Making Garlic Powder

Garlic powder is used in many different cuisines. I use it in many dishes like spaghetti, pizza, goulash, soups, and stews as well as garlic toast to name a few. Because I had the garlic and often use garlic powder, I decided to make my own.

Every year since 2019, I have been growing garlic. I started with two bulbs and now have more than enough to last us an entire year, sell at the local farmers’ market, and have some left to replant. This year, rather than depending on fresh garlic for the entire year, I have decided to make my own garlic powder.

There’s no way that I believe that making garlic powder from scratch is going to save me a lot of money. The time it takes to turn garlic into powder wouldn’t pay even a minimum wage. I do it as a hobby, but I am also doing it so that I know that I know how to do it and so that I can share the process with others.

I feel that learning skills that people used to do are important for the future because it would be a shame if our descendants had no idea how to do valuable skills like this. You never know what the future has in store for us.

Pulling the Garlic from the Garlic Bed

To begin the process, I pulled up the garlic and laid the plants out to dry until the leaves were brown. I made sure that the garlic didn’t get rained on and I turned the drying plants regularly so that no mold grew in areas that still contained moisture. After the leaves were completely dry, I cut the garlic bulbs from the plant at the neck of the garlic plant about two inches above the top of the bulb. I laid the bulbs out in a clean dry location to dry for a couple days longer.

Where the garlic had been growing in the garden, I reconditioned the soil with compost and planted sweet potato slips in their place. I then covered the soil there with mulch and kept the soil moist.  

Cleaning the Garlic to Make Powder

Once the outside of the garlic bulb and the cloves were relatively dried, I separated the individual garlic cloves within the bulb. I then removed any part of the garlic clove that isn’t edible. This process was quite tedious and took me two afternoons to complete. This took longer than the drying process would.

Mincing the Garlic

The morning after I cleaned all the cloves, I minced all the garlic in my food processor. I minced the garlic before I dried it for two reasons. First was because the garlic would dry more quickly if it were in smaller pieces. The second reason was that the garlic would be easier to powder once it was dried.

Drying the Garlic

Once the garlic was minced, I  poured the garlic into my dehydrator to dry. I put the minced garlic in thin layers on the dryer sheets so that the garlic would dry quickly.

Powdering the Garlic

Once the minced garlic was completely dry, I placed the dried clumps of garlic into a smaller food processor. I pulverized the dried minced garlic into powder.

Storing Garlic Powder

To store the garlic powder, I poured some of the garlic powder into a shaker to use right away, but I placed most of the garlic powder into a sealable plastic waterproof container.

Now I have enough powdered garlic to last for at least the next two years.

Is it Worth the Effort?

Some people would ask if all the work involved in drying my own garlic powder was worth my time? The answer to that would depend upon several factors.

If I were doing it to make money from the enterprise, my answer would be a resounding “no”. As cheap as it still is to buy dried garlic from the store, there’s no way that making my own would create a viable income.

If time were at a premium, making the garlic powder would probably be a distraction from other more pressing projects. If

If I had to purchase the garlic that I dried, unless I got a great deal on that garlic, making my own powder wouldn’t be worth the cost either.

However, I dried the garlic as a learning experience to see if I could do it. I enjoyed the experience. I had the garlic and didn’t want to waste it. The garlic cloves I used were the garlic cloves that wouldn’t last long unless I processed it right away. The garlic powder that I produced was far superior to the garlic powder that I can purchase at the store.

I would recommend others might want to do the same. A homeschooling parent or simply a parent who wanted to teach their children where their food comes from could use this project as one of their life lessons.

Someone with garlic that they didn’t want to waste would find that making their own garlic powder is a good way to utilize the garlic in a product that they are already purchasing and can store it in a relatively small space.

If you’re interested in producing a superior product like garlic powder from homegrown garlic and have the time to invest in producing the powder for your own use, I invite you to try your hand at it yourself. It is a satisfying feeling knowing that is just one more thing that you don’t have to go to the grocery store to purchase.