This post has tips on Freezing Garlic and Making Minced Garlic for the Freezer so you can stop buying minced garlic in a jar! It’s true that minced garlic in a jar is handy, but those little jars of garlic can be pricey if you use a lot of garlic!

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Freezing Garlic (Making Minced Garlic for the Freezer), photo of square photo of frozen minced garlic cubes sealed in bag.

I know some of you are total garlic purists who’d never use anything but freshly peeled and minced garlic, and those people won’t need this tip. I do use fresh garlic for any dish where I want that sharp garlic flavor, and love my little garlic chopper when I need to chop a lot quickly.

But for lots of recipes, especially when the garlic is going to be simmered in a sauce, soup, or stew, I like the convenience of pre-peeled garlic cloves, or (gasp) even minced garlic in a jar. What I don’t like is paying too much money for little jars of minced garlic that only last a week or two!

So that’s why I started making my own pre-minced garlic for the freezer, using the peeled garlic cloves from Costco that I love so much. This post will show you my tips on Freezing Garlic and Making Minced Garlic for the Freezer.

What garlic do I use when I’m freezing garlic?

Christopher Ranch Garlic Cloves in bag

I’m a fan of these Christopher Ranch Garlic Cloves, and buy them at Costco. (This product used to come in a jar.) I can’t use this big bag of garlic cloves before they start to go bad in the fridge, so I came up with the idea of mincing the garlic and freezing it. (Christopher Ranch has no idea I’m recommending their garlic and they haven’t paid me to promote it here!)

More General Tips for Freezing Garlic:

  • Most sources say garlic will stay good for up to six months in the freezer, but when I seal it in plastic using my FoodSaver, I’ve been able to keep it much longer than that.
  • If you don’t want everything in your freezer to smell like garlic, it’s important to put the frozen cubes of minced garlic in a container with an air tight lid. Or if you have the FoodSaver Vacuum Sealer (affiliate link) that’s the absolute best way to seal the garlic in plastic so it’s air tight and will last longer without your freezer smelling like garlic.
  • You can also freeze the minced garlic cubes in a Ziploc bag, although I don’t think it’s quite as air-tight as sealing it with the FoodSaver.
  • You can also freeze whole peeled garlic cloves on a cookie sheet and then store them in the freezer. But personally I don’t prefer this method because the garlic cloves will be softer when they thaw. I think it’s easier to mince the garlic before it’s been frozen.

Steps for How to Make Minced Garlic for the Freezer

Steps for Making and Freezing Minced Garlic:

  1. I minced the garlic in my Cuisinart Food Processor (affiliate link) fitted with the steel blade.  I wanted chunky minced garlic, so I pulsed the machine on and off until I had the texture I wanted.  You could let it go longer for garlic puree.
  2. I chopped up about half the bag of garlic cloves, which just filled this mini-muffin tin (affiliate link) and I froze the garlic in this muffin tin overnight. Each little ball of garlic is 2-3 tablespoons of minced garlic.
  3. You can also also use an ice-cube tray to freeze the garlic, although a plastic ice cube tray will absorb the garlic smell.
  4. When the garlic was frozen hard I sealed all the little cubes of frozen garlic into a bag, using my FoodSaver Vacuum Sealing Machine. (affiliate link) Then the whole package went back into the freezer. (Label it so you know when you put it in there!)
  5. When I need to use some minced garlic, I cut open the bag and take out two cubes at a time, which I store in a little jar in the fridge. Reseal the bag with the rest of the garlic and put it back into the freezer.
  6. The frozen-and-thawed minced garlic will keep in the fridge for a little over a week, and I like the idea that it doesn’t have any preservatives, which the expensive jars of minced garlic often contain.

Minced garlic ready for the freezer

More Freezing Tips on my Site:

Blogger Disclosures:

All the kitchen gadgets or products mentioned in this post are things I purchased myself or received as a gift from a friend, and none of these companies know that I am mentioning their product on my blog.

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