Ina Garten's Garlic Mashed Potatoes Feature A Game-Changing Method

Food Network's Ina Garten rarely cuts corners in the kitchen, but when it comes to her garlic mashed potatoes, she has a quicker way to garlic flavor. Instead of roasting them in foil, tossing in minced garlic, or sprinkling in the powdered stuff, she confits her cloves and mashes them into the mix.

While roasted garlic is similar to confit in terms of the cloves getting tender and smash-able, perfect for easily incorporating into dishes, Garten's confit method, seen in a Food Network video on YouTube, requires no foil, gives you infused oil, and takes less time. The term confit refers to cooking something in fat over a gentle heat for a longer period of time, but Garten makes quick work of the task, getting her cloves nice and tender in a mere 20 minutes — half the time of roasting a whole head.

Garten's garlic confit involves submerging your garlic cloves in oil in a pot over low heat and simmering the mixture until your cloves are lightly browned and toasty. The benefit of this method is that not only does it give you perfectly tender garlic for incorporating into your mashed mix, but also an influx of infused oil to drizzle into your dish for an extra oomph of garlicky flavor.

To do it like Garten, the Barefoot Contessa starts by adding garlic cloves and olive oil at a 1:1 ratio in a pot over medium heat. Once the cloves are sizzling, she lowers the heat and lets it simmer until the cloves have subtle brown spots and are easy to puncture with a toothpick. She then lets the mixture cool and transfers the cloves, along with a few tablespoons of garlic-infused oil, to the stand mixer with her already-prepped mashed potatoes, and beats them until they have melted into the mix. With the help of Garten herself, you've got perfectly infused, naturally flavored garlic mashed potatoes.

Be sure to save any extra infused oil for drizzling into vinaigrettes, sneaking into steak marinades, tossing with potatoes before roasting, and even frying an egg in. But don't forget to store it in a sealed bottle, which will stay good for up to three weeks in the refrigerator, per Cook Gem.