Garlic scapes are a farmers harvest. They are a delicious harvest that happens to show up just as you are wondering if you will ever harvest anything from the garden.
The scapes are the potential flower of the garlic plant. It is essential to remove the scapes if you want to encourage the plant to develop a large bulb.
Garlic scapes have a delicious mild garlic flavour that can be used fresh or cooked and are worth sourcing out if you are not currently growing garlic.
What Is Garlic Scape Salt?
Garlic scape salt is a simple way to preserve the first part of the garlic harvest. Instead of buying garlic salt at the store, you can make your own with two simple ingredients.
The homemade garlic scape salt has a fresh garlic flavour. It’s much brighter then regular garlic salt, which almost has a roasted garlic flavour to me.
Why You’ll Love This Garlic Scape Salt
Homemade garlic scape salt is the ultimate homesteader’s hack. It’s quick, easy, and relatively hands off. The dehydrator does all the work here.
You are going to get that fresh, garlic scape flavour without any extra chopping at meal time.
How to Make Garlic Scape Salt
For the garlic scape salt you are going to need two ingredients:
- 1 cup of high quality sea salt (see notes)
- 2 cups of fresh garlic scapes
Start by washing and drying your garlic scapes. You want them to be completely dry before you start this recipe. Any added moisture is just going to add to your drying time.
Roughly chop the garlic scapes and add them to your food processor. Pulse the food processor until the scapes are finely chopped.
Add sea salt and pulse until the garlic scapes and salt are one homogeneous mixture. You shouldn’t be able to tell them apart.
Spread the garlic scape and sea salt mixture out on a parchment lined dehydrator tray. You want a relatively thin layer. The thinner it is, the more quickly it will dry. Use as many trays as you need.
Turn your dehydrator on to the warmest setting and leave until dry.
Once your garlic scape salt is dry, run it through the food processor one more time to break it up and give it the texture of store bought garlic salt.
Notes: if you don’t have a food processor feel free to use a blender. You will have to scrape down the sides frequently. I haven’t tried this method but I feel confident that one could make it work.
Use coarse sea salt if you are worried about turning your salt/garlic mixture to a paste. If you use coarse sea salt you can add it directly to the food process with your roughly chopped garlic scapes.
My salt took about 4 hours to dry completely. The dry time is going to depend on so many factors that it is hard to give an estimate. Just know that you salt should be completely dry, and almost snap or crumble when it is done.
How to Use Garlic Scape Salt
If you are looking for a few way to use your garlic scape sea salt, here are my favourite:
- add to eggs or a fritatta
- season meat before cooking
- add to soup
- use in salad dressing
- sprinkle over popcorn for a savoury twist
- use in place of regular salt when you are boiling potatoes or other veggies
How to Store Garlic Scape Salt
You are going to want to keep your garlic scape salt in an airtight, glass container. Store some place cool, dry and out of direct sunlight.
The key to making sure your garlic scape salt stores for more than a few days is to make sure your salt is completely dry. Moisture is the enemy here and if you are unsure, just keep the dehydrator going for a little longer.
More Ways to Preserve Garlic Scapes
If you are looking for more ways to preserve your galic scapes, check out my other posts. I have one for preserving them in olive oil here, and one for pre chopping and freezing your garlic scapes here.
Well friends, I hope that you try this recipe… or any of my recipes to help preserve your garlic scape harvest. They truly are delicious and worth having in your kitchen.
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