garlic salt

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garlic ready for mashing into garlic salt

in the united states it’s pretty common to buy little jars of garlic salt like you buy other dried herbs. but they don’t even compare to the homemade garlic salt that my grandmother always made. it is a bit a tiring to make it with her method, but luckily i discovered a *much* easier and quicker way to make it. i’ll explain both, but let’s start with old-fashioned way.

sale all'aglio all'antico durante la macinazione sul tagliere di bambù

i’m using the word “method” and not “recipe” because my grandmother herself said that there isn’t any actual recipe because you have to figure out the quantities every time to get the right balance. i’ve found that for me i like using:

  • 1/2 cup of salt (100 g)
  • 3 cloves of garlic
  • a few twists of a pepper mill

first you peel the garlic cloves and mince them as small as possible. then you put the salt on a cutting board and put the garlic and pepper on top.

hand-crushed garlic salt in pretty spanish plate

then you crush it all over and over with a rolling pin. this is the part that takes both time and energy. my grandmother always had a separate rolling pin  especially for making garlic salt because it’s pretty much impossible to get the garlic stink out of it. i tried slipping an empty toilet paper roll over our rolling pin so the garlic wouldn’t come in contact with it, but it wouldn’t roll very well that way. then i wrapped the rolling pin in plastic wrap. the plastic tore so i had to replace it halfway through, but it worked. my grandmother also suggested opening up a large paper bag and placing it under the cutting board so that, as you crush the salt, it falls from the edges onto the paper and, after a while, you can easily dump it back onto the cutting board to keep working at it.

hand crushed garlic salt in bottle ready for use

when it’s as homogeneous as possible, you can put it in a jar. my grandmother suggested keeping it in the fridge, but i don’t think that’s even necessary because in theory the salt should preserve the garlic quite well for at least 6 months.

getting ready to make garlic salt with a mini food processor

but i know that none of you has much free time and probably not an extra rolling pin to dedicate to garlic salt production, either. but if you have a food processor, there’s a MUCH easier and faster way to do it. all you have to do it dump all the ingredients in the processor, process for a couple of minutes…

the food processor was successful in making delicious garlic salt!

…and there you have it! ready to put in a jar and use!

modernized  garlic salt in jar ready for use

how can you use it? a better question would be, how could you NOT use it?! in my family we’ve always used it mostly on salads and on meat (if you roast a thanksgiving turkey in the oven, this salt makes for a super tasty skin, even if i won’t be eating it anymore since becoming a vegetarian.). but now i’m discovering lots of ways to use it: on cooked veggies, on pasta, in sauces, in soups, in the mixture for bean burgers. with a tiny bit of imagination there’s no limit to the ways you can use it! buon appetito!

9 thoughts on “garlic salt”

  1. Oh, my goodness — I will definitely try this new method!!! What a great idea. Does it really taste as good as Noni's recipe??? There's nothing like the home-made garlic salt!

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  2. caspita!!! A me piace moltissimo l'aglio ma sono la sola in casa che lo ama …di sicuro ne farò una piccola scorta solo per me (tra l'altro mi faciliterebbe l'uso dato che nella padella – dove cuocio per tutti- sposto sempre di lato la parte mia vicina all'aglio in modo che le altre non si "contagino" (come dicono i miei figli!) e così, invece, posso insaporire dopo.
    Grazie Lisa!!!

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  3. opps, non so come ho fatto a non risponderti. ero sicura di averlo fatto. comunque, questa soluzione sarebbe perfetta per te! anche a me piace moltissimo l'aglio, ma per fortuna piace anche agli altri. ma qui c'è il problema "contagio" per altri alimenti!

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