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Making Garlic Flavored Olive Oil

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I've been doing quite a bit of cooking with garlic and olive oil lately.  One of my favorite techniques involves getting the flavor out of fresh garlic into olive oil very quickly.  Basically, all you do is this:

  1. Crush a few garlic cloves, using the side of a large knife or a garlic crusher.
  2. Finely mince the garlic.
  3. Place the minced garlic in a microwavable bowl with some olive oil. How much you use is of course going to depend on what you are cooking.
  4. Microwave the mixture for about 10 seconds on high power.
Microwaving this way really pulls the flavor out of the garlic, and into the oil.  You will definitely be able to smell the difference once it comes out of the microwave oven. 

 You can use this mixture any way to you like to bring olive oil and garlic flavoring to anything. For example, you can see how this is used in the recipe for Garlic Chicken.

You can also make garlic rolls this way, by coating freshly baked rolls with this oil mixture, and then sprinkling on some Italian seasonings along with some salt. There is an Italian restaurant in the area where I live that makes rolls in a similar fashion. They are a bit greasy, but very good!

There are probably countless ways of using garlic-flavored olive oil. Invent your own!

Storage and Safety

To avoid potential food poisoning caused by botulism, it's best to prepare this mixture fresh and use immediately, throwing away the unused portion.  If you must store some of it, put the unused portion in the refrigerator immediately, and be sure to use it within a few days.    Never store it at room temperature. Throw away any unused oil after it has been in the refrigerator a week. You may not be able to tell if the mixture has spoiled, since it will look and smell the same. 

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Chen on 2012-07-28

Very excellent written article.

Anonymous User on 2012-04-22

I cook with coconut oil or tutber more than 90% of the time. I never cook with olive oil. I only used it as a dressing.The smoke point is only used to determine when the oil will start to smoke. If olive oil has a smoke point of 350 degrees it does NOT mean that you can cook with it at a temperature of up to 350 degrees.Just keep it simple folks. Cook with saturated fat its stable. Coconut oil, tutber, ghee and tallow or lard if you want.Use olive oil as a dressing. I LOVE sesame oil awesome flavors but just drizzle that on some foods a little goes a long ways!