Making Garlic Powder
Much of the garlic powder in the supermarket comes from China and its safety is uncertain. This is a great time of year to make your own. Farmers may give you a discount for a large purchase—it’s a good idea to ask. If you grow your own, even better.
After the garlic has been harvested and hung to dry for two or more weeks, it needs to be clipped and cleaned with the length of the roots shortened.
Sort through it and put aside the biggest and best ones to replant in October. Figure out how many to put aside to use as fresh—the garlic here only keeps until about February since our house is so dry in the winter. The rest get made into garlic powder that will keep for many months, if not years.
Slice off the top and the bottom of each clove and put it in a dehydrator overnight. This makes peeling the garlic a lot easier.
Next, slice it in a food processor.
Back into the dehydrator it goes.
Keep the temperature under 110 degrees in order not to lose the healing qualities of the garlic. Because the temperature is so low, it takes a while to dry. I find seven days to be ideal, stirring it once or twice during the process. Once it is really dry, it can be placed in jars until it’s time to powder it.
Powder it in a blender or a Nutribullet. If you strain it into the jars, you can return the larger pieces back to be made smaller. Garlic powder is delicious and nutritious and it makes excellent gifts.
