Easy Roasted Garlic: How to roast garlic

Name: Easy Roasted Garlic
Prep time: 2 min
Total time: 62 min
Yield: 2
Cuisine: Middle Eastern
Ingredients: 1 head garlic; 1 tbsp olive oil

How to roast garlic to obtain a soft, delicate and less pungent spreadable garlic which can be used for garlic bread

by Cory Varga

Updated 21 December 2024

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Roasted garlic is my new obsession. Not sure about you, but I absolutely adore garlic bread. When I lived in the UK, I'd have garlic bread daily. My mum used to always make me garlic bread for breakfast. She would make it using fresh garlic and vegan butter on a rustic baguette. Delicious, but I'm sure we can all agree that homemade garlic bread tends to be a lot more pungent than the store-bought one. It's very likely the fact that we use chopped garlic which does tend to have a stronger flavour.

Freshly homemade garlic bread for breakfast sure keeps every one else away for the rest of the day. Coming to think of it, maybe this was mum's genius idea of making sure no boy gets close to me.

Roasted garlic in the oven

Here I am, 12 years later, with a solution to this whole "too pungent" garlic bread problem. What if, we could use the garlic as an actual spread on the warm bread? Did your mind just explode? No, seriously, let me tell you why you will become obsessed with roasted garlic. Not only it's soft and spreadable (spreadable garlic, everyone!!!) but it's also sweet and delicate in flavour. Say goodbye that garlic breath and say hello to garlic bread.

Let's talk about garlic

Garlic is native to Central Asia and northeastern Iran. It's been used as a common seasoning for a very long period of time, worldwide. Garlic was used as a seasoning as well as traditional medicine by the ancient Egyptians, for example, and we do know that nowadays 80% of the whole garlic production comes from China.

Garlic has many culinary uses and research still tries to determine its specific medical impacts. We do know that it's been used in religious and spiritual contexts as well. It's also been prevalent in functional scenarios, known to be a great weapon against vampires. In rural places like Transylvania, you will find garlic braids above people's main doors.

Raw garlic does not provide significant nutritional value. Its composition is 59% water, 33% carbohydrates, 6% protein, 2% dietary fibre, and less than 1% fat. [1]

Two heads of garlic being prepared to go in the oven for roasting

Smelly garlic, be smelly no more

If you want a strong, pungent flavour, then it's best to finely chop your garlic. You can crush the garlic with a knife or mince it. I personally like using crushed garlic in all my Italian dishes. I sometimes use a garlic press or my pestle and mortar which I love.

But if you want your garlic to be less pungent and rather sweet, then roasting your garlic is the solution. The result will be sweet, soft and delicate garlic, ready to be spread on your bread.

Wrap garlic in aluminium foil and brush with olive oil

How to roast garlic

Roasting garlic is actually super easy. All you need is garlic and a little olive oil.

Preheat your oven to 200C or 390F. Carefully peel the outer layer of the garlic skin. Make sure the bulbs remain intact and still have at least one layer of skin to keep them together.

Chop the top of the garlic knob, enough to reveal the gorgeous garlic cloves.

Using a pastry brush, brush the garlic knob with a little olive oil.

If you don't have a brush, place the garlic knob on an aluminium foil and scrunch it a little around the garlic. You can drizzle olive oil over it this way. Alternatively, you can drizzle some olive oil over the garlic knob and using your hands you can carefully massage the olive oil all around it.

Two bulbs of roasted garlic

Place the garlic knobs in a little aluminium foil and wrap them. You can place the garlic knobs wrapped in aluminium foil directly into the oven or on a baking tray. I personally prefer using a baking tray in case some of the olive oil sips through and makes a mess in the oven.

Bake the garlic for one hour. The result should be nice and soft. You can squeeze the garlic clove out and because it's soft and moist, you can spread it directly on the bread.

Delicious roasted garlic fresh out of the oven

I found that the best way to serve roasted garlic is on warm crusty bread with a little fresh parsley or cilantro on top. Make sure you add a pinch of salt and you are good to go.

Are you ready to try this sweet, delicious and delicately flavoured roasted garlic? Do you find it less pungent than fresh garlic when used for garlic bread? Let me know in the comments section below.

This recipe has been developed entirely by Yuzu Bakes. Any resemblance with other recipes is purely coincidental.