Can I mince garlic in advance?

Question

I really hate mincing garlic in tiny batches for each dish. Is there any way to mince many bulbs in advance and store them for a week or more?

Answer 1

Mince fine a large quantity of garlic in the food processor and freeze it in ice cube trays. When solid move the cubes to a freezer bag.

My Indian friends mince garlic and ginger together and freeze it this way.

Answer 2

This was a really big thing to do a few years back. Problem was that people would mince it and then store it in oil which is an oxygen free environment. You'd think that was a good thing until we realized that garlic seems to have a higher chance of botulism and botulism loves oxygen free environments. Very nasty!

Best thing to do is just peel your cloves and store them in an air tight container so they don't dry out too much. When you need garlic use a garlic press or mince them then. It'll taste better too.

Answer 3

My small Korean family goes through what can only be measured as pounds of garlic in a week. Most Korean foods that require garlic (hah, more like most korean foods require garlic!) want the garlic to be chopped up rather than in cloves. So my mother tends to buy 10-15lb bags of cloves, trims the ends, and blends the cloves in a food processor until they resemble coarsely chopped garlic. She would err on the side of almost pureed garlic, but I personally like my big pieces of garlic :)

If she didn't save a lot of money by buying garlic cloves in bulk, she'd buy the local Korean market's freshly minced garlic in containers like http://www.koreanhomefood.com/?p=573.

If you are planning to go this route, you can easily store minced garlic in an airtight container for a week, no oil required.