliflower Mash and Garlic Kale
Filed Under: All Recipes How-Tos
November 5, 2018
Hi, I'm Emily!
Video Specialist at Pinch of Yum. Loves being creative with food, drinking coffee all day, and living in the Midwest with her family.
To me every meal must have either onion or garlic. And my father in law can’t stand any of them… so I can’t cook anything but desserts for him to eat. Luckily we share meals only for special occasions.
Nice post…
garlic pro tip: let’s admit it, most people find peeling garlic to be a serious hassle. Here is a way around that. Buy a large bag of peeled garlic. Costco has I think 3 pound bags for around nine dollars. Pour all in a large tall sided lasagna type baking pan. Glug in about a cup and a half of cheap olive oil and some salt and pepper. Roast at about 375 for an hour or so, turning every 15 minutes. Try not to let them burn on the bottom. When they get soft and mushy, poor off the all of oil and save it, you have amazing garlic flavored oil to cook with. Take the garlic, And press it into an old ice cube tray or Styrofoam egg crate or some other kind of small mold, and freeze them. Now you have frozen golf ball sized hunks of frozen garlic that you can put it in just about anything That needs garlic.
20 sec’ in the microwave will do the trick also.. easy peeling after a little cool down..
Awesome and wonderful!!
My father is a cook and it’s one of the first things he showed me as a teenager when I started cooking. A friend recently came over to my house (we’re almost 30) and said she hated peeling garlic and that it was her least favourite part of cooking…which really surprised me, until I realised this wasn’t common knowledge! So I showed her the crushing technique and changed her life haha
Awesome! Love that!
What a great post! When I first saw the title I thought I know how to peel garlic, so in my pride I was just going to past over you post. I so happy I didn’t because I would’t have learned something new today. I did not know about the mason jar and shaking method. I ferment garlic cloves, usually 8-10 heads at a time, so this new method will save me so much time. I love your blog and recipes, so many of them have become family favorites.
Thank you so very much for sharing your experiences and knowledge on your blog.
So glad to hear that, Charlotte!
Great article. We use garlic in every meal. I recently wrote some top 8 cooking tips that my mum taught me, and one of them was all about garlic. Thanks for sharing.
Here it is.
http://www.zestandzing.co.uk/blogs/7spices/foodie-top-tips-simple-healthy-cooking
Ever since I found out about the shaking method I don’t ever peel a garlic any other way.
It is the BEST.
Haven’t you people ever heard of a garlic press?
When I came back to this post to see if I had any replies I noticed the garlic press note under “related tools”–“We love our garlic press!” Huh? If so, why all the angst about how to peel garlic? Just use your paring knife to cut off the hard top of the clove and pull down/off a strip of the peel, put the clove peeled side down into the press, and . . . press. You do have to clean out the press after each clove or two, but that’s pretty easy. If you want a big batch of roasted garlic, then of course you don’t peel it until afterwards, when you just squish out the roasted garlic between your fingers. So . . . I’m very puzzled!
Garlic isn’t always ideal in paste form after being crushed. Sometimes you dice it, chop it, use a whole clove to infuse oil, microplane… if you only use garlic after pressing it, you’re not using garlic to it’s full potential.
I find that just putting my hands under cold running water, finger tips down, without rubbing them, is enough to remove the garlic smell. The “not rubbing” part is key here 😉
These 2 methods of peeling garlic are very interesting. I have tried the Crush method of peeling garlic and it makes the work in kitchen very easy. The second method is found to be very interesting. I would like to give it a try.
Excellent Idea for how to peel garlic… Thank you for share this Post.
20 sec’ in the microwave will do the trick also.. easy peeling after a little cool down..
To me every meal must have either onion or garlic.
Excellent Idea for how to peel garlic…
Finally, I know how to do it. I always stuck at this thing, you save so much of my time and prevent me from my Mom’s scolding. Thanks
I am so loving the mason jar method for peeling large amounts of garlic at once. Most certainly will try that. I also learned from one of my Caribbean friends to just put some garlic in your hands and rub them together and it’s quick and easy and peels right off and I have not noticed any smell.