A recipe for making the best Garlic Infused Olive Oil and garlic confit – It makes a healthy substitute for butter. Making it in the Instant Pot is so easy. Using the right oil and sautéing it slowly is the secret to keeping it from getting bitter.
WEEKLY MEAL PREP
We make it ahead and consider it part of the weekly routine in our meal prep plan. That way it’s ready to just grab and add to other dishes. By leaving the garlic in the oil, we also have sautéed garlic, or garlic confit, ready to use. So easy to make, and even easier because we use an Instant Pot, so we can make it without constant attention.
USE THE BEST INGREDIENTS
We use California Olive Ranch brand olive oil because we like the taste and quality, and it maintains that buttery taste even when used to sauté garlic. We have tried other olive oils and somehow ended up with a bitter or off-putting taste when we used a different brand. California Olive Ranch has a way of harvesting the olives that allows them to leave the olives on the trees longer, which gives the oil the mellow rich taste, so that might be the difference.
We try to buy local when possible, and since it’s a California company, and we live in California, it qualifies as buying local. By selecting better brands and eating more healthy foods we cut our carbon footprint in half and are helping to control climate change. We eat more plant-based foods and use garlic olive oil to add flavor.
The garlic is fresh garlic, either whole and we remove the paper from the cloves, or as cloves already peeled. Then we cut the tip off so we don’t have that hard piece in the garlic confit.
USING AN INSTANT POT
The garlic is sautéed on the lowest possible temperature for about 30 minutes. It’s very important not to let it burn or even brown too much or it will become bitter. It needs to be sautéed very low and slow. This allows the garlic to become soft and mellow and the garlic taste to infuse into the oil. We could do this on the stove, but doing it in an Instant Pot instead of on the stove, is easier. There is a sauté setting that defaults to 30 minutes, and turns off, so we don’t have to watch it the way we would on the stove. This makes it really easy, especially for weekly meal prep when we are busy with lots of other things.
Also, using an Instant Pot is not just easier, it is a great way to use less energy. This helps us eat less meat, and also saves money.
Equipment
CHOOSING BRANDS:
For certain products, the choice of brand will make a big difference in the outcome of the recipe and in your carbon footprint. So, for those products, we have listed the brand. We are not paid to mention a brand and have no affiliates.
Ingredients
- 1 cup Fresh garlic
- 2 cups California Olive Ranch olive oil
Instructions
- Remove the garlic cloves from the garlic head and remove all the paper skin.
- Cut the brown tips off the garlic and any brown spots.
- Put the garlic and olive oil into the Instant Pot.
- Set the Instant pot for Sauté on the lowest temperature for 30 minutes.
- Check on the garlic to make sure it is not getting to dark or it may become bitter.
- When it is finished cooking, pour the oil and garlic into a glass, heat-proof container and cover. Allow it to cool and then place it in the refrigerator.
- Store in the refrigerator for up to two weeks. (This is very important – do not store at room temperature and do not keep longer than two weeks)
Nutrition
WHY THIS RECIPE IS SUSTAINABLE:
Check out the chart on the blog post to see how food choices affect climate change. This recipe uses responsible brands and items that are lower on the chart and the production creates less greenhouse gas.
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Photos by Tony Fitzgerald Photography