Is olive tapenade bad for you?

I prefer not to refer to foods as healthy or unhealthy but the best part about making your own olive tapenade at home is that you know exactly what's in it! This olive tapenade is loaded with fresh, wholesome ingredients that you can feel good about feeding to your family!

What is a tapenade made of?

Olive tapenade uses Manzanilla olives and Kalamata olives along with a combination of fresh herbs and a moderate pour of olive oil. They are all pulsed together in the food processor to make a spread or dip you can use on crackers, crostini, sandwiches, or pizza!

What does olive tapenade taste like?

It tastes like heaven! But honestly, it tastes like olives, but better! The fresh garlic, parsley, oregano, and Dijon come together to boost the flavors of the Manzanilla and Kalamata olives, taking them to another level!

Easy Olive Tapenade Recipe

Vegan Olive Tapenade

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5 from 8 reviews

This salty, briny olive tapenade recipe comes together in just a few minutes and is the perfect party appetizer, sandwich topper, hummus enhancer or pizza sauce base. If you love olives, you are going to LOVE LOVE LOVE this recipe!

Author: Kylie
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 0 minutes
Total Time: 5 minutes
Yield: 8 servings 1x
Category: Appetizer
Method: Food Processor
Cuisine: French
Diet: Vegan

Ingredients

Units Scale

6 oz. jar manzanilla olives, drained
6 oz. jar pitted Kalamata olives, drained
1/4 cup fresh roughly chopped parsley
2–3 cloves garlic
1/4 cup olive oil
2 teaspoons white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon dried oregano
Kosher salt
fresh cracked pepper

Instructions

Add all ingredients to a food processor.
Pulse until everything is well minced and combined, scraping sides as needed.
Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Transfer to a serving dish and garnish with fresh chopped parsley.
Serve with crostini or regular sliced French baguette and enjoy!

food processor

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Notes

Pulse the ingredients a few times, then scrape the sides of the food processor and pulse a bit more until the olive spread reaches your desired consistency. I like to pulse it until everything is pretty well minced. This will ensure that you won’t end up with any big chunks of olive or garlic.
Use your favorite olives. It’s funny, but it seems that olive lovers tend to have one color that they prefer over the other. While I am a green olive lover to the max, I only tolerate black olives in small amounts, but I love Kalamatas! If you have a serious aversion to one type of olive, just replace them with your fave. You could do all green olives or all Kalamata olives in this recipe and it’s going to taste great!
You can use canned or jarred olives for this recipe. This is not a pretentious olive tapenade recipe that requires fancy olives imported from Italy or 7 varieties of olives you can only find in the cold bar at a high end grocery store. You can use a jar of green olives and a jar of Kalamata olives canned for this recipe and it’s going to taste amazing – and be super inexpensive!
This seems a bit obvious, but be sure and use pitted olives for this recipe. There have been a few times where I SWEAR I bought pitted olives only to get home and find that they are all filled with pits. And it really was the pits (pun intended)! Double check that the olives you’re buying are in fact pitted, or this 5 minute appetizer could turn into a 35 minute appetizer as you tediously remove the pit from each olive.
Add a few anchovy fillets for an extra hit of flavor! Their salty flavor will add some delicious depth and protein to this olive spread!

Vegan Olive Tapenade

Ingredients

Instructions

Equipment

Notes