Garlic is a quintessential ingredient for Chinese cooking. Today let’s take a look at how we can store garlic for weeks, months, and even a whole year.
1. Store whole garlic blubs at room temperature.
When you purchase garlic, pick the one that is firm and dry.
Store the garlic in dark, cool, low to medium humidity, room temperature. The best temperature to store garlic is between 60-65 degrees F.
Also, provide the garlic with good air circulation. So you can put the garlic in anything with ventilation holes, mesh bags, or even paper bags, but not plastic bags.
Under these conditions, the garlic should be fresh for up to 6 months.
Broken bulbs, under the above conditions, will only last up to 10 days.
2. Store peeled garlic in an airtight container in the fridge.
Refrigerating a whole garlic bulb is a bad idea as it causes garlic to deteriorate. It also adds moisture to it and therefore grows mold on it.
But once the garlic is peeled, it’s best to store it in an airtight container in the fridge. It will stay fresh for up to 3 weeks.
If your garlic sprouts, you can still eat it, but the taste will change. If you don’t want to eat it after it sprouts, you can plant it in soil and grow more garlic.
3. Freeze garlic in a Ziploc bag.
You can also freeze the peeled, smashed, chopped, sliced, or minced garlic in a Ziploc bag. Place the bag in your freezer. Write today’s date on it. It will last up to 1 year.
However, the texture of the garlic will be softened after thawed. The taste will remain strong. You can still use it in all kinds of cooking.
4. Freeze garlic in vegetable oil.
Place peeled, smashed, chopped, sliced, or minced garlic in an ice cube tray. Pour vegetable oil in it.
It will stay fresh for up to 4 months.
When you need to stir-fry. You can just place one cube of oil on your wok or pan.
