Garlic bread is one of life’s greatest joys. It is a super tasty snack or appetizer that goes great with just about any main meal. It combines all the goodness of bread, butter and garlic so what is not to like.
Garlic Bread
Garlic bread is quite simple to make. Most of the effort goes into making the garlic butter. Once you have the garlic butter made you can spread it on most types of bread. Then just toss them in the oven and you have yourself some nice fresh, warm garlic bread.
This recipe is vegetarian. If you want to make it vegan or dairy-free, then make sure to use a vegan butter or use olive oil instead. Also double check that the bread you are using does not contain any dairy. To make the recipe gluten-free make sure to use gluten-free bread.
Garlic bread goes great with a lot of pastas such as Italian Sausage Pasta or Chicken Thigh and Tomato Spaghetti. It also goes great served with pizza. Really it goes with pretty much anything!
Garlic Butter
Garlic butter uses just 4 ingredients. Butter (obviously), garlic (obviously), dried parsley and a bit of salt. I recommend using unsalted butter so that you can season the garlic butter to your liking. It will work with salted butter, you just might need to leave out the salt.
It is much much easier to make the garlic butter if you leave the butter out at room temperature to soften beforehand. This will make it easier to mix it with the other ingredients. Minced garlic should be used so that it will evenly distribute throughout the butter mixture.
Combine butter, garlic, dried parsley and salt together in a small bowl. Then just mix it all together until all of the ingredients are well combined. I find it easiest to mix it together with a fork, especially if the butter is still a little cold.
Bread Type
The bread is an important part of garlic bread, so it makes sense that you would want to choose a good quality bread to use.
It is recommended to use slices of a good quality loaf of bread and not slices from a normal supermarket loaf. Most types of normal supermarket bread don’t toast very well in the oven and tend to dry out quite easily. Slices from more of a country style loaf normally turn out well.
I find that sourdough bread is not too important and that I cannot really taste any of the sourdough flavor. However sourdough loaves are normally a higher quality so they do make great garlic bread.
Wrapping the bread in foil as it cooks will cause the bread to not toast as much and can help prevent some types of bread from drying out.
Cooking Garlic Bread
The style of bread you go for will change the cooking a little. In this recipe I have gone for slices of garlic bread toasted in the oven.
To make it, spread garlic butter on one side of the slices of bread. Feel free to use a good amount of the garlic butter.
Line a baking tray with parchment paper and place the buttered bread on it. Cook the bread in an oven, preheated to 390°F/200°C, for 12-15 minutes or until bread is nicely toasted and the butter has melted. Serve warm.
For more great snacks and appetizers, check out:
Garlic Bread
Ingredients
- 2 slices bread (Note 1)
Garlic Butter
- 2 tbsp unsalted butter room temperature (Note 2, Note 3)
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 1/2 tsp dried parsley
- 1/4 tsp salt or to taste
Instructions
Garlic Butter
- Mix the butter, garlic, dried parsley and salt together in a small bowl.
Garlic Bread
- Preheat the oven to 390°F/200°C
- Spread garlic butter evenly onto the slices of bread. Place the buttered bread onto a baking tray that has been lined with parchment paper.
- Cook in the oven for 12-15 minutes, until butter has melted and bread is toasted to your liking. Serve warm.
Notes
- Better quality bread generally works better.
- Unsalted butter works better as you can adjust salt easier to suit taste. If using salted butter you may need to leave out the salt or not put as much in.
- Room temperature butter is much easier to mix with the rest of the ingredients of the garlic butter.
