Spicy Marinated Olives with Roasted Garlic & Herbs

This quick recipe for Spicy Marinated Olives is an easy appetizer with pan-roasted cloves of garlic, arbol chiles, and loads of fresh herbs. Serve warm or room temperature. {Recipe first posted June 1, 2020. Last updated March 11, 2022}

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A dish of marinated olives always gives off an air of luxury even though they are easily made with a handful of pantry ingredients dutifully waiting to brighten cocktail hour any given night.

We use the allure of olives to our advantage and create an ever so simple appetizer of Bistro-style whole mixed olives with pan-roasted cloves of garlic, red pepper and handfuls of herbs.

What Kind Of Olives To Use

Really any type of cured quality olives benefit from being combined with sweet roasted garlic and herbs. You can use black olives, green olives, olives that have been in brine.

The best olive recipes use a mixture of different high-quality varieties of olives for the best color, texture, and flavor. The only ones I wouldn’t recommend are olives that are already marinated. You want to start with a blank slate.

One last note on olives before we move on. This is not a marinade for curing your own olives. If you have an olive tree and are looking for how to preserve them, Sylvia has a step-by-step guide you may want to check out.

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Olive Marinade Ingredients

This one firmly lands in the category of easy olive recipes. There are only five ingredients to the marinade and they are totally adaptable to whatever you have in your pantry and fridge. Ready in 15 minutes!

1. Dried Chiles. For these spicy black olives (or green, whatever you prefer) I like to use small dried arbol chiles. To control the spice level you can add fewer chiles, use a more mild variety, like Cascabel or Mulato chiles. To make spicier, use more chiles or break the chiles into smaller pieces before frying. You could also just substitute red pepper flakes.
2. Garlic. Whole, peeled cloves of fresh garlic are key. This method quickly roasts them in the pan instead of slow roasting in the oven.
3. Fresh Herbs. This can be super versatile. Use your favorites or whatever you have on hand. A good mix is rosemary, oregano, thyme, and basil. Other options would be bay leaves or for something completely different, use a combination of lemon peel and fennel seeds. The garlic lemon combo is awesome!
4. Black Pepper. Freshly ground is best.
5. Extra virgin olive oil.

How To Serve Marinated Olives

This easy, gluten-free appetizer can be served warm or room temperature. It’s really up to you. I like them best warm, but you do have to eat them pretty quickly to enjoy the olives this way.

If you’d rather make them a bit in advance, they are fine to sit at room temperature for an hour or so. I don’t recommend serving them cold. The olive oil will harden and get gloppy.

How Long Do They Last

If you want to make these in advance and have them on hand for snacking or for an upcoming get together you can certainly do that up to three days in advance. They actually get tastier if they have a chance to hang out in the marinade for a bit. They’re not that great cold however, so I suggest reheating before serving.

If you have any leftover, they will keep covered in the refrigerator for up to a week. The olives themselves don’t “go bad”, but the roasted garlic and herbs will start to get moldy.

One way you can preserve them longer is to cover the mixture in olive oil. Then seal and refrigerate. The olive oil acts like a heavy blanket that suffocates any oxygen that might reach the olives and grow bacteria.

Another way would be to freeze the marinated olives. They will be a bit spongy however when they defrost. If you do freeze them I suggest reheating and serving them warm to plump the skins a bit.

What To Serve With Them

These olives make awesome Cinco de Mayo Party Snacks, cheese board element, or happy hour appetizer.

I even made a beautiful wreath out of the rosemary and served the marinated olives on top for a festive holiday hors d’oeuvres.

Here are a few of our other favorite nibbles that, combined together, would make a delicious spread!

• Spanish Tortilla with Green Romesco Sauce
• Salsa de Cacahuate (Peanut and Chile Salsa)
• Doritos-Flavored Duros de Harina

And here are a few cocktail ideas that are good partners with these spicy olives:

• Campari Wine Spritzer
• Pink Grapefruit and Cilantro Spanish Gin Tonic
• Cristalino Tequila

Get Classy With It

I want to see how you class up your happy hour with these fancy pants olives and the rest of your spread! Snap a pic and tag me on Instagram @holajalapeno and #holajalapeno so I can see or leave me a comment below (don’t forget to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ rating) ! Also, make sure to sign up for my weekly newsletter, lots of good stuff there too!

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