Holiday Appetizer Ideas: Olive Tapenade Recipe ? Easy and Delicious!

A good olive tapenade recipe is great ammunition to have in your culinary cannon, especially during the holidays.  Not only is tapenade a crowd-pleaser, it looks great and is super easy to make, especially if you have a food processor.  It is also easy to make ahead of time as it will keep in the fridge for up to a week, but it will impress your friends when you tell them it is homemade.   It also makes a great sauce for chicken, pork, or fish!  One of my favorite sandwiches pairs tapenade with tuna salad on a crusty baguette.  Perfecto!

This recipe is easy and only has a handful of ingredients, but the flavor was awesome!  It is so much better when you make it yourself, I promise.  Olives and capers are pretty standard ingredients, but the remaining ingredients all play a critical role.  The fresh garlic gives it a nice zing (make sure your prospective make out buddy has some too!), and the anchovies add a nice nuttiness without tasting fishy.  The lemon and fresh herbs add freshness and acidity to cut the saltiness.  Just right!

This year, I put together a few extra batches and jarred them up as gifts.  The leftovers are going with me to my sister-in-law’s house as a contribution to our Christmas Eve meal.  And there is a huge financial incentive to making this yourself:  the last time I checked at the grocery store, a small container of tapenade was $5.99.  Yikes!  I need to get into that business!  For that amount  you could make three full jars on your own!  The recipe below makes about two cups.

Ingredients

Double check to make sure the olives are pitted; they could seriously damage your blade.  Put all of the ingredients above in a food processor (I guess you could use a blender, too!).   Pulse the ingredients until they are still chunky but well incorporated.  Serve with sliced fresh baguette or crackers. You’re all done!