How to Mince Garlic

Knowing how to properly prepare and mince garlic is a basic cooking skill that helps you make many delicious dishes. Luckily, whether you’re chopping garlic with a knife as usual or using one of the alternative methods, learning the technique of mincing garlic only takes a few minutes. With just a little practice, you’ll quickly be able to flavor your minced garlic and favorite savory dishes like a pro.

Table of Contents

Chop garlic with a knife

Separate each garlic clove from the bulb. You cannot mince garlic until you have prepared the garlic cloves you need to use. Use your hand to press down firmly on the garlic. Each garlic clove will separate when you press on the garlic bulb.

The papery and tear-prone outer covering can be peeled and removed from the garlic clove. Take care not to remove the small garlic cloves hidden under the skin. ^{[1] X Research Source}
Most recipes specify how many cloves or bulbs of garlic are needed. Otherwise, a medium-sized clove of garlic will yield a tablespoon of minced garlic. ^{[2] X Research Source}

Peel the garlic. The transparent skin that tightly wraps each garlic clove needs to be peeled off before processing. Check out the following tutorial on how to do this:

You can cut off the stem at the end of the garlic clove (where it sticks to the bulb) and squeeze the clove out of the skin gently but firmly.
Another way is to place the blade side over the garlic clove and press down firmly until the peel pops open. Then, use your hands to peel the garlic. Be careful not to crush the garlic clove, causing the “meat” of the garlic to mix with the peel.

Thinly slice the garlic cloves lengthwise. Slice as thin as possible. Using a sharp knife will be very effective, but because the garlic clove is small, you have to be very careful not to cut it in your hands. See the following specific instructions:

One trick chefs often use to avoid cutting into their hands is to hold the item to be cut (in this case, a clove of garlic) with the tip of your finger, arching your knuckles as you press against the cutting board. This way, the surface of the blade will touch the knuckles, creating a gap between the knife and the tip of the finger, reducing the risk of an accident.
For better knife control, you should keep the knife on the cutting board and lift the knife gently to cut instead of moving the knife up and down. ^{[3] X Research Sources}

Slice the garlic horizontally. Rotate the garlic 90 degrees and continue slicing. Again, thinly slice so that the garlic is finely chopped. Use the same cutting technique as described above.

When done, you should have dozens (or hundreds) of small garlic cubes. Congratulations – you just finished mincing a clove of garlic.

If you want, you can continue hashing. The longer you mince the garlic, the finer the garlic will be, adding more flavor and flavor. If the recipe calls for it, continue to move the knife back and forth to mince the garlic until you have a fine amount of garlic, or mince the remaining large pieces of garlic.

Note, minced garlic is garlic that has been minced many times to small pieces. Large pieces of garlic are garlic that are minced into pieces but not pureed.

Chop garlic without a knife

Prepare and peel the garlic as usual. In this section, you will learn a few alternative ways to mince garlic if you don’t have a suitable knife. In these ways, you will also need to have the garlic cloves ready as usual before you start mincing. Or in other words:

Cut the garlic bulb into small cloves.
Remove the peel from the garlic bulb.
Peel the garlic by squeezing each garlic clove out of the shell or crushing it with a knife and then peeling it.

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Chop the garlic with a fork. An easy way to mince garlic is with the tip of a fork. This operation will require a little force in the hand but gives unexpected results. Do the following: ^{[4] X Research Source}

Lay the garlic on a cutting board and grab a sturdy metal fork.
Press the tip of the fork into the garlic. Press down firmly to push the garlic through the gaps of the fork tip.
Rotate the fork and repeat the operation in the other direction. Continue repeating the operation to get the finished product.
Push out the small pieces that are still stuck in the fork and remove the stalk from the garlic. Now the garlic is ready to use.

Use a garlic press. Another handy tool you can use to get minced garlic is a garlic press. This tool is just as its name suggests: presses garlic into small pieces. Use garlic press as follows: ^{[5] X Research source}

Insert the garlic clove into the metal inner part of the press.
Then squeeze the two handles together. The garlic will be squeezed through the holes on the other side of the press.
Remove the pieces of garlic that are still stuck on the press and add in the pressed garlic. Now you can use garlic.
You can use a pestle and mortar, both of which give the same effect.

Use a microplane (planning). A microplane is a small device that looks (and works) like a cheese grater. Grating the garlic with the microplane will quickly give you thin pieces of garlic.

To use the microplane, simply rub the garlic over the grated blade on top of a bowl. The garlic pieces after being grated will fall into the bowl.
When a piece of garlic becomes too small to hold with your fingers, chop it or crush it and add it to the grated garlic.

Advice

The method of crushing garlic or cutting it into thin pieces (e.g. squeezing and grating) gives a richer flavor and aroma than traditional minced garlic. ^{[6] X Research Source} Note that this will easily give your food a strong garlic flavor.
Also keep in mind that minced garlic will burn more easily than whole cloves or garlic cloves.

Steps

Chop garlic with a knife

Chop garlic without a knife

Advice

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