Homemade Garlic Oil - Tip of the Day

by Monika Bartyzel, Posted Jul 16th 2009 @ 9:00AM

Fancy garlic oil might go for $10 to $20 at a gourmet store, but you can make it yourself for a fraction of the price.

Garlic.
Photo: FotoosVanRobin, Flickr

There's no reason to spend so much on something so simple. Just as the name suggests, garlic oil is a mixture of that wonderfully flavorful onion relative and some decent-quality olive oil -- plus a dash of herbs and peppercorns. The ingredients are thrown into a pan, baked and strained. That's it!

Experimental cooks can get creative with proportions, while recipe-following lads and ladies can use this technique from Epicurious. Does 3 cups of oil seem like too much? Then just downsize the recipe from heads to cloves, decrease the oil, and bake the mixture in a smaller oven-safe vessel. Voila -- fancy garlic oil without breaking the bank.

Filed Under: Tip of the Day
Tags: garlic, garlic oil, GarlicOil, oil, roasted garlic, RoastedGarlic

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Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

7-16-2009 @6:11PM Matt said... Yeah...don't do this.

Garlic, like many plants and the air around us, can contain Clostridium botulinum, the spore that produces the botulism toxin. Fortunately, air kills it. Unfortunately, infusing garlic into oil gives it the anaerobic (oxygen-free) environment that the spore needs to thrive and excrete the toxin. Twenty years ago, the FDA recalled all garlic-in-oil preparations that didn't have an acid included to kill botulism.

Mark Bittman did this same thing at the New York Times a week ago, and he was just as wrong—while most herbs when washed and dried are just fine, garlic is much more likely to contain the botulism spores, and the anaerobic environment gives them what they need.

The link above says to discard all infusions after one week, or sooner if listed danger signs appear. Even then, it advises adding one tablespoon of food acid (vinegar or lemon juice, nothing weaker) to each cup of oil while you're heating the oil or even a week may be too long.

Commercial garlic oils are pressure-infused, with technology that's not available at home (do not use a home pressure cooker filled with oil!), so they're shelf-stable for months or years. Home infusions of herbs and spices can last a while in the fridge, but garlic is the one no-no in this area. If you infuse garlic oil, use it within 24 hours and keep it fully refrigerated for all that time.

Yeah, this may be too cautious, and you may not get botulism, like you may not get salmonella from raw eggs. But salmonella-inspired food poisoning is a walk in the park compared to botulism, and it's just not worth the risk.

So if you want 3 tbsp of garlic oil for a recipe, mince/press a clove of garlic and heat it in a small skillet over low heat with 3 tbsp of olive oil (or whatever oil you choose to use), never letting it brown, and then strain the oil and use it. You can be a little more free with herbs and spices, but not with garlic—but since it's really easy to make what you want when you need it (it only takes about 15 minutes), you don't need to worry about storage.
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7-16-2009 @6:12PM Matt said... Ugh, the HTML for emphasis and the link got stripped out. Here's the link about recalls for botulism in garlic oil and some suggestions for safely infusing oils:

http://www.ext.colostate.edu/safefood/newsltr/v2n4s08.html
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