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The Ingredient I Fell in Love with at Cooking School in Italy: Garlic-Infused Olive Oil
One of my favorite things that I took away from cooking school in Italy was learning how to make garlic-infused olive oil and use it in my cooking in place of garlic. This garlic-infused olive oil is so easy to make, versatile to use, and you can make a big batch of it and use it for months!
Why I Prefer Garlic-Infused Olive Oil Over Garlic
There’s no denying that garlic adds tremendous flavor to the dishes it’s used in. You can imagine my confusion when I started to notice that in Italy, the chef I learned from hardly ever used garlic in any of the dishes he taught us how to make yet they still had amazing flavor – and then we learned the trick. Instead of using straight garlic, they infused their olive oil with the garlic flavor which resulted in two absolutely amazing key things: first, it didn’t leave behind a harsh garlic aftertaste, and second it didn’t cause the bloating that garlic normally does. As someone who follows an anti-inflammatory diet, you can image how wonderful this was for me to learn!
Garlic (and onions, too) contain sugar molecules called fructans that are sometimes difficult for the body to digest. Fructans basically get stuck in your small intestine and ferment, causing stomach issues like bloating. The process of blending together garlic and olive oil, allowing the mixture to sit uncovered or with a lid that has holes in it for a couple days, and then straining the oil from the garlic will leave you with an infused oil that has tons of flavor but no fructans.
How to Use Garlic-Infused Oil
I use garlic oil the same way I would regular olive oil in recipes, but just omit the step of adding garlic to the oil because the flavor is already present. I love using garlic oil in recipes like my High Protein, Low Carb Lasagna Soup. When in Italy, they used it often to cook meats because the infusion would transfer over beautifully to whatever protein we were cooking. It’s also a wonderful addition to pasta and pasta sauce!
This was one of quite a few tips and tricks that I learned at cooking school in Italy, if you’re interested in some of the other amazing things that I learned during my time in Calabria, check out my article here on The Best Things I Learned At Cooking School in Italy!
Why I Love This Recipe
I am very intentional with my ingredients, I love using things that are both delicious and that will work for me by offering extra nutritional benefits to my body.
Earlier this year, I discovered that my body produces antibodies that attack my thyroid. My doctor highly recommended that I stick to an anti-inflammatory diet because of the correlation between thyroid function and inflammation. In most of my recipes, I aim to use ingredients that have anti-inflammatory properties, or that won’t cause any swelling in my body. Learning this infused-oil trick has improved my gut health tremendously and helps me avoid bloating.
I’ve noticed that eating as clean as possible has made me feel better, heal faster, and help with my overall cognitive function. I am by no means a doctor or registered dietician, but I did want to share my personal “why” for including recipes like this one on my blog because eating this way really has positively impacted my health, and I figured maybe it could help others, too.
Ingredients:
- Garlic
- Olive Oil
Tools:
- Food processor (here is my FAVORITE food processor that doubles as a blender!)
How to Make Garlic-Infused Olive Oil
Prepare Your Ingredients: Start by peeling your garlic (I swear this is the hardest part of this recipe).
Process: Add your garlic and olive oil to a food processor and blend the mixture together for 2-3 minutes (I did this on low speed) until they are incorporated.
Transfer and Sit: Transfer your infusion to a container that has a lid with holes in it. If you don’t have something like this, place a piece of plastic wrap over the container and poke a decent amount of holes in it for ventilation. Allow your mixture to sit for 2 days.
Strain the Mixture: Strain your oil from your garlic using a fine mesh sieve, and put your oil in the container you’d like to use (it can be covered now).
Enjoy your garlic-infused oil in place of garlic in your cooking!
Full Recipe:
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Garlic-Infused Olive Oil
Ingredients
- 125 g garlic cloves (about 1 cup)
- 500 ml extra virgin olive oil (about 2 1/4 c)
Instructions
- Prepare Your Ingredients: Start by peeling your garlic (I swear this is the hardest part of this recipe!)
- Process: Add your garlic and olive oil to a food processor and blend the mixture together for 2-3 minutes (I did this on low speed) until they are incorporated.
- Transfer and Sit: Transfer your infusion to a container that has a lid with holes in it. If you don’t have something like this, place a piece of plastic wrap over the container and poke a decent amount of holes in it for ventilation. Allow your mixture to sit for 2 days.
- Strain the Mixture: Strain your oil from your garlic using a fine mesh sieve, and put your oil in the container you’d like to use (it can be covered now).
For more recipes like this one, follow me on social media at @dinneratallis!