Roasted Garlic Confit

Garlic confit just might be the best condiment to ever exist. Roasted in olive oil and a handful of aromatics, it becomes buttery soft and incredibly flavorful, ready to use in a variety of ways you’ll soon become obsessed with.

When I started my first job out of college, a bunch of coworkers and I would frequent this local Italian restaurant. It was nothing special except for the roasted garlic spread it served with bread to start. This garlic spread put all other bread baskets at any restaurant to shame and it’s what first turned me onto the magic of roasted garlic.

If you’re a roasted garlic lover, garlic confit takes things to a whole new level. Similar to roasted garlic, it takes about an hour to make and the end result is buttery soft garlic cloves with a subtly sweet flavor that can be spread on bread, used on sandwiches, tossed into pasta, etc. The olive oil it cooks in becomes so deeply infused with garlic flavor, using it in your next pasta dinner or drizzling on a salad for extra flavor is a no-brainer.

Garlic confit is one of those condiments you didn’t know you needed in your life, but once you taste it, you won’t be able to imagine how you lived this long without it.

What Does “Confit” Mean?

You’ve probably heard of duck confit before, but might be wondering what the term actually means. Confit is a French word that means slowly cooking something over a long period of time to preserve the food. As a cooking term, the food is cooked in a grease of some sorts such as oil or butter.

For the garlic confit recipe, freshly peeled garlic cloves are roasted in extra virgin olive oil.

Why You Need This Recipe In Your Life

There’s something transformative and amazing that happens to the pungent bite of raw garlic when it meets a long, slow heat. The flavor mellows to an almost sweet taste and the underlying characteristics completely change. If you’re someone who looks at a pile of garlic cloves and thinks “no thanks,” you’ll be shocked at how different it tastes after an hour in the oven.

Besides the addictive flavor, the uses for garlic confit are endless. This is the kind of condiment you want on hand and will default to time and time again once you realize how many dishes and meals it elevates.

What Ingredients You’ll Need

Garlic — You’ll want about 5 heads of fresh garlic for this recipe. Choose firm heads with tight skin for the freshest garlic. While it’s more work, peeling the garlic fresh makes for a better final outcome than using pre-peeled garlic in bags from the store.

Extra virgin olive oil — Because it’s one of the main ingredients in garlic confit, choose a high quality olive oil. Cold pressed, organic from a single source is the best choice if you’re able to find it. It’s not just the medium that the garlic cloves cook in, but you’ll also be using it after the cooking process as well.

Spices and herbs — Garlic confit can be as basic as some fresh thyme sprigs or as detailed as you want it. I’ve included my favorite way of flavoring the dish in this recipe which involves fresh thyme, cracked black pepper, chili flakes and bay leaves. Feel free to play around with these aromatics as you wish.

How to Make Garlic Confit

While confit typically indicates a low and slow technique to cooking and many garlic confit recipes take that approach, I’ve tested this recipe two ways: low and slow and hot and fast and determination is that I actually prefer the hot and fast method better!

By “hot and fast” we’re talking 375°F for 1 hour versus 250°F for closer to 2 hours, so “fast” is a relative term here. Both options are detailed in the recipe card below so you can choose the method that you prefer.

Garlic confit is incredibly simple to make. Combine all the ingredients in a baking dish. Place the dish in the oven at 375°F and cook for about 1 hour.

The garlic cloves will be golden brown and soft when it’s done. Remove the dish from the oven, let it cool then transfer the garlic along with the oil and herbs into a jar with an air-tight lid.

How to Store Roasted Garlic Confit

Keep the jar in the refrigerator for up to 3 weeks and use as desired. It’s important to keep it refrigerated to avoid bacteria growth, this isn’t a condiment you want to keep out on the counter. You may find that the olive oil hardens in the fridge with the cooler temperatures (this is completely normal) but it will quickly go back to its liquid state if placed at room temperature before using.

You can also freeze it for up to 3 months in ice cube trays, much like you would pesto. If you plan on freezing it, you can puree or blend the mixture first if you’d like it more homogenized. This makes it easy to thaw and use in dishes like pasta and soup in the future.

The Best Way to Peel Garlic Cloves

If peeling 5 heads of garlic cloves sounds daunting, don’t worry because there’s a trick to making the process much faster.

Place all the unpeeled cloves of garlic in a large glass bowl. Pour in boiling water until they’re all submerged. Let it sit for about 5 minutes. The skins should pop off easily with this approach.

You might’ve heard of shaking unpeeled garlic cloves in a mason jar, but I’ve tried this before and let’s just say that it’s one of those “hacks” that doesn’t actually hack much. I ended up with an exhausted arm and not much help in the peeling department.

Now that you have this amazing condiment ready to go, you may be wondering how to use it. These recipes are a great starting point for ideas on how to use garlic confit. Anywhere you’d typically use roasted garlic is a good place for garlic confit.

But beyond recipes, you can simply use it as a condiment in a variety of ways too:

• Spread on sandwiches or wraps as a much more flavorful option than mayo or mustard.
• Use as pizza topping. It would pair perfectly with this roasted eggplant fennel pizza.
• Add to a charcuterie board spread and spread on crackers or bread with cured meats, cheeses and fruit.

Making Garlic Confit on the Stove

Another way to make this recipe is by simmering the ingredients on the stove-top. I find this approach to be more hands on and require more attention, so I prefer the oven method.

If you want to make it on the stove-top, however, you can certainly do so by using a heavy cast iron pot or braiser and cooking over a low heat where you’ll see tiny bubbles along the edges while the garlic cooks. This method takes about 45 minutes to 1 hour of time.