How to Mince Garlic

Mincing With a Knife

Free the individual cloves from the bulb. You can't mince garlic until you prepare the cloves for use. Start by using the palm of your hand to press down firmly on the bulb. The individual cloves will separate from each other as gentle pressure is applied. The loose outer skin, which has a brittle papery appearance and texture, can be pulled off and discarded to get to the cloves. Take care not to discard small cloves of garlic that may be hidden within the peel. Most recipes will indicate the number of cloves, or bulbs, required. If not, one medium-sized clove usually gives about one tablespoon of minced garlic.

Peel the cloves. The tight, transparent skin around each clove needs to be removed prior to its use in cooking. There are a few different ways to do this. See below: One way is to cut off the hard stem end of the clove (where it attached to the garlic bulb) and squeeze the clove out from its skin using gentle, but steady, pressure. Another is to place the side of the knife blade on top of the clove and press down firmly until you feel the skin release. Peel the skin off with your fingers. Take care not to smash the clove completely, which may cause the clove "meat" to mix with the waste.

Slice the entire garlic clove lengthwise. The thinner the slices, the better. A sharp knife will help greatly here, but since garlic cloves are so small, extra care must be taken to avoid cutting yourself. See below: One trick chefs use to prevent cutting accidents is to hold the thing they are cutting (in this case a clove of garlic) with their fingertips, putting a bend in their knuckles as they press it into the cutting board. This way, the side of the knife rests against the knuckle, leaving a gap between it and the tips of the fingers, making an accident less likely. To get better control over the knife, hold it against the board and use a rocking motion to slice the garlic, rather than moving it up and down.

Slice the clove crosswise. Turn the clove 90 degrees and slice it once more. Here, again, thin cuts across the layers will produce a finer mince. Use the same slicing technique as before. When finished, you should be left with dozens (or even hundreds) of tiny garlic cubes. Congratulations — you've just minced a clove of garlic.

If desired, keep mincing. The more you mince a clove of garlic, the more tiny pieces you'll get, which will give you greater flavor and aroma. If the recipe calls for it, keep running your knife back and forth over the pile of minced garlic to achieve a finer cut, or to eliminate any large pieces that may remain. As a reminder, finely minced garlic is garlic that's been minced a lot into many tiny pieces. Coarsely minced garlic is garlic that's been minced into just a few big pieces.

Mincing Without a Knife

Prepare and peel the cloves as normal. In this section, you'll learn a few alternative ways to mince garlic if you don't have a knife handy. For each of these, you'll want to prep the garlic cloves as normal before you start mincing. In other words: Separate the correct number of cloves from the bulb. Discard leftover bulb skin. Peel the garlic by squeezing each clove out of the skin or crushing it with a knife and peeling the skin off.

Try mincing with a fork. One easy way to mince garlic is with the tines of a fork. This requires a little arm strength but works surprisingly well. To do this: Lay the garlic flat on a cutting board and grab a sturdy metal fork. Press the bottoms of the tines of the fork into the garlic. Press down hard to push the garlic through the gaps in the tines. Turn the fork and repeat in the other direction. Continue repeating for a final mince. Wipe the scraps off of the fork and pick the stem nub out of the minced garlic. It's now ready to use.

Try using a garlic press. Another handy tool you can use to prepare garlic is called a garlic press. This device does what its name suggests: presses garlic into a crushed-up paste. To use a garlic press: Place the clove inside the inner metal part of the press. Squeeze the handles. The garlic will be forced through the holes on the other side of the press. Scrape the scraps out and combine with the garlic material that was forced through the press. The garlic is now ready to use. Another device that works similarly is the mortar and pestle.

Try microplaning. A microplane is a small device that looks (and works) like an extra-fine cheese grater. Microplaning a clove of garlic slices it into razor-thin slices fairly quickly. To use a microplane, just rub the garlic against the blades over a bowl. The thin, wet slices will fall through the microplane into the bowl. When the garlic gets too small to microplane without hurting your fingers, just chop it up or crush it and combine with the rest.

Alternatively, use a food processor. It's worth noting that almost any food processor device should be able to mince garlic as well. Pulsing the blades just a few times should be enough to achieve a good mince. Since garlic cloves are so small, it can be a pain to assemble a food processor just to mince one, but this is a good choice if you need to mince many for a larger recipe.