As a southern French, I am always disappointed when i see the “tapenade” mixes at a store or people’s parties. And I always love to introduce people to the real thing: not a mix of unripened chopped olives from a can, but real smooth olive paste, with olive oil, from meat of vacuum sealed or fresh olives. It’s really a black olive spread ! 

What is tapenade?

The Tapenade is a provençal word. the practice of mashing ripe olives to make a dip or a spread is not only a practice of the South of France but of many countries around the Mediterranean that grow olive trees: “Tapenade is a traditional recipe of provençal cuisine, made with black olives traditionally mashed with a pestle and mixed with olive oil, capers, anchovy fillets, and herbs de Provence. Its origins are really old. Indeed, since the Roman times, in the whole mediterranean basin people mash olives to make different sauces.”( Cuisine Actuelle) 

Why make your own tapenade?

If you like olives, you certainly will enjoy the smooth, spread-like texture of real tapenade more than the chunky mix that American grocery stores call.

Chunky tapenade is made of unripe, processed ingredients

Of course, if you watch for fats, the chunky kind is much lighter. However most times it is made of unripe, canned olives, and these are the LEAST tasty olives out there. Note that firm black olives are usually nothing more than blacked (unripe) green olives in a can with ferric acid, a preservative that blackens green olives and makes them look black. Not sure how healthy that is, but to me, it’s cheating!

REAL ripe black olives have wrinkles and are oily and soft. Green olives are smooth and firm. You may like black olives like that, but these are not really black olives.

Ripe olives are healthy for you!

Besides, do not worry about fats in olives: only the fats were added by manufacturers, in which case they usually are processed unhealthy oils, oils naturally present in olives are the healthy, unprocessed kind, and will benefit your body. Fats also are more satisfying to your stomach and you won’t really be able to overeat ( Eat Fat Get Thin)

Make your own tapenade, to be sure of the ingredients

Making your own tapenade is the best way to be sure of your ingredients. You will know your olives are ripe, fresher, and can chose the type of olives you like, and wether they have herbs. I like the Trader Joes mediterranean olive mix with herbs, it makes a fantastic tapenade and I don’t need to add much more ingredients to it!  But I would love Kalamata olives tapenade made with the organic Costco Kalamata olives too, although a bit different!

Not only ingredients are fresher and better, not as salty as even the smooth pastes you can sometimes find in a store.

Tapenade exists in many textures and colors. Be aware that some spreads that are called tapenade are just herbs and veggies dips with no olives at all! 

You can also make this recipe with Kalamata olives, green olives, black olives ( which often come in vacuum sealed packaging rather than cans), or my personal favorite, a mediterranean olive mix from Trader Joes. You can add fresh herbs (look up recipes)

Traditional tapenade is made with anchovy fillets and capers. However I love a tapenade with just olives. It is a bit different. To make it you will need olives, extra virgin olive oil, raw garlic and lemon juice, optionally lemon zest.

My recipe for Homemade olive tapenade

This recipe is for black olives tapenade, my personal favorite. Turkish black olives, bought in a vaccuum sealed container, are usually riper and much more wrinkled. They are ideal for that recipe.

I also use the recipe for green olive tapenade made with a mix of different olives and herbs. I made a delicious one with the vacuum sealed olives mix and herbs from Trader Joe’s ( Trader Joes Marinated Olive Duo with Lemon and Herbs) and with a mix of green olives and herbs. Beware that if you make tapenade with a green olive mix, the tapenade will be stronger, not as smooth and bit more sour. It’s a taste preference ! Almond meal and more olive oil may tone it down.

Depending on texture, you may need a bit more olive oil to get the same consistency as black olive tapenade.) You will obtain a smooth, silky black olive dip you can eat with bread sticks, crackers, with pita chips, baguette slices or raw veggies like carrots or peppers. You can also eat it as a spread. With almond meal, you will get a little more of a thick paste.

What pack of olives do I buy? Turkish black olives ( I didn’t have pitted olives, but they were so ripe it was easy and quick to pit them by hand. Also niçoise olives, mediterranean olive meal with herbs work well.

For the easy olive tapenade recipe You need only 4 ingredients: olive oil, olives, lemon juice, raw garlic.

Here is the ingredients list:

• 150g pitted olive meat 
• 15ml extra virgin olive oil ( i.e. one tablespoon or olive oil). In the case of the green olive and herbs mix, I added two extra tsp of olive oil.
• 2 tsp to one tablespoon of lemon juice (fresh);
• 1 garlic clove
• optional for a thicker texture, 1 tbsp almond meal.
• Possible other ingredients: red peppers, sun dried tomatoes 

Steps:

1. Prepare ingredients: if needed, pit olives.
2. Mix all ingredients until you obtain the desired consistency. That means you can add a bit more lemon juice or olive oil to the mix.
3. Eat by dipping fresh veggies, spreading on sliced baguette ( personal favorite), or replace the mayo in deviled eggs like the original provençal made deviled eggs!

Equipment:

Small food processor or immersion blender.

Storage:

Storage: airtight container, covered with extra-virgin olive oil. If covered with olive oil, it easily keeps for 2 weeks.

looking for other healthy recipes?

Next up : 

• Red tapenade with sun-dried tomatoes and green olives and capers ( like a pesto with no cheese)
• also Green tapenade with anchovy and capers
• DIY old style mustard
• Super gut yogurt ranch with home made super gut yogurt
• Fermented aioli !

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