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.

Cool and gently unwrap to see the caramelized roasted garlic cloves inside

Step 5: Let the garlic cloves cool before touching. Unwrap the tinfoil.

Squeeze out the roasted garlic for your recipe

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?