Smoked Garlic
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Smoked garlic is an incredibly easy, 2 ingredient recipe for your smoker. Use this smoked garlic recipe to transform your garlic to mellow, smoky, garlicky perfection.
Garlic is good for more than just keeping vampires at bay! We use it in almost every savoury dish that gets prepared in our kitchen!
We’ve all had roasted garlic, but have you had smoked garlic?
Smoking garlic creates cloves with a mellow garlic flavour and a smoky aroma. Smoked garlic can be used in any recipe that calls for garlic, and it will only improve it!
This smoked garlic recipe is dedicated to more than just vampires.
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Tips + Tricks
No. 1 –> When chopping the top off your garlic be very cautious! Garlic bulbs will tend to roll around while cutting, so use a nice sharp knife and if you’re having trouble, switch to a serrated knife.
No. 2 –> Skip the tin foil for this recipe. Roasted garlic is made by wrapping the garlic in foil, this is counterproductive when smoking garlic – we want MORE smoke penetration so the foil is added ONLY at the end of the cook.
No. 3 –> I always make a large batch of smoked garlic, keep a few cloves in the fridge for immediate use and freeze the remainder. See directions below!
Key Ingredients
- Garlic: Can’t smoke garlic without the garlic! For this recipe, you want to choose firm, fresh garlic. Since we are smoking the whole bulb, give it a squeeze, if it kind of collapses on you, it’s probably not fresh enough.
- Olive oil: Adding a drizzle of oil to the top of these garlic bulbs helps to keep them moist, add a bit of extra richness if you mash them, and add a bit of extra flavour to them.
How to make smoked garlic
- Preheat smoker to 180f.
- Slice the top off the garlic bulbs, just enough to expose the top of the cloves. This is best done with a sharp knife, and may even need a serrated knife to get a clean cut.
- Place the cut garlic bulbs on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
- Drizzle or brush the top of the bulbs with olive oil.
- Place the baking sheets directly on the middle rack of your smoker.
- Smoke the garlic at 180f for 1 hour.
- Increase the temperature to 275f and smoke for 1 hour.
- Wrap the baking sheets in foil and smoke at 275f for a further 30 minutes.
- Remove the baking sheets from the grill and allow to cool before removing the cloves from the bulb. It’s easiest to carefully peel the outside of the bulbs by pulling down from the cut edge and then pulling out the clove.
How to use smoked garlic
Smoked garlic can be used in any recipes that call for garlic, simply chop the cloves to the desired size and add to your recipe – like Next Level Mashed Potatoes, Instant Pot Spaghetti and Meatballs, or Loaded Guacamole!
This delicious garlic can also be mashed into a paste and spread on bread, crackers or toast. Mashed smoked garlic can be stirred into butter for a smoky garlic butter spread – hello garlic bread or used as a rub for your meat!
Storage information
Garlic and botulism are buds, so we need to be very carful about storing our garlic.
This smoked garlic can be kept in the fridge in a clean, air tight jar for 3-4 days.
If you have a surplus of garlic, simply lay the cloves on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and freeze until firm. Pop the frozen cloves into a freezer bag and freeze until ready to use!
The frozen cloves can be thawed at room temperature, added to your recipes frozen or even heated in the microwave.
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Recommended Equipiment
Smoker – Kevy and I purchased a TRAEGER TIMBERLINE 1300 in June 2019. Our life has changed! It’s such a great machine – we’ve run thousands of pounds of pellets through it and would buy it again and again!
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📖 Printable Recipe
Smoked Garlic
Ingredients
- 16 bulbs garlic
- ¼ cup olive oil
Instructions
- Preheat smoker to 180f.
- Slice the top off the garlic bulbs, just enough to expose the top of the cloves. This is best done with a sharp knife, and may even need a serrated knife to get a clean cut.
- Place the cut garlic bulbs on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
- Drizzle or brush the top of the bulbs with olive oil.
- Place the baking sheets directly on the middle rack of your smoker.
- Smoke the garlic at 180f for 1 hour.
- Increase the temperature to 275f and smoke for 1 hour.
- Wrap the baking sheets in foil and smoke at 275f for a further 30 minutes.
- Remove the baking sheets from the grill and allow to cool before removing the cloves from the bulb. To remove, peel the outside of the bulbs by pulling down from the cut edge and then pulling out the clove.
Recommended Equipment + Ingredients
Nutrition
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Perfect Recipe…garlic came out amazing. Thank you so much for this.
So glad you like it! Smoked garlic has become a major staple in this house!
I have a bunch of garlic that I split apart – still in the papery skin – can I smoke it like that or does it need to be in bulbs. Thanks!
This is a good question. I would toss them in oil and give it a whirl! Smoke them uncovered a bit shorter of a time, though cause you’d hate to inadvertently dehydrate them!
I have a Traeger pellet smoker, which pellets do you recommend? I’ve found a little fresh produce store that sells smoked garlic and want to try my hand at them. Cheers
Hey Steve! Sorry for the late reply – we were on vacation!
I generally use Lumberjack Competition blend pellets for most smoking projects. I find them to be a good all around pellet. I’ll switch them out for applewood or something if I’m making smoked cheese or homemade bacon, but for this recipe, a blend would be perfect!
It is an Internet fiction that “Garlic and botulism are buds”. C. botulinum is ubiquitous in the environment, but since it is a soil bacterium, it may particularly be present on any root vegetables, such as carrots, not just garlic.
It cannot grow in an oxygen rich environment, so it is important not to store foods in oxygen-poor conditions, such as vacuum packing or under oil, at room temperature or for more than a week or so in the fridge (depends on your fridge temperature, if it is low enough you can go longer, see Baldwin).
This fiction arose because people have an insatiable desire to make garlic-infused olive oil and store it at room temperature, which is a food safety risk (although botulism cases due to this are incredibly rare). But the same would apply to carrot-infused oil too (or basically any foodstuff).
Very interesting, I did not know that. I assumed that all root vegetables or veggies that come into contact with the soil are more likely to have botulism spores.