Black Olive Tapenade is an easy recipe with garlicky deliciousness! Serve with toast points for a fuss free appetizer, stir through pasta, use for bruschetta or as a dip or spread.
Olive recipes make entertaining a breeze! Try either the Black Olive Dip or Green Olive Dip if you can't get enough olives! Or for olives at sophistication hour try the Roasted Olives recipe.
Recipes like our Grazing Platter, Artichoke Olive Tapenade and Coconut Prawns, can be prepared in advance and then you can party with your guests! Rocket and Cashew Pesto is a great quick and easy recipe!
Black Olive Tapenade has many uses! It is versatile and brings great flavour to many recipes!
Our Chicken Liver Pate, Sun-Dried Tomato Tapenade and Easy Green Olive Tapenade are ideas for serving as toppings on the Easy Crostini which takes barely anytime at all to prepare!
Looking for appetizer recipes for entertaining? Click here!
Olive tapenade recipes are sophisticated and stylish, but seriously easy to make. We literally throw all of the ingredients into our food processor, blitz and serve! Serve with homemade pita chips to get your party started!
Toast points, bruschetta, crostini or crackers are ideal for serving tapenade!
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Appetizer recipes Popular recipes Quick and Easy recipes
What is Black Olive Tapenade?
Black Olive Tapenade is a recipe that used black olives, garlic, capers, anchovies, parsley and lemon juice to make an olive spread.
It is most popular as an appetizer idea as you can serve it as finger food or a dip.
Often referred to as black olive paste, it is a versatile recipe that works with so many serving ideas.
On the blog we also have recipes for Sun-dried tomato tapenade, Artichoke olive tapenade, Olive tapenade, Spicy Olive Tapenade and Easy Green Olive Tapenade.
Black Olive Tapenade Uses
Some ideas for serving tapenade are:
- on crostini
- stirred through pasta
- as part of a canapy
- as part of a dip platter
- with various tapas
- on fish
- as an appetizer
- part of a graxing platter
- spread for toast
- dressing for a salad
There is no limit to the ways to use this tapenade!
Black Olive Tapenade ingredients
The photo below shows you exactly what we need for this recipe. They are all simple, easy to find ingredients.
As you can see, we have:
- sliced black olives
- pitted kalamata olives
- olive oil
- capers
- parsley
- lemon juice
- garlic
- anchovies
You can easily find the olives at your local grocery store, in a jar with the antipasto ingredients!
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How to make Black Olive Tapenade
The photos below are step by step showing you how to make this tapenade. The entire recipe is done in the food processor!
- Add sliced black olives to food processor bowl (Photo 1)
- Add kalamata olives (Photo 2)
- Capers (Photo 3)
- Garlic (Photo 4)
For a vegan tapenade, omit the anchovies as an ingredient in the recipe!
- Add anchovies (shown in photo 5)
- lemon juice (shown in photo 6)
- parsley (shown in photo 7)
- and olive oil (shown in photo 8)
Once the tapenade ingredients are all in the food processor, we blitz it for a few seconds to chop everything up and combine!
Easy Black Olive Tapenade recipe quick info:
About the recipe:
- we use 2 types of olives in this recipe
- black sliced olives
- pitted kalamata olives
- drain and discard liquid from capers
- bottled lemon juice is fine!
- the entire recipe only has 8 ingredients
FAQs about Easy Olive Tapenade
- the anchovies are the only non vegetarian ingredient
- peel the skin and cut the end off the garlic before adding
- you make make this tapenade ahead of time
- crostini, bruschetta and toast points are all ideal serving suggestions
Your quick questions answered:
- This is a quick and easy recipe
- Serve the tapenade cold or room temperature
- Blitz for only 5 seconds so the texture is chunky
- This is a FREEZER FRIENDLY recipe
- This is an EASY recipe
Expert tips:
These tips are to help you master this recipe from the 1st time you make it:
- have all of your ingredients on hand and ready to go
- omit the anchovies for a vegan option
- blitz only for about 5 seconds
- make and freeze this recipe for easy entertaining!
If you love olives, check out How To Cook Olives showcasing 10 recipes that use olives as the star of the show!
The bread you see in the photos is known as Toast points. They are are freshly toasted and easy to make!
To make, remove the crusts from a regular individual slices of bread, cutting each slice on the diagonal and in ½ and spray with cooking oil. Bake for approx 5 mins until golden brown!
Olive recipes
Get the party started with these entertaining ideas:
- Green Olive Dip
- Spicy Olive Dip (these are my favourite olives!)
- Black Olive Dip
- Sun-dried Tomato Tapenade
- Artichoke Olive Tapenade
- Olive Tapenade
Appetizer recipes
Entertaining can be simple and fuss free with some easy recipes up your sleeve. Try out these ideas:
- Chicken Liver Pate
- Coconut Prawns (with 2 different dipping sauces)
- Grazing Platter (to feed a crowd)
- Mini Quiches (12 different ways)
- Baked Brie with garlic
- Baked Camembert with Cranberry Sauce
If you love marinated flavoured olives, you will likely enjoy the Spicy Olive Tapenade recipe!
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Easy Black Olive Tapenade
Equipment
- Food processor
Ingredients
Easy Black Olive Tapenade recipe
- 1 ½ cup sliced black olives Note 1
- 1 cup kalamata olives Note 2
- ¼ cup capers drained
- 3 cloves garlic peeled and end cut off
- 4 anchovies
- 1 tbsp lemon juice Note 3
- ⅓ cup parsley
- ¼ cup olive oil
- Toast points to serve
Instructions
Black Olive Tapenade
- Add sliced black olives, kalamata olives, capers, garlic, anchovies, lemon juice, parsley and olive olive to the bowl of a food processor
- Blitz for 5 seconds to chop and combine
- Transfer tapenade to a serving bowl
- Serve with toast points
Video
Notes
- Note 1 You can use sliced or pitted black olives. But don't get olives and try and remove the pits as that will take too much time!
- Note 2 Kalamata Olives are known as a black olive type. They are a deep reddy/purple in colour and have a very distinct salty flavour about them.
- Note 3 Bottled lemon juice is totally fine to use for this recipe. Don't give it a 2nd thought! x
- Note 4 I have used both curly parsley (shown in the photos) and flat leaf parsley at times for this recipe and both are perfect to use, either or, whichever you have or can get is fine!
Nutrition
Published May 9th 2020, updated 17th Jan 2021, with extra tips!
Appetizer recipes
Fuss free entertaining is possible with handy recipes like this tapenade!
If you know you are going to be flat out, make a batch in advance, freeze and then pull out ready for guests on the day. It defrosts quickly and still tastes fresh and full of flavour when defrosted!
This chunky olive tapenade recipe is going to rock your socks!
Let me know if you have any questions, I would love to hear your feedback in the comments below.
Adrianne xx
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Artichoke Olive Tapenade Olive Tapenade recipe Sun-dried Tomato Tapenade
Appetizers Christmas recipes Popular recipes Quick and Easy recipes
Im so readyyyyy to make this recipe! OMG! Are you kidding me with this amazingness!! Cannot wait to make this recipe this weekend!
I'm a snacking addict and this is the perfect addition to satisfy my cravings! So delicious!
Great to hear your feedback, thanks Jen!