Martha Stewart's Garlic Peeling Hack Is Basically Foolproof

Garlic is one of the most fragrant and powerful seasonings you can add to any dish to bolster the flavor. Not only is the herb a great way to add some complexity, it's also excellent for heart health (via Providence). But preparing garlic can be tricky and time-consuming, if you don't know the best and fastest ways to peel more than one clove at a time.

While slightly crushing or applying pressure to individual cloves of the vegetable makes the peel slides right off, that certainly is not the fastest method for peeling a whole head of garlic (via The Kitchn). Fortunately, Martha Stewart uses a method that makes incredibly fast work of peeling an entire head of garlic in no time at all. This is the perfect hack for recipes that call for a ton of the spice, such as Ina Garten's Penne Arrabiata recipe which calls for 24 cloves or even her recipe for chicken with 40 cloves of garlic (via Food Network).

Though Stewart first shared her method for peeling many garlic cloves at once on her television show, the tip is also on the Martha Stewart website. There, the famous cook explains that you can simply place a whole head of the herb inside a metal mixing bowl. Next, she places another smaller metal mixing bowl on top of the garlic head inside the larger bowl. That's when she gently pressed down on the smaller mixing bowl to apply pressure and crack the peels away from the cloves just as you would with a knife.

Once the peels are loose, Stewart flips the smaller mixing bowl over to create a sphere with the garlic cloves and their peels inside. Then all you have to do is shake the bowls vigorously without letting them slip so the garlic stays inside of the bowls. After shaking for around 30 seconds, set the bowls down and remove the top one to find the peels completely separated from the cloves. Then you can easily use the cloves in whatever recipe you'd like.