What Does Garlic Taste Like?

Not satisfied with short answers? Don’t worry!

Delve in to unravel the taste of garlic in every dimension for your tastebuds!

What is Garlic?

Garlic (Allium sativum) is a Central Asian plant with a bulbous shape.

It grows underground, having a paper-like covering. Upon removing, the yellow fleshy part goes in cooking to enhance the flavor, as a seasoning and as an antidote to treat diseases.

The closest relative of garlic is onion. It is a cheap ingredient, and globally, they are of great use for both restaurants and home cooking. 

What does Garlic Taste Like?

Garlic has a pungent, spicy, and earthy taste in its raw form. However, upon cooking, you will get a nutty flavor. It is unique, and you might find it challenging to explain the taste in words. 

You get it into your tastebuds through smell even before you taste it. It is so powerful that the spicy touch in your tongue might not resemble chili or peppercorns. 

If you cook garlic, the spiciness disappears, making it sweeter. Some find roasted garlic having a caramel nutty taste with some sweetness. Moreover, it also becomes creamy in your mouth with a mellow flavor. Most people don’t like eating raw garlic and consume cooked garlic because the intense flavor lessens. 

Researches show that such pungent flavor of garlic arises from the sulfur mixtures, among which diallyl disulfide gives its mustard flavor.

Read about the taste of black garlic here>

Don’t worry if you cannot understand the taste because here’s a raw garlic taste test video just for your tastebuds:

What is the Texture of Garlic?

Both raw and cooked garlic have distinct textures. The raw garlic skin has a paper-like texture, and the flesh is hard, like biting into a carrot. However, upon cooking, it transforms to become creamy and soft.

They are crunchy, moist when diced, and dense raw form. Moreover, the juice that comes out while chopping might be sticky. If you are grinding raw garlic, you might get a paste texture but simultaneously watery. 

In the case of cooked garlic, they are mushy, soft, creamy, and pulpy. It is the opposite of the texture of raw garlic.

Garlic powder has a fine texture similar to all-purpose flour. For instance, even if you roast a clove of garlic, the feel and the flavor change. 

What is the Smell of Garlic?

As mentioned earlier in the taste, you get a pungent smell if you go near peeled garlic. If it’s diced, minced, or cut, the smell goes into the air and makes your kitchen smell terrible. 

Such garlicky smell is because of the alliinase enzyme present in it. Upon contact with air alliinase, changes to allicin which has sulfur, giving such an intense scent. 

Even if you eat garlic, the sulfur goes through your lungs and gets exhaled to give a garlic smell in your breath. Also, people who eat garlic often get their bodies scented with that odor.

In my personal experience, if you eat raw garlic, the smell stays in your breath for hours together, and you cannot open your mouth to others because of the ‘bad breath.’ 

If you are stuck in that situation, don’t worry. Squeeze lemon in your mouth or body to cover it in extreme cases. 

Is Raw Garlic Bitter?

Yes, it might become bitter if it comes in contact with the air around.

You know that garlic gets its taste with diallyl disulfide that is nothing but natural oil that becomes bitter when you slice the garlic.

So if you chop it the finer, the quicker the chances of becoming bitter or sometimes sour or even salty.

To Conclude

I hope your tastebuds were energized with the overpowering garlic flavor reading this article. 

Please do share this guide with your friends and family