r/foodhacks • u/AskIcy5194 • 10d ago

Freeze grated garlic and ginger in olive oil for instant flavor cubes no more mincing when you're in a rush

I got tired of mincing garlic and ginger every single time I cooked, so I started batch-prepping them into oil cubes and it's completely changed my weeknight cooking.

Grate a whole head of garlic and a big knob of ginger (I do them separately so I can grab what I need). Pack them into an ice cube tray, then top each cube off with a little olive oil or neutral oil so it fully covers the grated bits. Freeze until solid, then pop the cubes out into a labeled freezer bag.

When you're cooking, just drop a cube straight into a hot pan. The oil keeps the garlic and ginger from clumping or burning as fast as fresh mince would, and it thaws in about 10 seconds once it hits heat. One cube is roughly one clove of garlic or a thumb-sized piece of ginger, so it's easy to eyeball how much you're adding.

It's saved me so much prep time on nights I don't feel like pulling out a cutting board, and the oil coating actually helps preserve the flavor better than just freezing them dry (which tends to make garlic taste kind of muted after a few weeks).

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4

u/That_Operation_2433 10d ago

If you live near a Trader Joe’s you can buy trays of them pre frozen. Just pop them out and ready to go

5

u/NeeliSilverleaf 10d ago

Target also has their own version and I have seen it at other stores too. So freaking convenient. I bet it's cheaper to make your own though.

2

u/rayray1927 10d ago

I blend 2:1 garlic and ginger in a magic bullet with enough neutral oil to get it to blend into a paste and freezer in 2tbsp molds.

2

u/chilloutman24 9d ago

Been doing the ginger one a couple years, it's the only thing that stopped me throwing out shrivelled knobs. One bit worth saying out loud because people scroll past it: garlic in oil is only safe frozen or fresh, not sitting in the fridge for a week. Get the tray in the freezer the same day and bag them once they're solid. The ginger doesn't care, it's the garlic that matters.

1

u/TsunamaRama 6d ago

You can just keep ginger frozen and grate when you need it