How To Make Dehydrated Garlic Scape Powder
Making dehydrated garlic scape powder is very simple and a great way to preserve garlic scapes to use in many different recipes throughout the year. We like to use it in recipe that calls for garlic powder or combine it with salt to make garlic salt. It’s amazing how many garlic scapes you can fit into a quart jar once they’ve been dehydrated and ground up. Garlic scape powder can also be stored on your pantry shelf for several years, if it lasts that long.
What Are Garlic Scapes?
Garlic scapes are the flower bud of hard neck garlic plants. Garlic is typically planted in the fall similar to a flower bulb like a tulip, and is one of the first things growing in the early spring garden. As it grows, it gets bigger and produces more leaves and in early summer puts out this curly green stalk from the middle of the plant called a garlic scape. For a nice tender scape, harvest when still fairly small. You can harvest it by snapping it off where it joins the plant. If left to grow, these scapes will turn into a garlic flower to help the garlic plant reproduce.
Since we are most interested in harvesting a nice garlic bulb with good sized garlic cloves, we always make sure to pick off all the garlic scapes soon after they appear. This encourages it to put all of the plant’s energy into growing a large bulb. If you do not harvest the garlic scapes, the bulb of garlic will be small and not as useful for cooking or re-planting.
How To Use Garlic Scapes
I love garlic scapes so much, that if all I got out of growing garlic were the scapes, then I would be happy! They have a very mild garlic flavor and are amazing roasted or sauteed, in garlic scape pesto, pickled, dried into garlic powder, made into compound butter or used in cooking in place of regular garlic. When I harvest garlic scapes, I’m usually running low on my stored garlic from the previous years garden, and ready for something fresh. I use them in place of garlic until we harvest our garlic bulbs about 3-4 weeks after harvesting the scapes, usually in early July. Garlic scapes can be stored in a grocery bag in the refrigerator for at least 4 weeks. This is helpful because you don’t have to process right away after harvesting them.
How To Use Garlic Scape Powder:
- In salad dressings or dips.
- In soups or stews.
- In scrambled eggs or as a seasoning on top of fried eggs.
- In sourdough bread, or with olive oil on sliced bread for garlic toast.
- In place of garlic powder in any recipe.
Tips:
The scapes will dry much faster if you cut them into 2-3” long sections before dehydrating.
It’s best to dry garlic scapes in a food dehydrator like an excalibur, but you can also dry them on a cookie sheet in your oven on it’s lowest setting.
You want to dry the scapes until they snap, and are fully dry.
You can use a food processor or a blender to blend the dry scapes into powder.
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Tools You May Need:
Dehydrator
How to make dehydrated garlic scapes:
Place fresh garlic scapes in single layer on trays of dehydrator. It works best if you cut them into 2-3” long pieces with a knife or pair of scissors first.
Dehydrate at 140 degrees for 6 hours or until scapes are completely dry.
Place in blender or food processor and blend until a fine powder.
Pour into a quart jar or other airtight container and store in your long term storage indefinitely.
This is a delicious alternative to garlic powder or you can add salt and use like garlic salt in any recipe. It’s especially good in soups and stews in the wintertime.
I hope you enjoy this delicious recipe as much as we do. If you do, please let us know in the comments below and give the recipe a 5-star rating. Thanks for following along as we teach you how to grow a simple, sustainable life.
