Home made Garlic Powder | How to make Garlic Powder

I like to use garlic powder in savoury baking plus now in my everyday cooking just cause I love garlic.  So I wanted to make my very own garlic powder at home some time back like couple of years ago, but I  found it’s required lot effort or a dehydrator to make a good garlic powder !  After I while I gave on the idea and totally forgotten about it until My sister-in-law made garlic powder at home without any special gadgets and when I saw the garlic powder it’s texture was exactly like any readymade garlic powder with much more stronger smell.  I immediately ask my SIL how she did it only to realised how obvious it was, proving making garlic powder at home is so easy and anyone can do it. 

When I did post on how to make almond flour I never thought it will become one of the popular post of this blog with numerous feedback from readers, it’s good to know simple things does help some one and with same motivation doing this post on how to make garlic powder at home.  If you think procedure it’s long then let that put you off it’s quite easy.  There’s nothing like fresh home made garlic powder and not to mention money we can save.  

How To Make Garlic Powder
Ingredients:
Garlic Pods – 1 Cup [ or use as much as you like]
Method:
1. Peel garlic and dry under sun for 2 days.  [You can slice garlic pods if having large pods like in this post pictures]
2. Grind peeled and dried garlic in a mixer, food processor or coffee grinder and pulse for 2-3 minutes until it become smooth paste.  Every time don’t pulse more than 30 seconds.
~ Don’t panic if you see garlic has become paste instead of powder, we have little more work to make paste into powder.
3. Take a plastic sheet or clean thin cotton cloth and spread garlic spread in very thin layer(spread garlic paste over plastic sheet or cloth evenly), dry under sun for 4-5 days.   Garlic paste will be become like thin crackers/pieces and it will come out of sheet or cloth easily.
~ If you break and crush between fingers garlic dried pieces (crackers) will become powder.  If you feel it’s still little wet or forming lumps instead of powder then you have to dry for 1-2 days again.  Repeat the test until you get powder consistency.
4. Collect all dried garlic pieces and pulse again for 1-2 minutes in a dry mixer or food processor this time not more than 15 seconds for each pulse.  You will get your very own garlic powder.
5. Spread powder on a sheet/cloth or paper and dry under sun for 1hour, don’t dry long if not powder will start to form lumps. 
~ We dry one last time for 1 hour to remove any moisture from grinding. 
6. Store in air tight jar/container.
Note:
1. Instead of sun drying you can dry peeled garlic in oven.  Preheat oven to 150degree and toast garlic pieces until it completely dry, stir in regular intervals.  After it cools down grind into powder and do step 5.

How to Store Garlic Powder
Now this is important, when I used to buy garlic powder I realized very soon that if kept at room temperature it’s forms lumps very quickly and I started to keep my garlic powder pack in fridge and use as and when required or keep outside only a small amount.
So here we have to do same thing, keep your garlic powder jar/container in fridge and use as required.  Or keep small quantity outside for daily use. 
Now, if you keep garlic powder in fridge it will still be forming lumps like you can see in below picture, this huge piece is of garlic powder kept inside fridge.

If I press with finger with no pressure it’s easily becomes powder again, you can see in below picture a small dent and powder beneath it.  That’s the portion I pressed with my finger and it started to crumble in powder.  For this size of pieces I generally press it down with back of ladle or spoon.

So far so good?  But if you notice below picture carefully these pieces of garlic powder is not easy to break as above because it got moisture and formed lumps.  If I press again with my fingers it won’t become powder but it will be little  sticky.  Here again I use spoon to break this lumps in small pieces and then to press those small pieces to make it powder.  Every time we may not get powder but tiny pieces due to moistures so just use it those pieces in your normal cooking. 

Few pointers to keep garlic powder intact for long time (easily for 6 months)
1. Use clean, DRY,  air light container/jar to store garlic powder
2. Every time use clean and dry spoon. [Never use hand  and touch garlic powder]
3. Immediately close jar again after taking our required quantity.
4. Store in refrigerator.
5. If making in large batch say for 1kg or 2kg of garlic, for daily use store small quantity in small bottle or jar and remaining in another large bottle.  Store both jars in fridge.

I hope you find this post useful, if any doubts do ask me.
Have a nice day ~~

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