Barbecue Roasted Garlic
Lesson learned. Don’t blog for a few days and family members will phone to check up on you.
I’m fine. Really. I haven’t succumbed to swine flu, only the temptations of summer. Truth be told, I’ve been playing hooky with my barbecue — I mean grill.
Our house can’t take the heat of the oven once the warm weather hits, so we’re cooking everything we can outdoors. I needed some roasted garlic for a recipe I’m developing and couldn’t bear to crank up the stove for such a small item. So, since I was roasting some red peppers on the grill I cooked up the garlic, too.
Now, I’ll confess. I don’t actually like roasted garlic on its own. I know, it’s sweet and far milder than its uncooked counterpart. But there’s something pasty about the texture. But mash it into a dip in lieu of raw garlic? I’m there!
Since I wasn’t sure if garlic would roast well on a grill, I cooked only one bulb. And it worked like a charm. See? Soft but still perfectly whole.
To roast the garlic without burning, I put the peppers directly on the grill one side over a flame and the garlic on the upper rack on the other side with the heat turned off. While I only tested this technique on a single bulb of garlic, you can roast more, just wrap them individually.
I’ll get to the recipe in a minute, but I’m curious. Do you use roasted garlic? If so, how? If not, are you turned off by the texture like I am? Or is roasted garlic not on your radar?
Grill-Roasted Garlic
Printable Recipe
If you don’t have a gas grill, you can get the same results in a standard oven set to 350°F.
Ingredients
- Whole head of garlic
- Olive or canola oil
Instructions
- Preheat grill with one burner set to medium.
- Cut the top of the garlic off with a sharp knife.
- Place the garlic on a piece of aluminum foil large enough to envelope the whole bulb.
- Drizzle lightly with oil.
- Wrap the garlic tightly and place on the upper rack of your gas grill on the side WITHOUT the flame.
- Close the lid and let the garlic roast for 30 minutes or until the garlic is soft.