Yes you can make roasted garlic without oil! There’s actually no real need to use oil when roasting garlic in the oven. When you add oil to oven baked foods it makes them cook faster and at a hotter temperature and the oil does retain a little moisture so they don’t dry out. But when you are putting your garlic in tin foil anyways to steam, it’s unnecessary. It might take a few more minutes to roast, but it will be calorie free and still delicious.
I’ve seen some peoples’ directions recommend a teaspoon or two of oil for each head of garlic! Holy calories! Let’s skip that shall we?
My roasted garlic turns out perfectly fine without any oil in my convection oven. Just watch!
How To Roast Garlic In The Oven Without Oil
Or Make Roasted Garlic Without Oil For Recipes
Step 1: Preheat oven to 400 F / 205 C (or 375 F on a convection oven).
Cut off the tops of the garlic cloves
Step 2: Slice off a good chunk off the top of the head of garlic. Make sure all of the cloves are exposed so you will be able to get them out. (It’s best to have garlic with no green sprouts in it, but mine had some as they sat for a while on the counter. I used them anyway.)
Wrap the garlic cloves in tinfoil
Step 3: Wrap the garlic cloves individually in tinfoil and place on a baking sheet or in a muffin tin. If using a muffin tin you can add some water to the muffin holders you are using. I think this will help with the moisture of your garlic and help it cook faster. It seemed to cook faster for me than usual.
Step 4: Bake in the oven (when it’s up to temperature) for 35-45 minutes until the cloves are soft. They will be very hot, so you need to use oven mitts to squeeze them gently to see if they are done.
Step 5: Let the garlic cloves cool before touching. Unwrap the tinfoil.
Step 6: You can either squeeze each clove of garlic out one at a time (careful to not let hot garlic burn you, or slip out of the bottom) or you can peel the cloves and remove them one by one if you are stickler for maximizing your garlic output! How do you know if your roasted garlic is ready? It will be a golden brown color and be very soft inside. If it’s still white and not fully soft, it’s not ready yet.
Step 7: Your (oil-free) roasted garlic is ready to use in soups, mashed potatoes, dips, or just to spread on bread. Save any leftovers in a container in the fridge.
Enjoy!
How did you like my tutorial for how to roast garlic without oil?
Tried it yesterday. Worked really well. I put a little bit of water in the foil. Thank you for this.
I thought you explained everything wonderfully.I hope to try roasting some garlic very soon.
Hi Veronica, This sounds delicious. Your pictures and directions make it easy to follow and understand. Thanks for all your effort to help us eat healthy . I’m going to try this recipe this evening.
Yum! Thanks for the tips 🙂 I am going to try this tonight. I am going to experiment by creating a vegan dip.
I tried this and it worked great! But I don’t understand why everyone says that this will only keep for few days. Why would something that keeps uncooked in your cupboard for a month keep only a few days after it is cooked and refrigerated? I roasted six bulbs, pureed them in a mini food processor, and kept that silky spread in the fridge until it ran out, about three weeks later. We spread it on toast, used it is sauces, tossed warm veggies in it… it was wonderful right up to the last day we used it! I did use organic garlic, so perhaps that made it keep longer. Anyway, I intend to do another batch this afternoon and add a little salt and pepper to it. So good, I could eat it with a spoon!
Hi Lisa
That logic isn’t quite correct… Just as dried goods such as flour or beans stay good for a long time in the cupboard because they are dry, does not mean that when they are cooked and have moisture in them they should last a long time as well and not spoil.
When you are roasting garlic you are denaturing the cells and killing the enzymes and they become much moister so they can break down faster after cooked. And anything that has been cooked and has a moisture content develops bacteria, even in the fridge. The fridge only slows it down, it can’t eliminate it. This is why I don’t want to recommend anyone keeping cooked items like that for more than a few days. It doesn’t have any preservatives in it and it can spoil and definitely grown bacteria. I would especially not want to consume anything past 4 or 5 days that was a moist paste like that. Perhaps freeze the extra in the freezer and take it out as necessary instead.
Love your recipe, its so simple and practical. can anyone tell me how long it will keep and ways to store it?
I would use it within a day or two. Or wrap the squeezed insides tightly and freeze it for later. I just roast garlic as I need it.
Dr. Greger had evidence in one of his dvds that of all vegies, only garlic and onion protect against EVERY kind of cancer. The chart showed tests of how certain vegies fought certain types of cancers…some did little to nothing. All vegetables are good to eat and good for us!
This is cool Claudia. We have all of Dr. Greger’s Latest in Clinical Nutrition DVDs but haven’t watched them all yet. We got them at the McDougall Advanced Study weekend. Do you happen to know which DVD it is on?
A lot of Natural Hygienists are really against garlic and onions for other reasons, but seeing as Dr. Joel Fuhrman comes from a hygienic background and now recommends onions and garlic as super foods in his recipes, I see absolutely no reason to fear them and boycott them. Besides they make my dishes taste better too when you add a little.
‘Holy calories!’ Lol!
Thank goodness! Another recipe on how to roast something without having to slather it in oil! Will definitely be keeping this one for my cooked files… 🙂
About three years ago when I started going raw, I used to make lots of blended drinks with no fruits/sweeteners whatsoever – I’d drink a couple of litres of these hard-core dark green concoctions (also containing raw garlic) every day. I knew some natural hygienist-type folk who, when they found out about the garlic, were gobsmacked because they said they could never smell anything on my skin or breath, despite being close to me, yet they could smell it on others and found if offensive. I wonder if that means it wasn’t toxic in my system despite eating it every day??
Anyway, I stopped eating garlic holus bolus, when I adopted 811 – But I picked it up again when I started making the recipes from your book/DVD Veronica – some of which call for it – though of course you can leave it out or just substitute green onion. So now I have it every so often and happily, I find it does not adversely impact me.
That’s great Em!
I find that a little raw once in a while doesn’t bother us. But we’re not loading up on raw onions and garlic every day. When they are cooked the strong oils are broken down and become much milder. Roasted garlic I find the most mild and adds a nice flavour to vegetables.
Yum Victoria. Will use the muffin pan method for
Other verges when I feel a bit cold.
NZ is gearing into Autumn & I am on the light
weight side.
Will try a little Kumera ( just a little) ! with
Your muffin tin method .
Thank you Victoria
Warm wishes, Margaret
My name is Veronica though. Not Victoria. It’s happened my whole life
I know people who eat 2-3 raw cloves of garlic every day and swear that it’s helped them stave off colds and other illnesses for decades (most of these people are not vegan, and some are not even vegetarian, so the cleansing/healing/protective effect of these diets are not be responsible for their seemingly strong immune system). It’s a completely natural food /spice with a rarely-paralleled historical usage – I say if you want to eat it, go for it 🙂 Thanks for the method, Veronica!
yup my father eats raw garlic daily and seems to be very resilient to flu/colds. he does have high blood pressure and diabetes, but also is a meat eater. he also loves raw leeks (the white parts) and dip it in a fermented black bean paste, similar to miso.
as for me, i used to LOVE garlic and add to all dishes. but ever since i became raw, my stomach doesn’t seem to tolerate garlic anymore, at least not raw garlic, and raw onions. so i switched to green onions, and enjoyed the white parts for a season, until i started experiencing lots of mucus after eating… so i had to cut it out. now i do fine with a tiny bit of green parts of green onions…
will experiment with cooked garlic and onions. they add so much flavors to food, especially soups. 🙂
hi veronica, what about the teachings that garlic is a stimulant? excito-toxin? and irritant?
I am not worried about garlic or onions.
This is something more from Natural Hygiene teachings that all seasonings are evil. There is no evidence or scientific studies provided showing a measurable harm to humans that would deter my husband and I from eating foods like onions or garlic.
They are not the same as excitotoxins like Aspartame, monosodium glutamate (MSG), hydrolyzed vegetable protein etc.
They are whole foods, and are certainly not lethal in small or even large quantities.
I think one should decide for themselves. There are very few cultures that avoid these foods and the majority of them use them quite regularly for health benefits.
I don’t recommend eating large quantities of raw onions or garlic, the oils in them can be irritating if you consume a lot, but when they are cooked and broken down they are much milder.
We have eaten a clove or two of garlic in raw dishes and put raw onions on our salads. The only negative effect is garlic breath!
thanks veronica! for the past 5 years my mind has been very much influenced by natural hygiene (every time when i have a curiosity/craving for something, i immediately search through rawfoodexplained and bam, the answer is “no, toxic, not fit for humans.” and it’s gonna take some more time to filter through the truth from untruth… and i like your suggestion, self-experiments seem the best method to find out my own unique truths. thanks again!
i like natural hygiene; it’s not all dogma… but it’s extremely limiting and restrictive… takes all the fun out of eating and (un)cooking sometimes. i like your approach and lifestyle, very open-minded and free.
cheers!
Yes Natural Hygiene can be very strict. I think it’s great to let the body heal itself and not poison it with bad food, but some of the things it says like no seasonings, no onions, no mushrooms, even some say no cooked food, and I’m like hmm who is getting ill from these things? People are thriving on these things and they eat simple diets of vegetables, potatoes, rice, onions, mushrooms etc and they are healthy and strong.
Sometimes you meet fruitarian people where they seem weakened and undernourished. So there’s always good and bad examples of everyone on a diet.