Easy Olive Tapenade with Capers

Salty, briny, spicy, and full of lively charm, olive and caper tapenade is your new go-to fabulous appetizer! This recipe posts shows you how to make an easy olive tapenade with 6 pantry ingredients!

What’s something that takes very little time to make? What’s something more interesting, more flavorful, more exciting than just cheese and crackers, chips and salsa or a bowl of salted nuts?

CLICK HERE to Pin Easy Olive Tapenade with Capers.

Have you ever put together a lovely company dinner, not too fancy–maybe a casserole and tossed salad, and smugly, even dessert. Then at the last minute, you realize you neglected to prepare an appetizer–something to go with cocktails?

Easy olive tapenade with capers to the rescue! Appetizer emergencies are over. With this recipe, you’ll have it all together.

Olive tapenade ingredients:

Six ingredients and five minutes. Give them a quick pulse in the food processor. (Affiliate link.) Serve simply, with crackers. Bring on the drinks!

• Fresh garlic, always in the house.
• Extra virgin olive oil and red pepper flakes—standard pantry items.
• Capers are pickled immature flower buds from a native Mediterranean plant. Choose the petite nonpareil variety.
• Chances are, you have a little jar of capers tucked among your other condiments on the refrigerator door. An opened jarof capers will last practically forever.
• All you have to do is keep a jar of olives in your pantry. Or a tub of pitted olives–the ones from the olive bar at the grocery store–they’ll last a month in the fridge.
• For a subtle floral note, this recipe calls for fresh lemon zest. But if you’re like me, you don’t always have a lemon at the ready. You know what, never mind the zest—it won’t be missed. Olive tapenade without lemon zest is still an awesome easy appetizer dip.

What is olive tapenade?

• Olive tapenade is usually thought of as a dip or spread. Piquant and pungent, rich, loud, and unpretentious, it’s a specialty of Provence in France featuring Mediterranean ingredients from the region.
• Tapenade recipes sometimes include anchovies and/or fresh parsley. I like mine simple, made with ingredients I keep on hand. Like this one with capers.
• Of course you can buy tapenade readymade in jars. (Affiliate link.) Homemade is always better, and olive tapenade is so damn easy to make–faster than the checkout line at Trader Joe’s.

What else can you do with olive tapenade?

Olive tapenade is a versitile condiment, more than a delightful meal starter. Pulse up a batch of olive tapenade to keep in your fridge for everyday meal enhancement–it’s a superwoman complement for many dishes!

• Tapenade makes a delicious sandwich spread.
• Tapenade is a great pasta noodle sauce.
• For dinner, pair your tapenade with garlicky sautéed greens and socca, the thin protein-rich chickpea “pancake” with crispy edges.

More appetizer ideas:

• Is your grill already on? This crispy grill-roasted kale is a delightful surprise.
• The best casual appetizer ever–roasted garlic!
• How about chard and pepper jack quesadillas?
• This combo of manchego cheese and quince is another quick and easy appetizer. Though, with this recipe you need to plan ahead, since Manchego cheese and quince paste aren’t usually everyday staples.

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