Garlic Vinegar Concentrate! With its bold garlic punch balanced by salt and acidity, this concentrate invites you to layer in herbs, citrus, and seed/nut butters to craft endless condiments that sparkle on the table.
This Garlic Vinegar Concentrate is the perfect base for a rainbow of Lebanese-inspired dressings, sauces, and dips. Imagine a bottle that holds the intensity of fresh garlic, the kiss of sea salt, and the bright tang of red wine vinegar all in one powerful blend. It’s a time-saving hero for meal prep, turning simple ingredients into garlic-forward salad dressings, zesty sauces, and bold dips in minutes. Use it as the flavor backbone for everything from a crisp cucumber salad to a bold dip, and watch how a single concentrate elevates your pantry staples.
Whole Food Plant Based, Vegan, plant based, oil free, refined sugar free, no highly processed ingredients and gluten free.
Hi there, Ameera here!
This Garlic Vinegar Concentrate is always in our refrigerator, a constant companion in our busy kitchen. Michael absolutely loves it, and Yasmeen does too—there’s something magical about how it transforms everyday veggies into a vibrant, intense experience.
Yasmeen will dip veggies directly into the garlic vinegar concentrate, and the result is nothing short of bold and lively. It’s the kind of staple that sparks creativity: a quick drizzle over roasted vegetables, a tangy lift for dressings, or a fearless splash into a fresh cucumber salad.
You gotta give this one a try!
Tips for Success:
- Flavor Profile: This Garlic Vinegar Concentrate is the perfect base for many Lebanese salad dressings, sauces, and dips. Intense garlic flavor mixed with sea salt and red wine vinegar is a great timesaver and meal prep for creating delicious garlic intensified salad dressings, sauces, and dips.
- Foam: When you first make the Garlic Vinegar Concentrate, the mixture will generate a rim of foam, then after a four hours in the fridge, you will see the foam flatten out. This is just a natural reaction from mixing the garlic, salt, and vinegar together.
- Number of Garlic Cloves: The size of the garlic head and number of cloves is not super important.
- Sea Salt: The amount of sea salt can be increased or decreased based largely based upon making a paste. Typically, 2 teaspoons of sea salt works best per one medium-sized garlic head.
- How to Use the Concentrate: The garlic vinegar concentrate is often used as a base for Lebanese salad dressings, sauces, or dips where several tablespoons of the concentrate will be placed in a bowl and additional red wine vinegar will be added along with a fat, like tahini or other nut or seed butters. The traditional recipe is using the garlic vinegar concentrate along with olive oil and some additional red wine vinegar and sea salt.
- Raw Garlic Benefits: Raw garlic contains allicin which helps lower blood pressure and cholesterol. It has also been found to reduce the risk of blood clots. Allicin has microbial and antiviral properties which may help boost the immune system. It helps reduce inflammation and improve digestive issues. Some recent studies have suggested that garlic may reduce the risk of colon, stomach, and lung cancer as well has improve liver functions.
- Red Wine Vinegar Benefits: Red wine vinegar promotes gut health and boosts immunities.
- Don’t have a Mortar and Pestle: You can make this dressing in a small food processor. Or you can make it in a larger food processor; however, you may wish to double the recipe so that the garlic does not fall underneath the blades. Do not double the sea salt. Start with 2 teaspoons and then increase as needed until a paste forms.
- Table Salt: If using table salt, you should use less table salt than the amount listed in the ingredients as sea salt crystals are larger than table salt crystals. Since table salt crystals are very fine, less table salt is required to season a dish. We would suggest starting with about 1/4 to 1/2 the amount of sea salt listed. You can always add more salt but cannot take it away. We recommend using sea salt as it is less refined than table salt.
- Sea Salt: Please adjust the sea salt based upon your family’s sea salt preferences and/or based upon dietary needs.
Leftovers and Freezing:
Leftovers will generally keep 5 days in the refrigerator. Store in a covered air-tight container.
This soup freezes well.
Pantry Products:
- Sea Salt: Please adjust the sea salt based upon your family’s sea salt preferences and/or based upon dietary needs.
Kitchen Equipment:
- Mortar and pestle (or small food processor) We used this Granite Mortar and Pestle Set
If you try this concentrate, we would love to know if you enjoy it as much as we do! Please leave us a review! Post a picture on Facebook or Instagram and tag us! We would love to hear from you.
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Garlic Vinegar Concentrate
- Prep Time: 15 Minutes
- Total Time: 15 Minutes (+Rest Time)
- Yield: 1 Cup 1x
- Category: Sauce
- Diet: Vegan
Description
This Garlic Vinegar Concentrate is the perfect base for a rainbow of Lebanese-inspired dressings, sauces, and dips.
Ingredients
Base Ingredients:
- 1 medium garlic bulb (about 10 to 12 cloves), peeled *
- 2 teaspoons sea salt (+/-)
 Other Ingredients:
- 1 cup red wine vinegar *
Instructions
- Peel all the garlic cloves from one medium-sized garlic bulb and place in a mortar with the sea salt and begin to smash and break up the garlic cloves with the pestle and pound the sea salt into the garlic with the pestle to form a garlic/sea salt paste.
- Once a paste forms, move the paste to a glass jar, then add the red wine vinegar and stir thoroughly. Be sure to get all the garlic bits from the mortar. Cover tightly with a lid, and refrigerator for a minimum of 4 hours to overnight.
- Use as a delicious base to make your favorite salad dressings, sauces, or dips.
- The Garlic Vinegar Concentrate lasts 5 to 6 weeks in the refrigerator.
Notes
Please reference the blog post for Tips for Success, Pantry Items Used, Storage and Freezing, and Kitchen Products Used.
Sea Salt: Please adjust the sea salt based upon your family’s sea salt preferences and/or based upon dietary needs.
Servings:Â makes 1 cup of dressing concentrate
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