The Freezer Garlic Trick You’ll Wish You Had Known Forever Ago

There are two types of people in this world: those who automatically at least triple the amount of garlic called for in a recipe and those who hate flavor. (Okay, plus maybe a few others who are allergic to alliums. Your life is rough enough; we don’t want to leave you out).

But the point is, garlic is wonderful and incredible and makes everything taste amazing, which is why we all continue to use it in enormous quantities despite its resounding ability to be a total pain in the ass to prep. Thankfully, the world is full of tricks and hacks for peeling garlic, and now TikTok brings up a new idea for how to freeze your garlic so you have it always ready at hand. 

The video begins by saying you have to peel “a boatload of garlic.” You can pick between Martha’s method, the microwave method, the martini shaker method, Nadiya’s hot water trick, or your own favorite way to get that pesky skin off. Then you load up the food processor with the cloves and “blend it until it looks like a paste.” Then, as with most ingredients you freeze, you put it into plastic bags for storing in the freezer.

But then comes the cool trick that makes it easy to grab just what you need while also not taking up much freezer space: After you load the bag, you flatten it down, then partition it into about clove-size squares using a knife — not cutting through the bag, just basically scoring the garlic paste so it is easy to break off in whatever quantity you need it.

The video says you can keep it up to three months, which makes it a cool trick for people who want to prep ahead, though it doesn’t really increase the storage life of garlic — as those of us who buy the giant Costco bags of garlic can tell you, properly stored garlic — kept as a whole head in a dry, dark place — can last almost twice that long.