Eva Longoria Revealed Her Least Favorite Ingredient

One of the first things my chef-instructor told us in culinary school was to never buy minced or peeled garlic cloves. I can remember her face as she said it, eyes squinted, nose scrunched up—like even the thought of it disgusted her. She isn’t the only one either, and many of the chefs I’ve worked with over the years agreed. Now I can add Eva Longoria to that list. 

Eva Longoria recently shared her opinions on cooking on a recent Instagram post for Food Network. On the long list of questions fed to her by the interviewer was, “is pre-minced garlic ever okay?” Longoria emphatically answers: “No! No pre-anything garlic! Don’t buy the cloves, pre-peeled, don’t buy it pre-minced.” 

Instead, Longoria says you should “buy the whole head of garlic and do the work.” While she doesn’t go into the details of why, I’m guessing it’s for the same reasons why some chefs disapprove of it.

Of course, the pre-minced version and even peeled cloves are convenient, but the flavor just isn’t the same. Garlic is considered an aromatic vegetable, meaning it brings strong flavor to a dish. And the more you break it down (by slicing, chopping or mincing), the stronger the flavor gets. Creating that increased surface area causes the release of allicin, a natural sulfurous compound in garlic that gives it that pungent flavor we know and love. 

That initial flavor is delicious, but over time it continues to strengthen, becoming so strong that it begins to taste rancid and sour. And while many jarred versions are packed with water and oil to help preserve and prevent this, there are also other added ingredients that act as stabilizers which can alter flavor. What does this mean? It means that the jarred stuff just won’t taste like fresh stuff.

So do you need to always buy a fresh head of garlic? I would say yes—but I know sometimes the convenience is just too appealing. Still, use fresh whenever you have the time to do a little peeling and chopping. Though jarred garlic will work in a soup or stew that’ll cook for hours, a garlic-forward recipe or a recipe that uses raw garlic will need the fresh stuff to be as delicious as possible. And with recipes like our Aromatic Chicken & Rice Soup with Fried Garlic Oil and Brothy Lemon-Garlic Beans, you’ll want them as deliciously garlicky as possible.