What Is Green Garlic? 6 Ways to Use or Preserve It

Last Updated on August 8, 2025

Are you curious about green garlic? Or, did you harvest your garlic early but aren’t sure how to use or store it? Come learn all about it!

Green garlic, also known as spring garlic or young garlic, is delectably flavorful, versatile, tender, and even easier to prepare than regular garlic. This article will explore 6 awesome ways to use or preserve it – including ideas and recipes for fresh cooking, freezing, pickling and more.

Note: This post was originally published in June 2019.

Disclosure: Homestead and Chill is reader-supported. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. 

What is Green Garlic?

Contrary to popular belief, green garlic isn’t some exotic variety of garlic. Rather, green garlic is simply immature garlic or regular garlic that was harvested early in the spring. Both the white bulb and the green stalk are edible.

Most often, green garlic is the result of farmers thinning their main garlic crop – and making good use of those thinnings by selling it. Other times, it’s intentionally grown and harvested early as a rise in popularity has created a demand for it as a worthy crop of its own.

If you grow your own garlic, there may be times you have to harvest it early (even if you didn’t want to) – resulting in green garlic that can’t be stored long term. However, it’s nice to be able to pull a few heads early to use in recipes as needed too!

Green Garlic Storage and Shelf Life

Garlic is typically planted in the fall, goes dormant over winter, resumes growth the following spring, and then is harvested in summer once it reaches full maturity. By then, the large garlic heads have developed individual cloves with protective papery skins, which enable it to last for many months in dry storage post-harvest.

On the other hand, spring garlic is smaller, more tender, and hasn’t formed tightly-wrapped cloves yet. Because of this, green garlic lacks the long term storage potential of its mature counterpart. Instead, it must be used fresh or be preserved within a week or two of harvest. We do a little of both!

RELATED: See this guide on how to harvest, cure, and store mature garlic to make it last as long as possible!

What does green garlic taste like?

Young green garlic is usually more mild and fresh-tasting than mature garlic. It offers a verdant onion or scallion-like flavor profile (but still has notable garlicky attributes). However, the longer it is allowed to grow and develop, the more classic sharp and rich garlic flavor will shine through. Many of our larger green bulbs taste just like mature garlic!

Where to Get Green Garlic

The best place to buy green garlic is at your local farmer’s market in the spring, or possibly from a small local grocery store. I personally haven’t seen it available at large chain grocery stories. Have you?

Or, you can grow your own! See our complete guide on how to plant and grow garlic here. While we typically like to let our garlic reach full maturity, we’ve had to harvest garlic prematurely for a number reasons over the years: due to disease like garlic rust, because we were moving, or to make space in a garden bed for another crop.

How to Prepare Green Garlic for Cooking

Because there are no papery parts, and no need to peel individual cloves, preparing green garlic can be much more quick and easy than mature garlic! The exact preparation required depends on how mature it was at the time of harvest, and how you’re going to use it.

• For small tender pieces of spring garlic, simply wash and cut it as you would prepare a green onion. Trim off the tough root end if it’s still attached. Again, both the bulb and tender green stalk is edible!
  
  
• Larger, more mature green garlic may have started to form a papery skin, so you may want to peel away a couple of the most tough outermost layers around the bulb and stem – similar to peeling an onion. Since we often make garlic powder with ours, we don’t bother peeling it much since it will just be dried and ground up anyway.

7 Ways to Use Green Garlic

1) Eat It Fresh

The bulb and tender stalks of green garlic can be used in the place of regular garlic, onions, leeks, scallions, or shallots in any recipe – raw or cooked! This includes sautéed with vegetables or stir fry, added to soups, sauces, pasta, egg dishes, and more. We love to use our young spring garlic in homemade fire cider, with roasted artichokes, easy garden tzatziki, and our favorite pesto recipe too.

Also consider saving the leafy greens or tough stalks in the freezer with other veggie scraps to later make homemade vegetable broth. Or, add them to infuse flavor into soup, rice, or beans while cooking, and then remove them before serving – like you’d use bay leaves.

It’s best to store fresh green garlic in the refrigerator, and use it within one to two weeks after harvest. Otherwise, see ideas to preserve it to extend the storage time below.

2) Green Garlic Powder

Making homemade garlic powder is my favorite way to preserve green garlic – or any garlic for that matter! It is easy to do, can be used with a variety of meals, and neatly condenses a lot of garlic into a small concentrated volume. You could also mix garlic powder with other spices to create your own seasoning blend. When done right, garlic powder stays good stored at room temperature for well over a year.

Learn how to make garlic powder in our step-by-step guide. In summary: thinly slice the garlic (or chop it up in a food processor) and dry completely in a food dehydrator. Next, grind into a fine powder using a Vitamix, coffee grinder, food processor, or similar. Store in an air-tight container.

3) Fermented

Up next: consider fermenting green garlic in honey! Fermented garlic honey is a simple natural health remedy commonly used to support the immune system, cardiovascular system, and digestive health as well as alleviate cold and flu symptoms such as coughs or sore throats. It’s a delicious way to preserve garlic and incredibly easy to make – the perfect project for beginners or experienced fermenters alike.

Or if you prefer a more tangy, savory, pickle-like fermented garlic, use a basic lactofermentation salt brine recipe like this one.

4) Roasted

Roasted green garlic is just as gooey and delicious as regular roasted garlic. I love to spread it on crusty homemade sourdough bread, on its own or with other sandwich fixings. It’s also awesome in hummus, sauces, soups, and more!

l like to roast garlic in a large glass baking pan (instead of the classic tin foil method). After peeling away any tougher outer layers, cut the garlic bulbs in half, drizzle with olive oil, toss to coat, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast on 400F in the oven until it is golden brown and soft.

The time will vary depending on the age and size of your green garlic. For our larger, more mature bulbs, we found that roasting them for 20 minutes covered followed by 10 more minutes uncovered worked well. Flip or toss the pieces over once during baking to evenly roast both sides.

When done, you can enjoy it immediately, refrigerate for up to 5 days, or freeze it for later use – explained next.

5) Freezing Green Garlic

Freezing is a super quick and easy way to preserve garlic. It can be as simple as freezing whole raw bulbs, cut into pieces, or roasted and then frozen. We also like to mince garlic to freeze in ice cube trays with olive oil, like our frozen basil cubes.

No matter how you choose to freeze green garlic, store it in an air-tight freezer container with a lid that will effectively reduce air contact, which is important to prevent freezer burn!

To use large chunks of frozen spring garlic, you can let it defrost at room temperature before prepping (it will get quite soft) or simply grate it frozen. Frozen minced garlic can be added to dishes as-is, since it will very quickly defrost.

6) Pickled Green Garlic

Last but not least, you can pickle it! Pickled green garlic is a welcome addition to Bloody Mary’s, salad dressing, stuffed in olives, served with cheese and crackers, mixed with sautéed vegetables, or in hummus.

To pickle green garlic, cut and peel away any tough upper and outer portions, revealing the most tender middle parts. Pack into a jar with a vinegar-based brine and seasonings of choice. See our easy refrigerator pickling brine recipe here. It’s used for pickled peppers in this example but can easily be applied to a variety of veggies, including garlic.

What about Preserving Garlic in Oil?

While you may see garlic preserved in oil at the grocery store, it’s not something I necessarily recommend trying at home. If you do, proceed with extreme caution! Botulism organisms (naturally present in soil) are commonly found on garlic and can grow to dangerous levels in the absence of oxygen, such as in an oil solution.

To safely preserve garlic in oil, the garlic must be acidified first, explains a food safety expert from Oklahoma State University. Otherwise, it’s best refrigerate garlic and oil mixtures and use within just a few days.

And those are the top 6 ways to use green garlic.

I hope you enjoyed this lesson on green garlic and the related recipes! While I don’t necessarily suggest you go and pull out your whole crop of garlic early, I hope you get to try it sometime.

What do you think? Have you tried spring garlic before? If not, are you eager to now? Did I forget any tasty ways that you like to use it? Let me know in the comments!

You may also enjoy:

• How to Make Chive Blossom Vinegar + 8 Ways to Use it
• 5 Easy Ways to Preserve Garlic: Freeze, Dry, Pickle & More
• When to Harvest Onions and How to Cure Them for Storage
• DIY Container Herb Garden Planter + The Best Herbs to Grow
• Preserved Lemons Recipe (How to Make Salt Pickled Lemons)