Air Fryer Roasted Garlic Butter
A whole head of garlic roasted in the air fryer until the cloves go soft and sweet, then mashed into softened butter with salt and herbs. Thirty minutes, no oven, and it keeps a week in the fridge or three months frozen.
Servings: 6 servings
Calories: 197kcal
Equipment
- Mini Cocotte (use aluminum foil or parchment paper if not available)
Ingredients
- 3 Garlic bulbs
- ½ cup Butter unsalted, softened
- 2 tablespoons Olive oil
- Salt and pepper
- Fresh herbs optional
Instructions
- Preheat your air fryer to 375°F. Peel just the outer papery layers off your garlic bulb, keeping the cloves intact. Slice about ¼ inch off the top to expose the cloves inside.3 Garlic bulbs
- Drizzle the bulb with olive oil, season with a pinch of salt and pepper, and wrap it tightly in foil.2 tablespoons Olive oil, Salt and pepper
- Roast in the air fryer for 30 minutes, until the cloves are golden and soft. Let it cool slightly, then squeeze the garlic out of the skins into a small bowl.
- In a mixing bowl, mash the softened roasted garlic with your butter. Add a little salt, pepper, and fresh herbs if using. Stir until well combined.½ cup Butter, Fresh herbs
- Spoon the mixture onto parchment paper and roll it into a log, or just store it in a jar or airtight container. Chill until firm.
Notes
Makes about ½ cup, from one head of garlic and a stick of butter.
Pick a firm, heavy head of garlic. Skip anything sprouting, or that feels papery or empty when you squeeze it. That hollow feeling means the cloves inside are drying out.
Cut the small side cloves too. Slicing the top off the bulb misses the little ones on the sides, and those come out hard while everything else is soft.
Keep it covered while it roasts. A lidded cocotte, foil, or a sealed parchment pouch. All three trap steam, which is what makes the cloves soft rather than dry. Loose wrapping lets it escape.
Golden, not brown. Garlic goes from sweet to bitter quickly once it browns past golden. If yours comes out dark, drop the temperature or check it five minutes earlier next time.
Cool the garlic 10 minutes before handling. The outside cools faster than the cloves inside, which stay hot enough to burn. It also needs to be cool before it goes into the butter, or it melts it into a greasy pool instead of a spread.
Butter should be soft all the way through, not just at the edges. Cut it into cubes to speed that up if you forgot to take it out early.
Season twice. A pinch of salt on the garlic before roasting, then taste and adjust once it's mixed. Roasted garlic tastes sweeter than you expect and needs less salt than it seems.
Herbs at the end, once the butter has cooled. Stirred into warm butter they go dull and dark.
No air fryer? Oven at 400°F for about 40 minutes, foil-wrapped.
Storage. A week in the fridge, three months in the freezer. Roll it into a log on parchment and you can slice off coins straight from frozen. Don't leave it at room temperature, since garlic stored in fat without refrigeration carries a botulism risk, the same as garlic in oil.
Nutrition
Calories: 197kcal | Carbohydrates: 5g | Protein: 0.9g | Fat: 19.9g
