Five Ways to Use Cold-Smoked Garlic
Our cold-smoked garlic is one of those products that surprises people. They expect an overpowering smokiness, but what they get is subtler — a warm, woodsy undertone that lifts a dish without taking it over.
We cold-smoke whole bulbs of our Australian Purple over ironbark for eight hours. The low temperature preserves the raw texture of the cloves while infusing smoke through the papery wrappers. The result is garlic that's still firm and usable like fresh, but with a gentle smokiness woven through every clove.
Here are five ways we love using it.
1. Smoked Garlic Butter
This is the simplest and possibly the best use. Crush two or three cloves of smoked garlic into 100g of softened butter. Add a pinch of flaky salt and a squeeze of lemon. Mix it together and roll it into a log in baking paper.
Slice rounds off the log and melt over:
- A grilled steak straight off the barbecue
- Hot corn on the cob
- Sourdough toast (yes, really)
- Pan-fried fish
The butter keeps in the fridge for a week or the freezer for three months. Make a double batch — you'll use it faster than you think.
2. The Ultimate Aioli
Replace the raw garlic in your aioli recipe with smoked garlic. The result is more mellow and complex — less of a raw garlic bite, more of a rounded warmth.
Our basic ratio: 2 smoked garlic cloves, 1 egg yolk, 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard, 200ml olive oil, juice of half a lemon, salt to taste. Crush the garlic into a paste, whisk with the yolk and mustard, then slowly drizzle in the oil.
This aioli is phenomenal with chips, alongside roast lamb, or dolloped onto a fish burger.
3. Roasted Vegetables
Toss your favourite roasting vegetables — pumpkin, sweet potato, carrots, parsnips — with olive oil, salt, and several crushed cloves of smoked garlic. Roast at 200 degrees until caramelised.
The smoke flavour deepens during roasting and mingles with the natural sweetness of the vegetables. It's the kind of side dish that people eat first and ask about second.
4. Pizza and Flatbreads
Thinly slice smoked garlic cloves and scatter them over pizza in the last five minutes of baking. The slices crisp slightly and release pockets of smoky flavour across the surface.
Our favourite combination: mozzarella, smoked garlic, roasted pumpkin, sage, and a drizzle of honey after baking. Trust us on the honey — the sweet-smoke-savoury combination is extraordinary.
5. Slow-Cooked Dishes
This is where smoked garlic quietly shines. Drop four or five whole cloves into a beef stew, lamb shoulder braise, or bean soup at the start of cooking. Over hours of gentle heat, the smoke infuses through the liquid and becomes part of the dish's foundation.
You won't taste "smoke" as a distinct note — instead, the dish will just have a deeper, more complex flavour that's hard to pinpoint. That's the mark of a good ingredient: it makes everything around it better.
Where to Start
If you haven't tried smoked garlic before, start with the butter. It's forgiving, quick, and the moment you melt it over a steak, you'll understand why we spend eight hours smoking these bulbs.
You can find our Cold-Smoked Garlic in the shop. We smoke in small batches, so stock is limited — especially heading into the cooler months when demand picks up.