This page shows you what the germ is, when it matters, who may want to skip it, and the three-step method with photos. It is one of those small habits, like reading the recipe first, that good cooks pick up and never drop.
What the germ is
Every clove is a bud waiting to sprout. In the center sits the embryo of the new plant, the germ. In a fresh, young bulb it is pale, slim and almost invisible. As the garlic ages on the shelf, the germ grows, turns green and finally pushes out of the top of the clove as a shoot. That is why old garlic, the kind that has been in the fruit bowl for a month, has big green centers, and the fresh garlic from a good market has almost none.
Why cooks take it out
- Flavor. The germ is the most pungent, bitter part of the clove, and it gets more so as it grows. In dishes where garlic is raw or barely cooked (a mojo, a vinaigrette, an aioli, a fresh sofrito), that bitterness comes straight through. Taking the germ out leaves the sweet, round garlic flavor and drops the sharp edge.
- Burning. The germ scorches faster than the flesh when you sauté, which adds a burnt note to the oil.
- Smell. A big part of the strong garlic breath afterward comes from the germ, which is why the old cooks of Italy, France and Spain have always pulled it out before cooking.
Garlic that sits heavy: why some people blame the germ
Garlic bothers some people's stomachs: heartburn, bloating, gas, that heavy feeling after a garlicky meal. If that is you, it may be worth trying garlic without the germ before giving up on it.
Here is what is known. Garlic is high in fructans, a type of carbohydrate the small intestine cannot break down, so it ferments in the gut; that is the main reason garlic is on the list of foods people with sensitive digestion are told to limit. Garlic also contains the sulfur compounds that give it its bite (allicin is the famous one), and they can irritate the stomach lining and relax the valve at the top of the stomach, which is where heartburn starts. The germ is the most concentrated part of the clove for those sulfur compounds and the bitter ones, and it keeps growing stronger as the bulb ages.
So removing the germ does not make garlic fructan-free, and it will not fix a real intolerance. What it does is take out the harshest, most concentrated bit, which is why many people who feel garlic in their stomach say they tolerate it better without the germ, with the garlic cooked rather than raw, and in smaller amounts. If garlic gives you real trouble, that is a conversation for your doctor, not a kitchen trick.
This is cooking advice, not medical advice. If a food makes you ill, talk to your doctor.
How to remove the germ, step by step
You need a small knife and a cutting board. Do it with the cloves peeled, one at a time; with practice it takes about three seconds a clove.
When you can skip it
- Fresh, young garlic with a white or barely visible germ: leave it, there is nothing to taste.
- Long, slow cooking: a pernil, a stew, a pot of habichuelas or a roast with whole cloves. Hours of heat soften the germ's bite, so most cooks do not bother.
- Garlic in big amounts for a cooked base, like the whole head in a fresh sofrito: take the germ out of the cloves with a green center and leave the rest.
- Always take it out for raw or lightly cooked garlic: mojo de ajo, chimichurri, aioli, garlic butter, salad dressings, and anything where you taste the garlic on its own.
Buying and keeping garlic so there is less germ
- Pick heads that are firm and heavy, with tight, dry skins and no green shoots at the top. Soft spots or sprouting tips mean old garlic.
- Store it in a dry, airy place at room temperature, like a basket on the counter, not in the fridge: the cold tells the clove it is spring, and it sprouts within days.
- Buy what you use in two or three weeks. Garlic keeps for months whole, but the germ grows the whole time.
- Peeled garlic from the store: it is fine for cooked dishes, but it is usually older and the germ is bigger, so check a few cloves.
With the Thermomix® TM7™
The TM7™ chops garlic in seconds (chop 3 sec/speed 7 for a handful of cloves), and it will happily chop the germ along with it. So the germ comes out before the garlic goes in the bowl, by hand, the same three steps. For a recipe that uses a lot of garlic, halve all the cloves first, go down the row pulling the germs, then weigh the cleaned garlic straight into the bowl.