Love garlic, hate FODMAPs?

It's easy to get the flavor of garlic into your favorite dishes without eating a load of FODMAPs.  Prepare this easy recipe for garlic oil, then use it as a cooking or seasoning oil in any FODMAPs-friendly recipe that would benefit from a shot of that incomparable garlic flavor:

Garlic Oil

1/2 cup olive oil
3 large cloves of garlic, wash, peeled and slightly crushed

Pour olive oil into a small, heavy saucepan. Add the slightly crushed garlic. Heat oil until small bubbles rise vigorously from the garlic. Remove from heat. Garlic will continue to cool. Allow the garlic and oil to cool for a few minutes, then pour them into a freshly washed glass jar with a lid. Store in the refrigerator for up to a week. Remove the garlic before using the oil. Olive oil will sometimes get a little cloudy or solidify when it is refrigerated, but it will quickly melt back to its familiar form when you remove a spoonful. Use this as a cooking or flavoring oil to modify any recipe in your collection that calls for garlic.

Note: To make sure your garlic oil is safe to eat, do not store it on the counter at room temperature, and do not eat it it if it has been in the fridge for a month! Garlic oil can go bad like any other fresh food.

Why not just used garlic powder, dried or dehydrated garlic? Although a small pinch of these certainly would not have as much fructans as would eating a few cloves of fresh or roasted garlic, they still have some. Garlic-infused oil is the better option.

Comments

[Jenna]

I went through your exhaustive list of brand named products and finally went shopping the other day to stock our pantry.

I did find the Green Valley lactose-free yogurt after going to several stores. I did notice that it contains "evaporated cane juice" - is this an O.K. sweetener?

[Patsy Catsos]

Yes, evaporated cane juice is OK on the elimination diet.

[Jenna]

Hello Patsy. What do you know about "malt flavoring" on labels? Is that fodmap safe? Rice Krispies is now only made with these ingredients... Rice, sugar, contains 2% or less of salt, malt flavoring, BHT.

I've also seen some cereals at Trader Joe's that look ok, but they also have "barley malt flavoring". Any idea?

[Patsy Catsos]

Malt flavoring should not pose a problem for a FODMAPs elimination diet (unless one has celiac disease or must otherwise avoid gluten).

[Bre]

I bought some garlic oil at Good Harvest Market, but I'm not sure how much to use as a substitute in recipes calling for garlic. Any ideas? Thanks!

[Patsy Catsos]

Well, of course you can use it in place of any of oil that is called for in a recipe.. For example, if the recipe calls for 1 tablespoon of olive oil for sauteeing, you can substitute 1 tablespoon of garlic infused oil. Some garlic infused oils are very strongly flavored. For a recipe that calls for a lot of oil, such as a salad dressing, you might want to just use a little garlic infused oil, and keep the rest unflavored.

Or you could add it to recipes that had garlic even if the original recipe didnt call for oil. For example, if making homemade salsa, which doesnt usually call for any oil, instead of garlic you could add a tablespoon of garlic infused oil to a full just for the flavor.