I love green olive tapenade, but the price makes me shudder, usually around $5 or $6 for a small jar. I discovered an easy way to remedy this situation, which I will share with you. I have a cheap, easy, way to make it at home.
Preparation time: 5 minutes
Ingredients:
1 jar salad olives
2 peeled cloves garlic
Olive oil to suit
What are salad olives? They are the jars of green olives that you see considerably lower priced than the others, in the olive section of your grocery. They are called “salad’ olives, but really they are pimento stuffed greens that got mangled in production. Bits, pieces, shreds, unstuffed. The point is, they are REALLY inexpensive, on sale, usually less than two bucks a jar. (Pictured at left).
Take a jar (or two!) of the olives, drain them, don’t chug the brine like I do, I hear it’s not the healthiest thing for your blood pressure.
Place the olives and the garlic in a mini food processor, and pulse until the mixture reaches the consistency you like. I run mine until it is pretty fine, spreadable even. Drizzle olive oil in the processor and pulse again, until it reaches a consistency that pleases you.
It will be the least expensive and best green olive tapenade you have ever noshed on.
If you’d like yours with a little heat, use giardiniera instead of the salad olives. It’s a mix of olives, peppers, and occasionally other vegetables. (Pictured below).
To get really exotic, add an anchovy filet and a few capers into the pulse.
There are many brands of salad olives and giardiniera, if you pick them up when you see them on sale, you’ll be able to tapenade on demand.
P.S. It makes a great burger spread too.
Tapenade recipe