How to easily peel garlic

First gather up your garlic cloves that need peeling.

The first method I'm starting with (and i'm sure everyone is familiar with) is the "smash it with a big knife" method

Place knife on top of your garlic clove like so and gently smash.

Now peel.

Naked garlic!

The 2nd method is the "bend and twist" method. I use this the most because it doesn't require any tools. I am usually peeling garlic to go into the food processor and don't want to get a knife out.

Bend and twist the clove all the way around.

With the "bend and twist" method you aren't using enough force to snap the clove. You're using just enough force to break the papery skin of the clove and loosen it.

Pinch at the top and bend the papery skin back tight against the clove so it snaps/breaks.

And then peel.

The third method is for peeling a bunch of garlic at once. This is great if you have 5 or more cloves that need peeling.

Get your head of garlic.

Smash with your palm and rock back and forth to loosen all the individual cloves.

Peel away the outside paper encasing the head and discard and then add your unpeeled cloves to a jar. Close the lid tight and shake vigorously for 20-30 seconds.

This is a great use for empty sauce, pickle or jelly jars! But you can use any container you have on hand since it's the shaking that's important.. But I like using glass so I can check the progress.

Dump into a bowl and pick out your peeled cloves. I think out of 2 heads of garlic I had 4 cloves that didn't peel completely but the skins were quite loose and came off very easily.

You can just use the jar you shook the cloves in to store them in the fridge for a couple weeks. If you want to store them longer you can put the cloves in a zip top bag and place in the freezer.

My four heads of garlic I peeled in just minutes! Hooray for time saving!