Easy Olive Dinners: Four Ways to Cook with Olives Tonight
Olives aren’t just for the antipasto plate — a handful, cooked into a dish, brings instant salt, savour and a Mediterranean lift. Four fast, foolproof dinners that lean on a jar of olives.
A jar of good olives is one of the most useful things in the cupboard: dinner is rarely more than a pan and a handful of them away. Here are four routes.
1. Puttanesca (the storecupboard hero)
Garlic and chilli in olive oil, a tin of tomatoes, black Gaeta or Kalamata olives, capers and anchovy, simmered and tossed through pasta. The original “nothing in the house” dinner.
2. Chicken with olives and lemon
Brown chicken thighs, add garlic, lemon, white wine and a big handful of green olives; braise until tender. (Full version here.)
3. Fish baked over olives and tomatoes
A white fish fillet on a bed of cherry tomatoes, olives and oil, roasted hot for 15 minutes. Salty, sweet, done.
4. White beans and olives
Warm a tin of cannellini beans in olive oil with garlic, rosemary and chopped olives; pile on toast. A two-minute supper.
Two rules for cooking with olives. Add them near the end of cooking — long boiling turns them bitter and rubbery; a few minutes to warm through is all they need. And always taste before you salt: olives (and the capers and anchovy that often join them) are salt bombs, and the most common mistake is seasoning a dish that the olives have already seasoned for you. A handful of olives is a shortcut to depth — use it.