For Effortless Garlic Chips, Rachael Ray Reaches For This Kitchen Tool

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Delicately thin garlic slices are a dream when it comes to cooking certain dishes. But the thing is, to achieve those nearly translucent cross-sections, you'll need a knife that's sharp enough to complete a surgical procedure. Celebrity chef Rachael Ray, however, uses a seemingly unrelated kitchen tool to effortlessly power through cloves — all it takes is the flick of a wrist, and you'll have a pile of thin garlic slices in no time.

Her garlic weapon of choice, according to an Instagram post, is a truffle slicer. Truffle slicers are meant to shave truffles into ultra-thin slices, thin enough to garnish a dish, which means you can also use them to shave garlic. Garlic slicers do exist as well (not to be confused with another kitchen tool known as garlic presses), but those are unitaskers in the kitchen, meaning they only exist to perform one task. A truffle slicer has the added benefit of typically being much wider, which means you can use it to thinly shave other firm ingredients with ease, like chocolate, certain types of cheeses, shallots, and more.

Garlic slices are incredibly versatile for cooking. Not only can you saute them gently in oil as part of your recipes (think things like soup or pasta), you can keep frying them until they turn a golden brown. Once they've become crispy, you can remove them and drain them on a paper towel. Those garlic chips can then be used as garnishes on practically anything, from green salads to dips, meat dishes, and more. 

When I worked the pizza line at a restaurant, we put thin, fresh garlic slices beneath the cheese on some of our pies. The fresh garlic cooks quickly, imparting an incredible but not overwhelming aroma thanks to its thinness. Minced garlic is much harder to disperse in those situations, as it sticks to your fingers (that garlic smell, thankfully, is reversible), and inevitably causes wasteful situations. And sliced garlic is particularly useful when you want to control its potency — allicin, the compound responsible for garlic's strong flavor, comes out when you break down its cell walls. This is why minced garlic is so powerful; sliced garlic has a more moderate and delicate flavor. Slicing it really does make a difference, which is why Rachael Ray's truffle slicer move makes sense, even if you use truffles less than garlic.