Negatives of jarred garlic The garlicky flavor is not as strong as fresh raw garlic. It has a stigma, and your foodie friends will always hold against you. It can develop an off putting odor and flavor after it’s been open for too long – so be sure to keep an eye on the expiration date.
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Generally, I’m not the kind of home cook that hates to do a bunch of involved prep work for a recipe. In fact, there’s often nothing I find more meditative than chopping a mirepoix for soup, taking care to make sure that each cube of vegetable is roughly uniform. And mostly, I don’t even mind the tedious task of mincing garlic, which I use copiously in basically every recipe. But when I’m exhausted after a long day, or too depressed to make a really involved meal, I resort to jarred garlic, or as I call it, jarlic.
For years, I was a garlic snob. I started arguments with my roommate over the ever-present jar of pre-minced garlic in our refrigerator, insisting that it was totally inferior to the garlic I’d just spent 20 minutes peeling and chopping. In my mind, the watery garlic had a metallic taste from its extensive processing and just wasn’t quite as garlicky as the fresh stuff. But in the fugue state that was the earliest stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, I totally abandoned my snobbery as grocery shortages made even the most ubiquitous ingredients difficult to find. In a burst of desperation, I purchased a jar of Badia minced garlic packed in olive oil, and I haven’t looked back since.
I’d be lying if I said that TikTok didn’t play at least a minor role in my change of heart. My feed is, perhaps not surprisingly, dominated by food videos of all kinds, my favorite of which come from home cooks making their beloved family recipes. In my hours of scrolling, I noticed that almost all of these homespun creators were tossing massive heaps of pre-minced garlic into their dishes. At first I was pretty grossed out, but the recipes themselves often looked so compelling. And if pre-minced garlic is good enough for the Mississippi Kween, who’s racked up millions of views for her easy-to-prepare meals, it’s good enough for me.
After a couple of days sitting in my refrigerator unopened, I threw a scoop of the Badia garlic into some green beans and was pleasantly surprised when the scent of buttery garlic wafted throughout the room. I tasted one of the tiny minced cubes on its own, and it was fine. My stir-fried green beans were just as tasty as they usually are, with extremely minimal effort. I even drizzled a little of the oil over the beans, which intensified the garlicky flavor. From there, I found even more uses for jarlic. It worked great in creamy salad dressings, where I only wanted a hint of garlic, and blended easily into dips like hummus.
Before my conversion to jarlic, my friends had described my garlic stance as “elitist,” and it’s a totally accurate charge. Ingredient snobs can often fail to recognize that convenience ingredients like jarred garlic can be invaluable for people of all kinds, including those with disabilities that make cooking a challenge and those who may not be able to afford keeping their kitchens stocked with fresh produce. The perception is that many of the swaps that people have to make to put dinner on the table make their food inferior, but more often than not, using an ingredient like jarred garlic isn’t going to make any real difference in the dish’s final form. Even if it’s muted, there’s still garlic flavor there, and that’s all you need. In the worst case scenario, you just add a little more garlic. It really is that simple.
It’s important to note that there are many different brands of prepared garlic, and some are better than others. Garlic stored in water tends to be, well, water-logged. A key exception to this rule is the tiny frozen cubes of garlic that can be found in your grocery store’s freezer section — those have a pretty potent flavor, and last forever. Fresh garlic pastes, typically found in the produce department, are also a decent choice, but the first brand I tried, Badia’s olive oil-packed minced garlic, reigns supreme in my experience.
And to be sure, there are plenty of applications in which I wouldn’t use pre-minced garlic if I had the choice. If I’m trying to make pasta aglio e olio, I’m going to take the time to tediously shave super-thin slices of garlic to toss with my pasta. Nothing can substitute the flavor of garlic heads roasted whole, then spread over a warm and crusty loaf of bread. But for the kind of everyday cooking that most of us are doing to keep ourselves fed, jarlic will do just fine.
Grocery store minced garlic is a food product of convenience that is just not that convenient—and certainly not that tasty. At this very moment, pre-minced garlic is 0-2 in our book. Fresh garlic? That stuff remains undefeated.
The minute you slice, crush, grate, or chop garlic, the flavor starts to change. Garlic develops strong, bitter, sharp flavors when the cell walls of the bulb are broken. This is a defense mechanism, like deflecting a valid critique of your character by turning it into a joke. When this sharp flavor develops and then sits, it becomes more unpleasant, which is exactly what’s happening in that jar of minced garlic. The more it hangs around, the less it tastes like the sweet, spicy, assertive garlic we know and love.
Real talk: This supposed product of convenience isn’t really saving you much time at all. If you needed 3 cups of garlic for the largest batch of pasta sauce you’ve ever made, sure, we get it.
Also, pre-minced garlic is actually not just garlic. These containers of garlic have added ingredients, like citric acid and phosphoric acid, to help stabilize the garlic as it sits on grocery store shelves. And, as another stabilization technique, most brands will pasteurize the garlic, heating it to kill any unwanted microorganisms. This sounds like a good thing in terms of food safety, but when it comes to fresh ingredients, we like ours to be alive. There’s more vibrance and flavor in a freshly peeled clove than there is in a pasteurized garlic cube.
But really, we don’t mince garlic all that much after all. Chopped garlic is a pain in the ass. We co-sign techniques like smashing cloves with the flat side of a knife or grating garlic with a Microplane, both of which take very little time.
You Should Never Use Minced Garlic From A Jar. Here’s Why.
FAQ
Why does minced garlic in a jar taste different?
Can you use jar minced garlic instead of cloves?
How long does jarred minced garlic last after opening?
Is there a jar of minced garlic in a restaurant kitchen?
There’s a reason (several in fact) that you’ll never find a jar of minced garlic in a restaurant kitchen, and why most reputable chefs and cooks will tell you to stick to the fresh stuff.
Are garlic pills as effective as fresh garlic?
The literature does not present data identifying if garlic pills offer similar benefits as fresh garlic. It is recommended to have variety within one’s diet to gain nutritional benefits from different foods including garlic.
How long does minced garlic last in a jar?
The pasteurization process allows a jar of minced garlic to sit on a store shelf for over a year, but the amount of flavor lost in the process ultimately makes it an inferior ingredient next to vibrant, living, fresh garlic.
Does a jar of minced garlic contain liquid?
When buying a jar of minced garlic, you’ll notice that the garlic is packed with liquid. We looked at the ingredient lists for two major minced garlic brands to see what was actually in the jar. Both Goya and Spice World pack minced garlic with water, and Spice World offers a minced garlic that’s also soaked in olive oil as well as water.