Garlic ginger paste is easy to make at home. And it is way tastier than anything that comes in a jar. Seriously. If you are looking to turn up your Indian cooking you need to start making your own.
Garlic ginger paste speeds up Indian cooking
Indian cooking is not trivial. Not easy. Real work. Those incredible flavours don’t come for free. There’s a big difference between opening up a jar of pre-fab chicken tikka masala curry mix and making it yourself.
If you want to start getting serious about cooking Indian making garlic ginger paste from scratch is a good first step. It keeps in the fridge so you can pull it out when you need it. And you’ll need it a lot if you are cooking lots of Indian.
Watch for it. There are lots of Indian recipes out there that have garlic and ginger as ingredients. Lots. Which means you need to crush a bunch of garlic and grate ginger. Every time.
That’s OK if you cook Indian once a month or less. But if you like Indian. If you cook it often. Then garlic ginger paste from scratch is something you need to make. I reach for it all the time.
Fresh garlic ginger paste is just better
You can buy garlic ginger paste. I used to do just that. Then I tried making it fresh. I couldn’t believe the difference. Like wow. That’s crazy better!
You can eat store bought paste. A big spoonful straight from the jar. When you make it yourself though. There’s no way you can eat it straight when you make it fresh. It will blow your head off if you try.
I threw out my jar of store-bought and have never used pre-fab since. And I never will again. Seriously. It’s that big a difference.
It’s easy and it keeps for weeks or even a couple months in a container in the fridge. It takes minutes to make. It makes all the difference in the world. There is nothing going for pre-fab except it is convenient. Bad. But convenient.
Use a spoon to peel ginger
I love this trick. Every time I need to peel ginger I grab a spoon. Makes peeling it easy. A snap really. Just drag the spoon across the ginger skin. Move towards you. That’s it. It is easy to follow the nooks and crannies with a spoon.
A reader pointed out a great trick for garlic in the comments below. Take 4 or 5 cloves and put them in a jar. Shake hard. Some will come clean. The rest will peel easy. Just keep repeating until all your garlic is peeled. That’s it. So easy. And it works. Thanks Tony!
Make garlic ginger paste from scratch. Do it. You will never look back. The first step towards better tasting curries. And better tasting is what it’s all about.
garlic ginger paste
Ingredients
- 6 oz fresh garlic cloves peeled – by weight
- 6 oz fresh ginger peeled – by weight
- 1/3 cup of vegetable oil
- 1 tsp salt
- enough water to get it to all puree. – with my blender it takes about 1/3 of a cup.
Instructions
- Combine garlic, ginger, oil and salt in a blender.
- Puree, adding water as needed to get the mixture to blend thoroughly.
- Store in the fridge. Discard when the flavours fade.
Nutrition
I have made this and put it in a sealed jar. How long will it last in the fridge. Also in glebe recipes how much would I use as it’s clearly stronger. So instead of a tablespoon how much would I use
It should keep a month or so. All the recipes on glebekitchen were done using this garlic ginger paste so there is no need to adjust the quantities of garlic ginger paste.
Brilliant. I used to make it on a per curry basis by hand! Not any more. It does take a bit longer to make than the recipe suggests but I can live with that. Thanks for this and for expanding my curry making skills.
Korean markets (if you have one nearby) sell peeled garlic. Cuts right down on prep time!
Hi, can I use frozen ginger garlic paste like Asda one it seems good quality and better than a jar and is not acidic like most ready made shop bought ones which contain citric acide
I haven’t tried frozen but if it has more flavour than the stuff in jars its a step in the right direction!
You don’t need to peel ginger! Most of the nutrients and flavour are in the skin, you won’t notice it in your finished dish. I put my garlic and ginger in ziploc bags, completely flatten, freeze and just snap off a piece when needed. Love the shaking garlic bulb idea!
Thanks for the tip!
As my home grown chillies are close to harvest, i will use your idea and replace the ginger with chillies.Thank you for the inspiration.
Yum. Can’t beat home grown!
Can you substitute vegetable oil for rape seed or a healthier oil? Ergo same goes for most of your other recipes . TYIA
Yes. Any neutral oil with a reasonably high smoke point will work. I would stay away from anything strongly flavoured like olive oil.
If one were to chop ginger and garlic separately instead of using the paste, do you reckon 1 tbsp garlic ginger paste could be substituted for 0.5 tbsp finely minced garlic and 0.5 tbsp finely minced ginger? (I jump at any reason to do more knife work)
I expect that would work fairly well if you chop really fine. It won’t be quite the same but close enough. I like to play with my knives too!
Thanks! 🙂
How do you measure 6 oz for the garlic and ginger? Typically recipes will give measurements in number of cloves or grams of minced garlic or ginger.
6 oz by weight of each. I try to think of everything but it doesn’t always work. Thanks for the observation. I’ve clarified it in the recipe.
Hi you don’t have a quick way to peel garlic well I sit hear with my superman t-shirt on and become your hero. Put the garlic bulb in a jar with lid on and shake hard for few seconds then remove all white skin leaving individual cloves and then shake again for few seconds nice skin free cloves no hassle ????
Will try that! Thanks.
It’s an amazing trick you will be shocked and never hand peel a garlic again please post a reaction after you do it ??
Tried it. Works pretty well. I put 4-5 cloves in at a time and shake hard. Not all of them come clean for me but it’s super easy to remove the skin from the ones that didn’t. Nice!
Glad you like my trick and thanks for the mention in your guide ??I use the whole untouched bulb shake loosens all bulb skin and separates individual cloves pick this outer skin out then repeat with just the cloves. I think this works better when you use the whole untouched bulb(plus looks more impressive when showing someone?)
Great idea. My daughter bought me a gadget similar which included a rubber ball. Used that once and got fed up as it didn’t really work. I will try this idea for sure
It isn’t perfect but it does help a lot. Peeling garlic is just a pain:-)
wow thats really good
Ginger peeling tip….game changer..
Because I just cook for myself, will this freeze?
I have made this but found that I threw a lot away, and I hate waste….
Love the Indian recipes.
Glad you like the recipes! I haven’t tried but yes, I expect it would freeze just fine.
You can freeze in an old ice cube tray to portion it, that way you will only need to defrost what you need, keep it well wrapped in the freezer though.
Thanks for the tip!
Info says you can put into ice cube trays to freeze and take out a cube as needed.
I freeze it in ice cube trays then store the cubes in a ziploc bag in the freezer. Each cube is probably a tablespoon’s worth. If I need less, it’s fairly easy to cut through the cube with a big knife.
I always just grind ginger and garlic separately for my Indian dishes but so many recipes call for just ‘ginger garlic paste’. Good to know how I can make it! Thanks for sharing.