The Best Garlic Presses, Knives, Rollers, and Graters

Ah, garlic. It’s one of nature’s greatest gifts to mankind. Let’s see—there’s garlic bread, garlic knots, chile-garlic sauce, garlic fried rice, and that chicken recipe that uses 40 cloves of garlic… and that’s just the savory stuff. We’ve also got garlic ice cream, and even black garlic cookies, too. Some would argue that almost all good dishes have garlic in them. Like, if I‘m cooking a recipe that doesn’t have garlic in it, I’m immediately skeptical (unless it’s Marcella Hazan’s tomato sauce—she gets a pass).

Since most recipes begin with needing to peel and chop or mince a bunch of garlic, it can extend the prep process. And unless you’re listening to Steely Dan or a live John Coltrane album, it can be fucking boooooring. Beyond the annoying peeling process and dry-yet-slimy feel of the sliced garlic itself, you also have to deal with the affliction known as “garlic fingers,” which can be night-ending if you’re trying to go to the opera or get laid or something like that. Thus, people have come up with ways to streamline the garlic-prepping process. And stepping into that sect of kitchen gear can be overwhelming. Are there a million products for prepping garlic? Yes. Are there maybe five (or fewer) you should know about? Also yes. Anyway, here are the garlic-preppin’ tools worth checking out. 

This garlic press is a classic. It was huge in the 1990s—its immediate vibe relatives are sun dried tomatoes and bad balsamic vinegar—but its usefulness is undeniably eternal. You know how this thing works: Once you peel the garlic with either your hands or the flat side of a knife, you put the cloves into the press’ hopper and squeeze it like  you would a pair of pliers. Very quickly, you’ll have something approximating between minced garlic and paste that can then be sauteed, blended, rubbed, or mixed. This OXO Good Grips is pretty much the Platonic ideal of the garlic press; it’s even easy to clean and empty.

This is my preferred method of dealing with garlic, TBQH. Place the garlic on your cutting board, rest a cleaver horizontally on top of it, and give it a light-medium smash with your fist to loosen the garlic’s skin. You should be able to very easily slip it out, and then put the garlic back. Now it’s time to smash it again with a medium-hard pound (and feel free to grunt loudly while doing this). Then, you can go ahead and use it, or further mince it if the recipe calls for that. Or, if you’re Guy Fieri, you can put some coarse salt on it and mush it into a real garlic paste. We truly and deeply stan the Winco cleaver, which is the go-to of many pro chefs; we’re also huge fans of the powerful, gorgeous, fully-forged Made In olive wood cleaver.

If you don’t want to deal with anything sharp or with a lever that could squash your wittle fingers, just roll the garlic around inside one of these cannoli-lookin’ MFs to get the skin off. 

The microplane isn’t specifically a garlic tool, but when it comes to uniformly grating (or being too lazy to mince) garlic, there’s no greater piece of equipment. Need garlic for a salad dressing, hummus, or marinade? Use a microplane. If you don’t have one of these in your kitchen, you’re wrong and need to change your life immediately. Plus, if you have guests, you’ll look like an ancillary character from The Bear while holding one of these bad boys. 

Go forth, and make sure to brush your teeth after. 

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