You Need Ground Garlic in Pickles and Dressings
Garlic powder is not respected. Of course, the aroma and flavor of fresh garlic is hard to beat, but in some cases, dried garlic doesn’t just meet the requirements, it just wins. If you need a garlic vinaigrette , marinade, or sauce to stay great for longer than 24 hours, minced or granulated garlic is best.
The best reason to use dried garlic in sauces is because it gets better over time. Do you know how anything with minced raw garlic has its characteristic “old garlic smell” after a couple of days in the refrigerator? This does not happen with granular or minced garlic. (As a bonus, botulism too.) Dried foods still have a lot of garlic flavor and odor, but the harshest, harshest aromas, which also fade quickly, do not survive the drying process. Thus, using granular or powdered garlic (or both) provides all the benefits without any disadvantages.
And you should definitely use both. Believe it or not, there is a big difference in flavor between granulated and minced garlic. The granules impart a potent garlic punch, similar to raw minced garlic, and the garlic powder has a deeper, rounder, and savory flavor. Using some of them adds a ton of complexity with little or no effort, which is why I always keep them close at hand.
Replacing granular or powdered garlic with fresh is pretty easy, but when it comes to quantitative conversion, you’ll have to counterfeit it until you make it. No two cloves of garlic are the same size, and the effectiveness of dried garlic varies greatly by brand and age; it is in principle impossible to find out the exact formula. As always, season to taste until you feel like you like it. Just keep in mind that a small amount makes a big difference, especially with garlic powder, which is about twice as dense – and twice as intense as granular.
If you’re wondering if all of this also applies to dried onion products, it really is. I just don’t think dried onion products perform better than fresh ones in this particular case. The flavor you get from the combination of sweaty, caramelized, and fried onions is far more interesting than onion powder, and raw onions tend to age gracefully in sour vinaigrette. Your mileage may vary, but I personally would save onion powder for Live Más Dust .