Garlic butter is a versatile, wonderfully tasty accompaniment to have in the kitchen. With that said, is it possible to freeze garlic butter to ensure you always have a supply of the stuff in the kitchen?
Can You Freeze Garlic Butter?
Yes, you can freeze garlic butter for up to 3 months. The best way to do this is to mix 4 cloves of minced garlic and a teaspoon of salt for every half cup of butter. Mix these 3 ingredients together well, and then place them in the freezer in an ice cube tray.
Do Does Garlic Butter freeze well? Yes
Can you refreeze Garlic Butter? Yes
How to Freeze Garlic Butter
Before you do anything, you’ll need to make your garlic butter so that it is ready for the freezer. You’ll want to make the butter as fresh as possible so knock a batch together just before freezing – don’t let it sit in the fridge for a few days beforehand:
- Prepare the Garlic Butter Ingredients: Calculate how much of each ingredient youāll need, keeping the ingredients in the ratio of 4 cloves of garlic to 1 tsp of salt to half a cup of butter (roughly 115 grams).
- Make the Butter: Peel and very finely mince the garlic, before adding it to a bowl with the butter and salt. Using a spoon, bring all of the ingredients together, ensuring that theyāre homogenous – the butter, salt, and garlic have become one mixture, rather than three things in the same bowl.
Once youāve created the mixture, you can either freeze it in a large batch or in small, individual portions. You just need to decide which portion size works best for you:
How to Freeze Large Batches of Garlic Butter
Here is the best method to use for freezing large blocks of garlic butter as opposed to individual portions:
- Portion Into a Container: Add the butter into an airtight plastic container, and press the butter into the shape of the container – this will eliminate air within and around the butter, reducing freezer burn.
- Seal: Once youāve pressed the butter into the container, place the lid on top and seal it shut. If you’re not sure that the container is airtight then add a layer of clingfilm to the outside of the box.
- Freeze: Finally, place the container into the freezer with a label.
How to Freeze Portions of Garlic Butter
To more easily use the garlic butter at a later date, weād suggest pressing the garlic butter into the cubes of ice cube trays using this method:
- Spoon Butter Into Ice Cube Tray: Grab an ice cube tray and spoon individual portions into each slot. Push the garlic butter in to remove any air from around and within the butter.
- Wrap and Freeze: To avoid stinking your freezer out, wrap the tray in a sheet of clingfilm before placing it into the freezer.
- Pop Cubes Out: Wait for the cubes to freeze solid then pop the cubes out of the ice cube tray and into a good-quality freezer bag.
- Seal and Freeze: Seal the bag up, removing as much air as possible then return to the freezer. You can now grab a cube of butter as and when you need it.
To be a little fancier, you could even pipe the softened garlic butter onto a flat tray, and freeze the whole tray.
After a short while, the small, piped portions of butter will be frozen solid. Transfer those portions to a freezer bag, and theyāll freeze well for up to three months.
3 Tips for Freezing Garlic Butter
Now you know how to freeze it, we’ve got our 3 top tips which we strongly recommend following when freezing garlic butter to have the best results:
Use Salt to Mince Garlic
First of all, the best garlic butter has extremely fine pieces of garlic. To mince the garlic extremely finely, sprinkle some salt over the cloves before chopping. After a few passes, the garlic will be exceptionally fine, almost like a paste!
Mix In Other Herbs and Spices
You can add other herbs and spices to the garlic butter – fresh herbs will freeze the best. Weād recommend adding a tablespoon of fresh parsley to half a cup of butter batch. You could also try thyme, coriander and even chilli flakes!
Freeze Into Logs
If you find you get through the garlic butter very quickly, consider freezing it in small logs of around 250g. These can be stored in the freezer. Then, whenever you want a ring of butter just use a serrated knife to slice a piece of frozen butter off the end.
How Long Can You Freeze Garlic Butter?
The determining factor for freezing garlic butter is freezer burn. Freezer burn sets in when the air in or around a portion of food condenses to water, before then freezing into ice.
This ice can eventually spread into the food that itās sitting on, damaging the texture of the food itself. While safe to eat, the foodās texture is ruined.
Because of the fact that you press the air bubbles out of garlic butter when pressing it into a container, and the fact that there is little water in butter or garlic, the risk of freezer burn is reduced.
Therefore, a 3-month maximum freezing period is a good rule of thumb.
How Do You Defrost Garlic Butter?
The best way to defrost garlic butter is to use your microwave. All microwaves have different power levels, typically from low to high. The ādefrostā setting will be somewhere in the lower half of the settings.
As oil can boil in a microwave, weād recommend staying on the safe side and opting for the lowest power level your microwave has. Place the frozen portion in the microwave in a ventilated but closed container, and thaw it in ten-second bursts.
Before long, youāll have perfectly softened butter.
Can You Refreeze Garlic Butter?
Technically, yes, you can refreeze butter.
The thing that limits refreezing is the water content of something – freezing and thawing something multiple times will ruin the texture.
The small but present water content of garlic butter can start to separate from the milk solids in the butter, leading to a poor imitation of the garlic butter you first created.
Therefore, you can get away with freezing garlic butter twice in total, but beyond that, it will severely impact the quality.
Does Garlic Butter Freeze Well?
Yes, garlic butter freezes well for up to 3 months. As there is a low moisture content in garlic butter, the chances of freezer burn are drastically reduced. To that end, garlic butter can be stored for quite a long time.
Related FAQs
If youāve still got questions about freezing garlic butter or compound butter in general, then these may help:
Yes, it’s possible to freeze store-bought garlic butter. If the packet is unopened then freeze it as-is. This is because the packaging is likely to be airtight. If it is opened then spoon portions into an ice cube tray to freeze them into cubes.
Yes, garlic oil can be frozen in an ice cube tray. Pour oil into the slots of the tray leaving a small gap at the top for expansion. Carefully place the tray into the freezer and wait for the cubes to turn solid before popping them into a freezer bag.
