Why Ina Garten's Garlic Bread Has Way More Flavor Than Yours

Celebrity chef Ina Garten is known for adding her own skilled twist to classic dishes (she sometimes tests recipes up to 25 times before they go into one of her cookbooks), and that's part of why one of her recipes for garlic bread is a little different than most. It includes some of the key basics, like plenty of parmesan and lots of butter. But she's not shy on the garlic: Garten goes heavy and uses an entire head of it. Rather than apply the punchy allium to the baguette raw, she cooks the peeled cloves gently in melted butter until they're softened. This step allows the garlic to taste a little sweeter rather than overwhelmingly sharp.

Garten also adds a touch of lemon zest — which cuts through the richness of the butter — mashing the citrus peel into the cooked garlic along with the grated cheese. Notably, Garten omits dry herbs and instead uses fresh parsley and a touch of dry spice in the form of red pepper flakes and ground black pepper.

It isn't just the layers of bright, sweet, nutty, and rich flavors that make this garlic bread so good. Garten also goes the extra mile and scores the crusty baguette prior to toasting it, which lets the flavored butter seep all the way through into the nooks and crannies. She also finishes it with a sprinkle of fleur de sel, or French sea salt, which gives it a savory pop at the end.

As delicious as Ina Garten's recipe for homemade garlic bread with butter-cooked cloves is, there is definitely something to be said about that sharp flavor of raw garlic being toasted right onto bread. The Barefoot Contessa actually has another variation of garlic bread that she developed that includes the raw allium, but this time, only six cloves of it. Rather than fully cook it down, she minces it with fresh parsley and oregano and briefly blooms the mixture in warm olive oil. The choice of loaf here is different as well — she opts for chewy Italian ciabatta — which she splits, spreads with the garlic and herbs, sandwiches together, wraps in foil, and bakes in the oven for just a few minutes.

In the end, deciding which one you like better all comes down to whether or not you prefer the gentler taste of slow-cooked garlic over the more powerful raw stuff. One thing is for certain, however: If Garten is using parmesan, she makes sure to grate it herself. The canned stuff is one of the foods you'll never find in Garten's kitchen.