Garlic and I go way back. I’m Italian American, I cook constantly and I measure garlic with my heart. A recipe calls for two cloves? I hear four. Sometimes six. It's the backbone of how I cook—sautéed low and slow for pasta, smashed into paste for garlic bread, sliced razor-thin (Goodfellas-style), or roasted until it’s sweet and jammy. I love everything about garlic—except peeling it.That feeling intensifies when I’m prepping for a holiday meal, like the Feast of the Seven Fishes (Italian American Christmas Eve) or Easter Sunday. For that traditional spring dinner, I need garlic for the antipasto'sroasted peppers and chickpea salad and for the main course: roasted lamb, baked artichoke hearts and sautéed broccoli rabe.There's garlic everywhere, in every form, demanding to be peeled, processed and ready before any food even hits the stove. Those papery skins cling stubbornly to the cloves (and my hands), little bits get stuck under my nails and while one clove peels cleanly, the next explodes into flaky chaos. By the second bulb, the mess multiplies, and those skins start to feel like a personal attack.And I know I’m not alone in this struggle. Chef Cara Mangini, author of The Vegetable Eater, tells Parade, “I don’t love peeling garlic, and I know many people feel the same.”
And sure, there are store-bought shortcuts. You can buy loose cloves instead of whole heads or even pre-peeled garlic if convenience is the goal—though flavor purists have strong opinions. As for jarlic, the already-chopped stuff in a jar soaking in citric acid? I won’t even mention it. (I know I just did, but I won’t use it.) Most of us end up at the cutting board with a whole bulb anyway, because it’s cheaper, fresher and undeniably better.Over the years, I’ve heard every promise imaginable: Just smash it, soak it, shake it, microwave it, just buy this gadget and your problems will disappear forever. Some of these tips sound genuinely clever—others feel like dares someone lost in a test kitchen. And yet, every time I’m at my cutting board surrounded by garlic skins, I find myself wondering: Is there a better way?So, I decided to stop guessing, stop half-believing internet “wisdom,” and put 10 methods to the test to learn how to peel garlic fast. I worked my way through dozens and dozens of cloves, then ranked these tricks worst to best. Here's how everything shook out.Related: This 50 Garlic Clove Pasta Is Going Viral—After Trying It, I Can See Why?? SIGN UP to get delicious recipes, handy kitchen hacks & more in our daily Parade Eats newsletter. ??
Garlic skins are thin, dry and cling tightly to the clove beneath—especially when the garlic is fresh. (Ironically, fresher garlic is often harder to peel.) Most hacks aim to solve this by cracking the skin, introducing moisture or heat or creating enough friction to break that bond.I chose these methods because they’re the most recommended across cookbooks, kitchens, the internet and my social media feed—and because each claims to make peeling garlic faster, cleaner or easier.
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How I Tested These Garlic-Peeling Methods
Courtesy Jo Ann Liguori
First, I had to break up the heads of garlic. To do this, I followed the advice of culinary icon Lidia Bastianich—the beloved TV host, restaurateur and Italian cooking authority (her newest cookbook is Lidia’s The Art of Pasta): “Set on a sturdy wooden cutting board,” she explains. “Place the flat side (the larger part of the blade) of a chef’s knife on the garlic, hold the knife firmly, and whack it with the palm of your other hand.”I tested all methods (except the one that starts with a whole head) using six individual garlic cloves with intact skins. I used garlic bought at the same time for consistency. With the stopwatch on my phone, I timed how long it took to peel all six cloves using each method. I also factored in effort, effectiveness and whether the clove stayed intact and figured all of that into my rankings—because speed isn’t everything if you completely destroy the garlic or make a huge sticky mess in the process.One caveat: The age of the garlic will likely affect how well each method works for you (as fresher cloves cling more tightly to their skins), so you might have more (or less) success with each hack than I did.
Related: The Chef-Approved Garlic Trick We Wish We’d Known About Sooner
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10 Garlic-Peeling Hacks, Ranked Worst To Best
Here are the results, ranked from worst (barely worth the effort) to best (the ones that made me wonder why I’ve ever bothered peeling garlic any other way).
10. Microwave
Courtesy Jo Ann Liguori
A brief zap (about 10 seconds) in the microwave causes steam to build under the skin, separating it from the clove. And it works: The peel slides right off. The downside? Heat. You’re partially cooking the garlic, which can affect flavor and texture if you need it raw, which I often do. Because of the way the quick cooking impacted the garlic, this was a hard pass for me.
9. Hand crush
Courtesy Jo Ann Liguori
This method has you press down hard on the clove with the heel of your palm until you feel the skin crack. It’s quick, tool-free and surprisingly effective if you get the pressure right. The problem is finding that sweet spot: too light and nothing happens; too hard and you’ve smashed the clove. I struggled with consistency; maybe someone with bigger, stronger hands would have better luck.
8. Stab with a knife
Courtesy Jo Ann Liguori
Fun fact: I’d already wrapped up my very scientific testing, but once I saw this TikTok video from chef Jackie Bakula, I had to head back into the lab (er, kitchen) and try it. The idea is to stab a paring knife into a garlic clove while it’s still attached to the head, then twist to pull it out.For me, the results were hit-or-miss. Some cloves popped out clean and intact; others emerged in pieces, with garlic flesh stubbornly clinging to the bulb. I also didn’t love that I couldn't really tell if the trick was working until the clove popped out—or didn't. It felt less like a hack and more like a gamble.
Related: The Viral Garlic Bread Recipe That Fans Can’t Get Enough of—I ‘Ate the Whole Pan By Myself’
7. Cut the root, then roll
Courtesy Jo Ann Liguori
Food blogger Lauren Casolaro’s method involves cutting off the root end, keeping the knife in place, and rolling the clove away from its skin. When I tried it, the skin on the bottom of the clove peeled off on its own, but I had to peel off the rest by hand. I didn’t find this to be a time-saver, and everything (the board, my fingers, the knife) ended up sticky anyway.
6. Soak in water
Courtesy Jo Ann Liguori
Chef Bob Morano’s hack is to soak garlic cloves in water for about 15 minutes, letting moisture seep between the skin and the clove. And it works: With a gentle rub, the skins slide right off. If pure effectiveness were the only factor, this would rank higher—but time matters.So, unless you’re multitasking with other prep, waiting 15 minutes doesn’t save much time. Plus, the garlic is now wet, so you’ve got to dry it off before proceeding with your recipe. BTW: I tried this with both cold and warm water; there was almost no difference in results, but I would imagine that if the water is too warm, the heat could affect the garlic’s texture.
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5. Use a silicone garlic peeler tube
Courtesy Jo Ann Liguori
I was curious to know how a garlic-specific gadget might fare, so I picked up this popular tool. You drop a clove inside the tube, press down, roll it firmly on the cutting board—and the skin separates cleanly. It’s not lightning-fast (you can only do a clove or two at a time), but it’s tidy, reliable and keeps that garlic smell off your hands. Downsides: You’ve really got to exert pressure for it to work well. Also, you’ve got to ask yourself whether you need another single-use gadget taking up drawer space, plus you’ve got something else to clean.
4. Trim both ends first
Courtesy Jo Ann Liguori
If you want neat slices rather than crushed garlic, trimming the root end can help release the skin. Mangini says, “Trim the root end of the garlic, then lightly dig a paring knife just under the skin to carefully release it.” This creates entry points where you can peel from both sides rather than fight the middle. This is easy and pretty effective, but you’re adding knife work before you even start peeling, and the skins don’t always cooperate. Also, it’s wasteful, as you’re sacrificing the pieces of actual garlic at the ends.
3. Blanch
Courtesy Jo Ann Liguori
This is a trick for bulk prep that even Ina Garten endorses. Boil water, drop the cloves in for 15 seconds, then plunge them into an ice bath (15 seconds). The skins slide off effortlessly, leaving the cloves intact. I found it to be a really good way to peel a lot of garlic quickly. Even though this method and nuking it both involve heating the garlic to some extent, I didn't find that blanching affected the texture at all (though zapping it in the microwave definitely did).Drawback: You've got to take the time to boil the water and prepare an ice bath and dry off the garlic before continuing with the recipe. The setup time could be worth it, though, depending on the volume of garlic you're working with.
2. Shake between two bowls
Courtesy Jo Ann Liguori
This method is famous—and loud. In a viral video from more than a decade ago, Todd Coleman (then executive food editor at Saveur) demonstrated sandwiching garlic cloves between two metal bowls of equal size and vigorously shaking them for 10 seconds. The result? It worked: The skins came off completely. All these years later, Coleman still prefers this method: “There’s no better way,” he tells Parade, “as long as the garlic is dry and hasn’t been stored for too long in the fridge.”
Thomas Perone, the chef/owner of Brooklyn Roots Italian and The Corner in Brooklyn, NY, agrees: “I love the bowl trick,” he says. Bonus? The mess is self-contained: All the peels stay in the bowl.I also tried a variation of this: shaking the garlic in a glass jar. It was slower and less effective; the glass cushions the cloves, limiting their movement. So, there’s more shaking for less payoff.This method is a quick way to process a pile of garlic. The only downside is that you're dirtying two bowls. It might not be a go-to way for prepping a few cloves, but it's definitely a solid technique and can also help you release some tension if things are getting heated in the kitchen.
1. Smash with a chef’s knife
Courtesy Jo Ann Liguori
This classic way to peel garlic has always been my go-to; it’s also the method of choice for Bastianich and other chefs I spoke to. Top Chef alum Nini Nguyen says, “After separating the cloves, I place a clove on the cutting board and give it a firm smash with the flat side of my knife. The peel usually slips right off, no special tools needed.”It can also give your food a boost. “When the knife hits the garlic, it extracts even more flavor,” Perone explains.It’s fast, reliable and satisfying. The drawback is that, if you’re processing a ton of garlic, your hands will get sticky. Also, the clove is slightly crushed—so if you’re looking for attractive, (kinda) uniform slices, it’s not the way to go. But if you’re chopping or mincing anyway, crushing the clove a bit is a bonus. At the end of the day, if I had to choose just one garlic-peeling method, this is the one for me.
After all this testing, I’m feeling pretty vindicated in my loyalty to the chef’s-knife method. Sure, the bowl-shaking trick can peel a lot of garlic in a hurry, but I don’t think it's worth the effort (or the racket) for a single clove or even a couple. For that, I’ll stick with the old trusty knife smash. But come EasterSunday—or another garlic-heavy cooking marathon—I'll break out the metal bowls.
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Sources:
Lidia Bastianich is a legendary chef and the author of 16 books, including Lidia’s The Art of Pasta.Todd Coleman is a content creator with 30-plus years in the culinary world, from chef and writer to photographer and videographer.Cara Mangini is a chef and cookbook author (The Vegetable Eater, The Vegetable Butcher).Nini Nguyen is a chef, author (Đặc Biệt), instructor and Top Chef alum.Thomas Perone is the chef/owner of Brooklyn Roots Italian and The Corner in Brooklyn, NY.Hence then, the article about i tried 10 garlic peeling hacks this one is my forever favorite was published today ( ) and is available on Parade ( Saudi Arabia ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
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