Green Garlic Powder

When it comes to flavor profiles, some of my favorites are incredibly seasonal. For spring, the fleeting lilac florals and the brightness of green garlic both immediately come to mind. And while lilac is a bit harder to preserve, green garlic is much easier! (But a bit time intensive!) So, while it is here, I’ll use it in every stir fry dish and roasted veggie medley and also make sure to dehydrate a ton to make the most incredible green garlic powder!

 Now, before we start whenever I post about green garlic, I get an overwhelming amount of comments saying that what I am calling green garlic are in fact spring onions. And while I can see the confusion at first glance, they are actually very easy to tell apart! But let’s dive into it!

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Green Garlic Versus Spring Onion

Green garlic is a stage of garlic’s life cycle. In the early spring you’ll get green garlic leaves, with a tiny bulb. The whole plant tastes like a less ‘spicy’ version of garlic which is why green garlic powder is so mellow! Then the plant moves to garlic scapes (the curly, green shoots that flower) then to bulb maturation when the garlic finally starts to thicken the bulb and create the cloves that are known colloquially as your regular garlic.

There are two simple ways to tell spring onions and green garlic apart. The first? Smell it! Spring onions smell like onions, green garlic smells like garlic. However, if you need a bit more to go on, look at the leaves! While the stems of green garlic and spring onion can both be white with lines of purple, the leaves of each are VERY distinctive.

Green garlic leaves are flat, dry, and come to an angular point. In comparison, onion leaves are round, hollow, and when broken produce a viscous secretion- slightly thick and sticky. Onions come to conical, round point. Rule of thumb, if you can squash the leaf and it is hollow? It’s an onion.

Green Garlic Powder Method

This process is simple, just requires a bit of cleaning and patience!

Start by prepping the garlic stalks- green garlic usually has roots, a stalk, and leaves. We’ll remove the roots, any yellowing leaves, and any mushy bits. (Compost these!)

Then chop the garlic stalks into 1-2” logs and then slice in half. Then cut (I use some herb snips if I don’t want to use a knife) the leaves into 2 inch pieces.

Wash everything thoroughly and pat dry before arranging on dehydrator trays.

Dry at 90° overnight or until all pieces can be ‘snapped’ in half. You want everything thoroughly dry, or you’ll have issues creating a powder.

Add the dried leaves and stems into a food processor. I don’t like working in small batches so I add in the dried garlic to fill the food processor, process until I can fit more, and go on until everything is combined. You’ll want to process the dried herbs to as fine of a powder as you can get.

Using a fine mesh sieve over a bowl, collect powder from the processed garlic, adding the pieces that are too big to pass through the serve back into the food processor until they’re powder! (This is the time-consuming bit, but I enjoy it!)

Transfer to an airtight container and store in a cool, dark place (like a cabinet.) Best if used within a year.

I find that this process works best in a dehydrator- because we are drying at such a low temperature the oven will cook rather than dehydrate and we will lose both flavor and color! I use a big nine-tray Excalibur Dehydrator, but there are many countertop versions that can work well too!

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