Curing Your Own Olives, Greek Style
The Greek kitchen has cured olives at home for millennia, and the methods are gloriously simple — mostly salt, water and patience. Here is how to turn raw olives into your own table olives, the Greek way.
In Greece, home-curing olives isn’t a hobby, it’s a yearly ritual. If you have access to fresh olives, it’s far easier than you think — the tree does the hard part, and time does the rest.
Two classic Greek methods
Brine-cured (for green or purple olives): crack or slit each olive, soak in daily-changed water for a week or two to draw out the worst bitterness, then submerge in a salt brine (strong enough to float an egg) for one to three months, until mellow. A splash of vinegar and a film of olive oil on top keeps them.
Dry-salt-cured (for fully ripe black olives): layer ripe olives in coarse salt in a perforated container and leave them for several weeks, tossing now and then, as the salt draws out the bitter juices — the method behind the wrinkled Throuba style. Rinse, dress in oil and herbs, done.
Two honest words. First, patience: a brined olive is not ready in a week, whatever the internet says — taste one a month in and you’ll see why the good ones take a winter. Second, keep them submerged: olives must stay under the brine (weight them down with a plate) so they don’t spoil, and if anything ever smells genuinely off rather than fermented-sour, throw it out. Done with clean jars and enough salt, it’s one of the most satisfying things a kitchen can do. The general method is in cure your own olives without lye.