Stock Your Freezer with these Smoked Garlic Cloves

Smoked garlic is a little sweet, a little earthy, and adds a subtle smokiness to any dish you add it to. It lies somewhere between sweet and soft roasted garlic and punchy pungent raw garlic. This is a kitchen staple at my home. Something I always have on hand in my freezer. It’s easy to grab one or two cloves at a time and mince them directly from frozen. Add these convenient peeled smoked garlic cloves to any dish you would use regular raw garlic and be amazed by how it transforms your cooking.

How To Make Smoked Garlic

1. Buy a 2-3 lb bag of peeled garlic cloves. You could peel your own, but trust me, you don’t want to! Peeled garlic cloves are available in quantities like this from Costco or Sams Club. Some grocery stores now carry smaller quantities of peeled cloves which you could also use and just make a smaller batch.
2. Preheat the smoker to 180-200 F.
3. Place the garlic cloves in 1-2 tin foil pans. You don’t want to pile them up too high. Using the flat side of a rolling pin, or a can, or a mallet of some sort, gently crush the cloves. You want to make some cracks in them to increase surface area and smoke absorption but you don’t want to pulverize them. It’s ok if some escape the mallet. This sounds easier than it is. You may want to place them on a cutting board to crush first and then transfer them to the pans. Whatever works for you.
4. Using a skewer or toothpick, poke holes all over in the bottom of the tinfoil pan.
5. Place the garlic cloves on the smoker and smoke for 2-4 hours until desired smokiness, stirring every 45 minutes or so. Cooked at a low temperature, these garlic cloves will still be pretty hard and retain some of the kick of raw garlic. If you would like softer, sweeter garlic cloves simply drizzle the cloves with a little oil and raise the smoker temperature to 350 F for an additional 20-30 minutes.
6. Remove the garlic cloves from the smoker. Allow the garlic to cool all the way. Place them in a zip lock back and freeze. Turn the bag every hour while freezing so cloves don’t stick together. If you have an abundance of freezer space you can place the pans in the freezer and then transfer them to a bag once completely frozen for convenient “IQF” (Individually Quick Frozen) Smoked Garlic Cloves.

Here’s a tip…

I like to load up the smoker for max efficiency, especially when doing long low-temp smokes. In this batch, I have 5 lbs of The Best Dry-Cured Bacon with Maple, Garlic, and Thyme and a whole chicken (which is just out of the picture), plus 2 pans of smoked garlic which I gave away as holiday presents and used to stock my freezer.

Notice the bacon is dripping onto the garlic? Because why not…bacon drippings are delicious! What better way to capture and use them?

I’d love to hear how you use these smoked garlic cloves in the comments section!