About

Slice It so Thin It Would Liquify in The Pan with Just a Little Oil, also known as Liquid Garlic Memes, refers to a memorable quote from the 1990 crime-thriller Goodfellas in which the character Henry Hill (played by actor Ray Liotta) describes Paul "Paulie" Cicero's (Paul Sorvino) method for preparing garlic for meals during their time in prison. The full quote from the film is, "He used a razor and he used to slice it so thin that it would liquefy in the pan with just a little oil. It was a very good system."

In late October 2025, the line became a catchphrase and phrasal template meme after it appeared on Reddit in a post on the /r/shittymoviedetails subreddit, which revolved around people referencing the line in various jokes and applying it to other pop culture media or things using the setup X Would Liquify in The Pan with Just a Little Oil. The meme's prevalence on Reddit also led to the creation of the subreddit /r/liquidgarlic that exclusively revolved around the joke.

Origin

The original scene quoted in the meme comes from the 1990 movie Goodfellas. In the scene, Italian mafia associate Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) is seen describing Paulie's (Paul Sorvino) method for cutting and preparing garlic for their meals when they were in prison together, specifically elaborating on his use of a razor blade to thinly slice garlic. The full quote from Henry reads:

In prison, dinner was always a big thing. We had a pasta course and then we had a meat or a fish. Paulie did the prep work. He was doing a year for contempt, and he had this wonderful system for doing the garlic. He used a razor, and he used to slice it so thin that he used to liquify in the pan with just a little oil. It was a very good system.

The scene was uploaded to YouTube by the channel ShakemodeProductions on March 17th, 2013, receiving over 9.3 million views, 93,000 likes and 6,200 comments in roughly 12 years.

On October 20th, 2025, Redditor Ellacod made the first post to the /r/shittymoviedetails^[1] subreddit referencing the Goodfellas scene that later spawned the meme. The post was titled "Goodfellas made a whole generation burn garlic" and was captioned, "It in fact does not liquify." The post received over 7,800 upvotes and 110 comments in three days.

Early the following morning on October 21st, Redditor MeiNeedsMoreBuffs then posted the first meme variant referencing the scene to /r/shittymoviedetails,^[2] garnering over 120 upvotes in two days.

Spread

The "Liquid Garlic" meme continued to spread and evolve over the following days as other Redditors, primarily on the /r/shittymoviedetails subreddit, created and shared additional examples in late October 2025.

For instance, on October 21st, 2025, Redditor DrStalker shared another version of the meme to /r/shittymoviedetails^[3] that referenced the 2022 movie Morbius, receiving over 240 upvotes and 10 comments in two days.

That same day, Redditor thesubsetdoctor posted a variant that referenced the Twilight film series to the /r/shittymoviedetails^[4] subreddit, garnering over 31,000 upvotes and 440 comments in a similar timeframe.

On October 22nd, 2025, Redditor athenabthena26 posted a meta example of the meme to /r/shittymoviedetails^[5] that joked about how prevalent the Liquid Garlic meme had become on the sub, receiving over 2,900 upvotes and 20 comments in a day.

Later on October 22nd, Redditor ArpanMondal270 created the subreddit /r/liquidgarlic^[6] dedicated to the specific memes, which included the description, "things that would liquify in a pan with just a little oil. Just like garlic!"

That day, the question, "What’s up with people stating that persons/things can 'liquify in the pan with just a little bit of oil'?" was posted to the /r/OutOfTheLoop^[7] subreddit inquiring about the influx of Liquid Garlic memes, receiving over 220 upvotes and 60 comments in 22 hours. The top-voted comment from Redditor urkermannenkoor read:

Answer: Reference to the movie Goodfellas, where it's claimed that works with garlic (it doesn't).

The meme continued spreading on Reddit over the following days, with users beginning to post it elsewhere on the site in comments and other posts.^[8]

Various Examples

In Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) Rey cooks this bland flavourless bread, which she could have improved by slicing some garlic extremely thin and then liquify in the pan with just a little oil
byu/Brilliant_Bite_2948 inshittymoviedetails

Search Interest

External References