It seems like 9 out of 10 savory recipes call for chopped, minced, or sliced garlic. And that’s because garlic is the best. Garlic is one of the most important ingredients in many cultures’ cooking, and it’s one of the pantry staples I can never run out of. And freshly minced garlic is head and shoulders above the pre-chopped stuff in a jar. It will take your recipes to a whole other level.

How you are using the garlic in your recipe affects how you want to cut it up. When you are cooking with garlic, you don’t usually need to chop it super-fine because when it cooks, the tiny pieces will soften and mellow and blend into the dish. But if you are using garlic in an uncooked dish or a recipe where the garlic really needs to kind of dissolve itself into the dish — whether it be a marinade or a sauce or a rub — you usually do want a pretty fine mince. 

Here is how to chop and mince garlic for any recipe! All you need is a large sharp knife and a cutting board. It’s really quite easy, but there are a few little tricks that make it easier and go even faster. Use that minced garlic in Garlic Bread, Pasta Aglio e Olio, Honey Garlic Shrimp, and Vietnamese Garlic Noodles, just to name a few recipes with garlic!

And feel free to use this mincing technique with other ingredients, like fresh ginger.

How to Mince Garlic: The best, fastest and easiest ways to chop and mince garlic for every recipe! So much better than the pre-chopped stuff in a jar.

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Peeling Garlic

Whichever way you are chopping your garlic, you need to get it out of the papery skin first. A head of garlic will contain between 10 and 15 cloves of varying sizes.

1. Separate the cloves from the base of the garlic bulb.
2. Slice the very bottom of the garlic clove off the root end, exposing the garlic beneath the papery skin.
3. Place them on a cutting board.
4. Smash the garlic: Place the side of a chef’s knife (or other large, heavy knife) on each clove. Use the side of your fist to carefully give a firm thwack right on the blade to crush the garlic. Slip off the papery skin.

How to Chop Garlic With a Knife

Place the peeled garlic on a cutting board. Start slicing or chopping the cloves with a chef’s knife or a large, heavy, sharp knife. As you chop it finer, add a pinch or so of kosher or sea salt, and keep chopping until it reaches the consistency you like. The salt acts as an abrasive so that the garlic gets minced more quickly and breaks down a bit as the knife rubs the salt into it. 

Use your non-dominant hand to add some leverage to the top of the knife, which will help make the chopping go faster. Stop when the garlic is as finely minced as desired, and remember that there is already some salt mixed in, so use a lighter hand when you season the finished dish.

How to Finely Mince Garlic

It can be unpleasant to bite into noticeable pieces of garlic in a dressing, salad, or what have you, so this easy mincing technique will show you how to get the garlic as finely chopped as you want.

Start to chop the garlic as above. Every once in a while, use the side of the knife to smear the garlic against the cutting board, then scrape it back up and keep mincing. You can even hear the salt crunching under the blade of the knife as it works to help pulverize the garlic.

The video shows you how to mince garlic very finely. If you keep going, you’ll be able make it into a paste, which will pretty much dissolve into whatever you are mixing it with. Think marinades and sauces.

How to Mince Garlic With a Microplane or Rasp

Microplane is the most popular brand name for a rasp or rasp grater. It is usually a long, thin, or rectangular piece of metal with tiny little jagged holes punched in it. When you rub a garlic clove over the surface, the garlic almost becomes a paste. Just watch your fingers towards the end of the clove!

This is a great way to mince garlic super finely so that it can blend right into recipes like marinades, sauces, and salad dressings. 

There are rasps and Microplanes with different-sized holes, so pick the one that suits you. You can also use the finest holes on a handheld or box grater. Again, watch your fingers!

Mincing Garlic in a Food Processor

When I have to mince a large amount of garlic, I do use a food processor. I find the little ones work very well, and you can usually get very tiny pieces of garlic with the machine. Only use the larger food processor if you are blending up more than a head’s worth of garlic cloves.

Whichever size food processor you use, to get uniformly tiny pieces make sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl after each round of processing until everything is finely chopped.

FAQs

Recipes With Minced Garlic

• Caprese Garlic Bread
• Garlic Butter Chicken Thighs
• Lemon Garlic Tilapia
• Honey Garlic Pork Chops
• Linguine with White Clam Sauce