There’s many ways to make Garlic Confit, from sous vide to oven roasting to stovetop, but Air Frying is the easiest and most hands-off. The slow cooking process transforms pungent cloves into a soft, spreadable garlic condiment ready to zhuzh up all your favourite Mediterranean recipes.
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What Is Confit?
Confit is a French culinary technique for cooking and preserving food. The food is submerged in a fat like olive oil or duck fat and roasted low and slow until tender.
Duck confit, onion confit, tomato confit are all popular choices. But Garlic Confit is my favourite.
Air Fryer Garlic Confit turns raw garlic cloves into a soft, buttery bulbs. The gentle cooking takes away its pungent spicy flavour and enhances the naturally sweet, earthy flavor of cooked garlic.
Soft enough to spread over toast or focaccia bread! Make garlic confit pasta! Mix it into Garlic Mashed Potatoes! Blend it into Garlic Confit Aioli!
Ingredient Notes
Only two ingredients needed to make this Air Fryer Garlic Confit recipe:
Garlic: Use peeled garlic. Lots and lots of garlic. Pre-peeled is okay, but sometimes the garlic can be dried-out. Fresh garlic has the best flavour.
Tip: Here’s the easiest way to peel garlic. Soak whole garlic cloves in hot water for about a minute. The skins will slide off easily!
Olive Oil: The intense flavour of olive oil goes well with garlic’s earthy aroma. You’ll end up with lots of yummy infused garlic oil, ready for your favourite Italian recipes, like One Pot Garlic Sausage Pasta or Salmon Al Cartoccio.
See recipe card for quantities.
Variations
You can add lots of different spices and herbs to infuse the garlic with any flavour. Here’s some of my favourites:
Herbs: Add in a sprig of rosemary or thyme.
Spicy: Add a dash of red pepper flakes… or Aleppo pepper, or gochugaru, whatever you’d like. Bring on the heat!
Salt & Pepper: Sprinkle in some salt and ground black pepper to amp up the savoury flavour. I prefer to add salt after confiting but you can add it at the beginning too.
Directions
Step 1. Peel garlic cloves and drop them into a small ramekin. Cover with olive oil. It’s okay if the tops aren’t fully submerged, as long as most of the garlic is under the oil.
Step 2. Put the ramekin into the air fryer basket. Cover with an oven-safe lid, or wrap with aluminum foil. (Optional, but prevents oil droplets from flying all over the air fryer.)
Step 3. Set the air fryer to 250 °F for one hour. No need to preheat it.
Step 4. Garlic should be very tender. Sprinkle salt and pepper to taste, if desired.
Equipment
Make sure to use an oven-safe dish for air frying garlic confit. I prefer stoneware or porcelain because the walls are thick which distributes the heat evenly within the vessel. This ensures your garlic does not burn.
Le Creuset makes 8oz cocottes that are perfect for this recipe. Porcelain ramekins are also a great choice, just make sure they come with lids.
Storage Tips
Fridge: Store garlic confit in the fridge for up to three days. I like to keep it in a glass jar. Olive oil solidifies when refrigerated, but will liquify after a minute or two at room temperature.
Freezer: Freeze garlic confit in an airtight container for up to six months. Protip—divvy up into an ice cube tray for small, easy-to-defrost portions. (The downside is your ice cube tray will forever smell of garlic. But that’s a small price to pay for garlic confit on demand.)
What to Make with Garlic Confit
- Garlic Confit Aioli
- Confit Garlic Butter Steak
- Garlic Confit Butter
More Air Fryer Recipes
Looking for other recipes like this? Try these:
Did you make this recipe? Please leave a rating or comment below to give me feedback and help out other readers.
Recipe Card
Air Fryer Garlic Confit
Equipment
- Small ramekin or other oven-safe container see Note 1
- Air fryer
Ingredients
- 2 heads garlic about 20 to 30 cloves
- ⅓ to ½ cup olive oil enough to cover all garlic cloves
Instructions
- Peel 2 heads garlic and drop the peeled cloves into the ramekin. Cover with ⅓ to ½ cup olive oil. It’s okay if the tops aren’t fully submerged, as long as most of the garlic is under the oil.
- Put the ramekin into the air fryer basket. Cover with an oven-safe lid, or wrap with aluminum foil. (Optional, but prevents oil droplets from flying all over the air fryer.)
- Air fry at 250 °F for 1 hour. No need to preheat.
- Garlic should become very tender. Sprinkle in salt and pepper to taste, if desired.
Notes
- Ramekin: A 1-cup (8oz) ramekin is enough to hold 2 heads’ worth of peeled garlic. If you have a bigger container, feel free to use more garlic!
Nutrition
Food Safety
- Homemade confit garlic recipes pose a botulism risk if not handled properly. Unrefrigerated garlic in oil can harbor clostridium botulinum bacteria. To minimize this risk, Michigan State University Extension recommends to refrigerate and use the garlic within two to three days.
- Don’t keep garlic confit for more than two hours at room temperature.
Genie says
I'm SOLD! It's pure genius to make confit in the air fryer! And I dont have to stink up my whole oven-
Kelly Zhang says
Right? And so much more energy-efficient too to use the air fryer.