This Garlic-Bread Hack Is the Key to Bread-Basket Heaven

My love for chain restaurants has been unwavering for as long as I can remember. It’s not just because of the familiar entrees that have been on the menu for ages (although, I’ll never pass up a Tour of Italy from Olive Garden or Chicken Bellagio from The Cheesecake Factory!). The true star of the show when it comes to eating out at beloved chains like these and more is the bread basket.

And garlic bread is in a league of its own as far as bread before dinner goes. While I truly didn’t think garlic bread as a concept could get any better — especially if you use ingredients like oven-roasted garlic and chopped fresh herbs — this TikTok from Chef Ced of readycedcook taught me otherwise.

The key to Chef Ced’s magical garlic bread lies less in the ingredients and more in the mathematics behind the bread. In short, all you have to do is simply increase the ratio of garlic and butter to bread.

Instead of slicing a loaf of bread or a baguette in half lengthwise and only slathering one side with the typical butter-garlic mixture, use a sharp serrated knife to slice off the crusts from a sturdy loaf of bread (save the crusts for snacking), then slice it into small rectangular blocks and cover each and every side in the garlic-butter mixture! Then, just sear each side of the garlic bread for a couple minutes until crispy and golden-brown.

The idea is straightforward yet ingenious, and the best part is that it doesn’t require any hard-to-find ingredients. Plus, the time it takes to make this multi-sided garlic bread is about the same as (if not less than) the traditional version, as it’s prepared in a skillet rather than the oven. Try this trick out and you may just never make garlic bread any other way again!