Garlic is probably my favorite savory food. I’ve eaten it pretty much every night with dinner for the past three or four years. Raw garlic doesn’t make an appearance in my meals very often, just in a couple of sauces, but roasted garlic gets popped in the oven with its smell permeating the house nearly every evening. I love the flavor of garlic and how it complements nearly every protein from fish and beef, to pork and chicken, to even eggs. It can go in pastas, stews, and soups. The possibilities are nearly endless. It’s amazing how quick a whole head of roasted garlic disappears when we are eating prime rib, as those two are a match made in heaven. Plus, it is so easy to make. Cooking time is a little long, but the prep is less than five minutes. Don’t worry about the green centers of the cloves; that’s how it looks on Food Network too. Also, if you can find fresh garlic, rather than the dried grocery store garlic, perhaps even with the green stalk still attached, at your farmers’ markets in the summer, the sweet, mild flavor, and soft, almost starchy, cloves are amazing. Way better than any garlic that comes from the grocery store, I look forward to them all winter long.
But if I’m really honest, I eat garlic because it keeps me healthy. It has been proven to stave off all those pesky illnesses that seem to surround us at all times, and I definitely think it works.
Check out the link for the video below for a primer on garlic and how to roast it, along with a tip on how to get garlic haters to eat it too! Then come back here for the printable recipe. You’ll become a garlic believer just like me, and you’ll probably stay a lot healthier too.
PrintRoasted Garlic
- Total Time: 1 hour 5 minutes
- Yield: 4 1x
Ingredients
- 1 head garlic
- 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil (I love Filippo Berio)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Take a head of garlic and cut off the stem end so that the cloves are visible inside the head after the cut. Place the garlic on a piece of parchment on top of a piece of foil. Drizzle the oil over the cut cloves of garlic. Crumple the foil and parchment around the garlic. Place into oven. Roast for about 1 hour, until the cloves are soft, fragrant, and sweet.
- Unwrap and allow to cool slightly, to avoid burning your hands. Squeeze garlic out of the paper, this should be very easy to do, and use it however you please. Garlic is best served immediately, though it can be stored in the refrigerator for a couple of days in an airtight container.
- Prep Time: 5 mins
- Cook Time: 1 hour
Looks delicious. Another great tip and healthy too!
★★★★★