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Brining olives is easy to do at home with simple ingredients. It is a delicious, natural way to enjoy fresh olives and store them for later. Learn how to salt cure and flavor your olives and preserve them.
While it’s spiced pumpkin season back in the US, here in Spain, it’s olive brining time! In my area of Spain, the olives ripen towards the end of October or the beginning of November. (The harvest time will depend on the variety of olives and where they are planted.)
To be honest, when I was growing up, I only ever ate black olives. Perhaps it was because the only green olives I’d ever tried were the stuffed green olives with pimento. (I still am not much of a fan of those.)
Luckily, once I arrived here, I decided to give green olives another chance. I didn’t want to be rude when presented with some homemade olives from a friend’s olive tree, and I was amazed by how delicious they were!
Being the sort of person who loves making things myself, I eventually also had to try salt curing my own olives.
So, one day, when I saw freshly picked olives at the local farmer’s market, I had to buy some.
Why cure olives?
After buying the raw olives, I took a bite from one and was surprised by its bitterness!
When first picked from the tree, olives are very bitter and have an astringent-like flavor. This is mostly due to the oleuropein in the olives. Oleuropein is a bitter compound that likely helps protect the olives while growing. Unless they have sun-dried for quite a while on the tree, freshly picked olives just aren’t palatable at all!
Before brining the olives to add flavor and help preserve them, we will be curing them in water to help remove some of the bitterness.
Ingredients
To make some delicious salt-cured (brined) olives, we’ll need fresh olives, salt, and filtered water. (Choose unchlorinated water.) You can use any salt you like. I generally use sea salt.
Ripe olives can be found in most areas with a Mediterranean Climate. Here in Spain (Also in Greece, Italy, and France), it’s common to see olive trees, but they can also be found in California and in many other countries (like some areas of Australia). Even if you don’t have olive trees growing nearby, you can often order olives in bulk online.
This process can be used with a variety of types of green olives (or those that are ripening into a darker color). Some common varieties to use are mission olives or manzanilla olives.
Water curing the olives
The first step is to soak the olives to remove the majority of the bitterness. While you could do this with whole olives, the process would take a very long time. So, to speed up the process, we’ll either smash the olives or cut into them with a knife.
If you’d like to cure whole olives, why not give lye-cured olives a try?
Smashing or slitting the olives
First, remove any damaged fruits from your olive harvest including those with obvious holes in them. (They likely have the larva of the olive fruit fly!)
Obvious holes 
Olive with a larva coming out
By piercing the skin of the olives, the flesh is exposed and the bitter compounds are more easily given off into the water.
Either smash each olive with a clean, flat stone or the flat bottom of a resistant cup or bowl. Here in Spain, it’s common to find boards with an area for smashing the olives and another area for easily slitting the olives on 4 sides at once. If you don’t have access to something similar, you can use a paring knife (or another sharp knife) to slit into each olive, preferably making several slits into each one.
If you’re in a hurry and want to eat the olives as quickly as possible, smashed olives are the best choice. Once smashed, the olives generally are cured quite quickly, in just a few days. Sliced olives take a few more days to cure, but generally keep a bit longer than the smashed ones.
Soaking the olives
Once the olives have been smashed or slit, place them in large glass jars and cover them with water. Each day, change the water by pouring off the old water and adding new, unchlorinated water. (Some people add some salt to the water, but that’s totally optional. I’ve done it both ways and don’t notice much of a difference in the final product.) In the first days, the water that you pour off the olives will likely be brownish in color. That’s normal.
Optionally add salt to the soaking water
After several days, the water should get lighter and lighter in color and the olives should be less and less bitter. After around 5 days, taste an olive to check for bitterness. If the olives are still quite bitter, continue to change the water daily until you are happy with them. (Taste them each day when changing the water.)
Olives are generally ready after 5-7 days of soaking. The amount of time needed will depend on if you’ve smashed or slit the olives and on your preference for how bitter (or not) you want the olives to be.
While bitter olives aren’t pleasant to eat, removing all of the bitterness of the olives can make them bland. While you can compensate for bland olives by adding herbs and spices to the brine, it’s best to leave some of the flavor. Plus, the oleuropein of the olives may also have health benefits.
Brining the olives
Once you’ve removed most of the bitterness, it’s time to brine the olives. Brining the olives will help preserve them and add flavor. You can brine the olives with only a mixture of salt and water or you can add even more flavor by adding herbs and other seasonings.
To brine the olives, mix together 55 grams of salt (1.94 ounces) for every liter (35.2 fluid ounces) of unchlorinated water. That should be enough brine for around a kilogram of olives (2.2 pounds of olives).
To help dissolve the salt in the water, you can heat the water and salt mixture. Boiling the mixture can also help kill any undesired microbes. It’s best to allow the hot brine mixture to cool before pouring it over the prepared olives, though.
Add the prepared olives to a clean jar and cover them with the cooled brine solution. If you like, you can layer in smashed garlic cloves and herbs like oregano and thyme with the olives before pouring the brine over them. You can also add roasted red peppers. (Some people also add some vinegar in with the herbs and brine. ) Leave some room above the olives for a layer of olive oil.
Pour a layer of olive oil over the brine-covered olives. Then clean the rim of the jar before sealing it with a lid. Store the olives in a cool, dark place (or the refrigerator, if you prefer.) After several days, the olives should have picked up enough flavor to serve them.
It is said that you should only use wooden or plastic utensils when brining the olives or serving them. (They say you shouldn’t use metal or your hands directly.) I couldn’t find the science behind it, but so many people believe it that I figured it was worth mentioning.
Dry salt curing olives
Another option for curing and preserving olives is to layer clean, dry olives in salt. The salt draws out the moisture from the olives and they shrivel up and darken. (They look almost like raisins.) During the process, remove the forming brine and add more salt, as needed.
Once shriveled, the olives are ready for consumption. (They have a completely different flavor and texture from the olives prepared with the other methods.)
One-year brined olives
Another alternative to curing the olives and then brining them, you can directly jar them up in a more highly concentrated salt brine. During the long fermentation process that takes place, there is no need to first remove the bitterness and then brine the olives. This method generally takes a year to fully cure and brine the olives, but it’s a great way to preserve them for longer periods of time if you have an overabundance of olives. (Plus, it’s less work.)
During the long fermentation process, different yeasts and lactic acid bacteria work to change (improve) the flavor of the olives, and also may add probiotic health benefits.
To slow brine the olives, place clean, whole, unbruised olives in a large jar. Cover it in a brine made with 60 grams of salt for every liter of water. For every kilogram of olives, you’ll need approximately 1 liter of water and 60 grams of salt.
Completely cover the olives in the jar with the brine solution and cover it with a layer of olive oil to keep the air from reaching the olives. Seal the jar and leave it in a cool, dark place for a year! In a year, you can eat the olives as is or further season them with spices and herbs!
Storage
Store the well-sealed jars of olives in a cool, dark place (or a refrigerator). Make sure that the olives are completely covered in brine and that the brine is completely covered with a layer of oil before sealing them. (Any exposed olives or herbs may develop mold.)
While the olives should keep well for many months (even a year or more), the flavor and texture will generally change over time. (They can get soft and overly salty.)
Video
Brined Olives (Salt Cured Olives)
Ingredients
- 1 kilogram fresh olives
- 55 grams salt
- 1 liter water filtered, non-chlorinated
- extra virgin olive oil
- herbs like rosemary or thyme optional
Instructions
- Rinse the olives and separate out any with bruises or holes in them. (Olives with holes likely have olive fly larvae in them. Discolored areas may be another sign of affected olives, even if they don't have visible holes.)
Removing the bitterness
- Smash or make cuts in each olive with a knife to help speed up the curing process. (Uncut olives will take at least a month vs. around a week.) If you have a lot of olives, consider trying out several different methods (slitting, smashing, and uncut olives.) Smashed olives are the quickest, but generally keep less time than slit or uncut olives. (Uncut olives keep the longest.)
- Place the olives in a clean glass jar and cover them completely with filtered water. If you are making several batches using different methods, place them in separate jars. (Keep only smashed olives in one jar, slit olives in another, etc.)Some people add a small amount of salt to the soaking water, but it isn't necessary at this point.
- Allow the olives to soak for 24 hours. Then, strain out the water and cover the olives with fresh new water. Soak for another 24 hours before changing the water again. (Continue this process, changing the water daily.)
- After around 5 days, you can start to taste the olives for bitterness. Most people end up soaking smashed or slit olives for around a week, but that will depend on the size of the olives and how bitter you want the finished olives to be. Continue to soak the olives, changing the water daily, until you are happy with the flavor of the olives.
Brining the olives
- Prepare a salt brine by combining around 55 grams (2 ounces) of salt for every liter (quart) of water. Stir well until all of the salt has dissolved. (You can heat the water to help dissolve the salt, but allow it to cool before pouring it over the olives.)
- Place some of the prepared olives into clean glass jars and pour the brine solution over the olives. You can layer the olives with herbs and/or smashed garlic for added flavor. Popular choices here are rosemary and thyme.
- Pour a thin layer of olive oil over the top of the brine solution, making sure to completely cover the water to keep air from reaching it. (No herbs or olives should be exposed or they may develop mold.)
- Seal the jars and allow the olives to absorb the brine solution and be flavored by the garlic and/or herbs (if you've added them) for several days. Serve them when you are happy with the flavor of your olives.
Serving the olives
- To keep the olives freshest (and keep them from softening too much), it is said that you shouldn't remove them from their jars with metal utensils or your hands. (I couldn't find the science behind it, but so many people believe it that I figured it was worth mentioning.) Ideally, use wooden or plastic utensils to remove the olives while serving them.
- After removing all of the olives that you want to serve, make sure that the remaining olives are covered with brine and a layer of olive oil. Add more oil, if needed to completely cover them. Seal the jar again and store it in a cool dark place.
Notes
Seasonings
Apart from adding herbs and garlic to the olives, some people also add a splash of vinegar to their olives before pouring in the brine.Storage
Store the well-sealed jars of olives in a cool, dark place (or a refrigerator). Make sure that the olives are completely covered in brine and that the brine is completely covered with a layer of oil before sealing them. (Any exposed olives or herbs may develop mold.) While the olives should keep well for many months (even a year or more), the flavor and texture will generally change over time. (They can get soft and overly salty.)One-year brined olives
Another alternative to curing the olives and then brining them, try directly jarring them up in a more highly concentrated salt brine. This method generally takes a year to fully cure and brine the olives, but it’s a great way to preserve them for longer periods of time if you have an overabundance of olives. To slow brine the olives, place clean, whole, unbruised olives in a large jar. Cover it in a brine made with 60 grams of salt for every liter of water. For every kilogram of olives, you’ll need approximately 1 liter of water and 60 grams of salt. Completely cover the olives in the jar with the brine solution and cover it with a layer of olive oil to keep the air from reaching the olives. Seal the jar and leave it in a cool, dark place for a year! In a year, you can eat the olives as-is or further season them with spices and herbs!This post was originally published on November 8, 2014. It was rewritten and republished, adding clearer instructions, new photos, and videos.
How to Make Lye Cured Olives – A Step by Step Tutorial
sue guletsky
Does the variety of green olive matter? I’m thinking about ordering them from farms in California and am trying to figure out who I should order them from. Your method is how my family does them ( I grew up in RI) but it’s hard to find the raw olives in local markets here in CT.
Tracy Ariza
Hi Sue,
To be honest, I’m not really sure.
I’ve done this numerous times with whatever green olives I find for sale locally. I’ve never determined the specific variety of the olives, but the process has worked well with all of the ones I’ve tried. My son also cured olives in this way at school. They have olive trees in the patio. We had to send them with glass jars for the project. The resulting olives were delicious!
My guess is that it should work with most unless there is some variety with very delicate olives.
Julie Graves
Hi, try Allloveolives.com
I hope this helps. 🙂
Louise Hamilton
Chaffin Family Farms in California I would highly recommend for buying olives. I live in Utah but have been purchasing from here for several years.
Gretchen
I have been curing mine in a salt brine for 3 months. They have been covered with cheesecloth and refridgerated. They are turning gray / black, and I’m wondering if they are safe to consume.
Tracy Ariza
Hi Gretchen,
While they’re probably still safe to consume, I’ve found that they don’t taste very good after a long time in the brine, when they start to change colors.
On the other hand, olives that are packed in only salt, shrivel up with time and look like raisins. (They also turn black.)
Those actually taste very good after that change.
As long as your brine solution was made with enough salt, it isn’t likely that anything dangerous will have been able to grow in your mixture. If you don’t see anything strange like a mold growing on top, I’d give them a taste and see what you think. (I try much more questionable things all of the time. hahahaha, but perhaps I shouldn’t be pushing anybody to do what I do in those cases.) 😉
Bob
I have been experimenting with olives growing on trees here in the Southern California desert. I am not sure what type of olive these are but they range in color on the trees from green to a nearly dark purple or almost black. I have decided to salt brine some whole, unsmashed/unslit darker olives and as best as I could tell – worm free (but as I have been trying other ways, I see that in my case there are worms present in most of the dark olives. I have been halving some to see just how prevalent the worm is and it is in about 8/10 olives! I still decided that where the damage was minimal, I just cut away the bad parts and am salt brining these too. I expect these cut ones to cure must sooner than the whole ones. And, I suspect that the whole ones will probably have worms anyway now that I have investigated this crop.
In another batch, I have begun a salt cure in a large zip lock type bag with some whole olives.
This is all just an experiment as we are camped here for the winter and the olives were just too tempting to not try and make edible.
I am only about 7 or 8 days into the curing so far and will update when I get some results. I just changed the brine in the cut olives today as they were still bitter.
Cheers!
Bob
I just took a closer look at the whole olives I am brining and I noticed that most of them are beginning to show obvious worm holes as the skin color has changed and made it easier to see.
I’ll probably discard this experimental batch and go collect some more olives before the trees are bare. I will cut these olives and remove any bad parts and will brine like the other pieces batch which is beginning to look good as far as I can tell.
Stay tuned…
Tracy Ariza
Hi Bob!
Yes, the worms make the process take much longer. I find removing them the most frustrating part of this process. If you are lucky to find worm free olives, you can save yourself a lot of work and time!
I found that I really loved the olives that were placed in only salt too. (Not a brine with water, just packed in salt.)
They turn into what looks like olive “raisins.” 😉
If you’re having fun experimenting, give it a try. They last much longer than the ones cured in brine.
Suzette
Hi My Mom taught us that first we wash the olives then smash them with a rock or brick stuff them in a jar with garlic fennel hair and a teaspoon of salt. In the meantime in a pot we would have water boiling with salt. When cooled you would put an egg to see if it floats if it does the water is ready to fill the jars. We would store them in basement for about 7 to 9 months. Then they would be ready. Is that wrong?
Tracy Ariza
Hi Suzette,
I don’t believe in there being right or wrong ways, unless, of course, it doesn’t work for you. 😉
I’ve just done what they seem to do around here, but I’ve found that they don’t keep very long once you take them out of the brine. It appears that your brine doesn’t have as much salt as mine, which may be why it appears that it takes longer for yours to cure. They may have the added advantage of keeping for longer, though?
I may have to try your method next time to compare.
My intuition says that it would be a good idea to make some both ways…
My method may allow for quicker curing so you can almost instantly enjoy the olives. Your method allows you to enjoy some of the olives in several months. By that time mine probably aren’t very good anymore.
See- the best of both worlds. 😉
Tony Silva
why do some olives turn yellow in same batch
Tracy Ariza
Hi Tony,
I’m not sure why that may have happened. I don’t remember ever having had any turn yellow. Did the yellow ones taste differently or have a different texture?
I’m wondering if it may have to do with a different variety of olive- or perhaps it’s something else. I wish I could be of more help.
Donna Manzo
I made them this year 2017 and one of my jars just exploded today. Why did that happen. Now I am afraid the other jars will explode. I always made mine this way. I just washed the olives and then added salt and water to each jar and added the olives and then put the lids on and closed them shut. The jar that exploded today was a jar that had a single lid all one piece instead of the two piece lids we use for our tomato sauce. I wonder if that made a difference or is it because maybe I added too much water right up to the top of the jar. Now I am afraid if the other jars may explode. I want to open them all up again and maybe take some olives out so the jars are not so full but I am afraid incase they will go bad. Does anyone have a solution as to why that jar exploded. I have been making them the same way for a while and this is the first time this has ever happened.
Tracy Ariza
Hi Donna,
Wow, I’m sorry to hear that happened!
I’ve never had it happen, but I don’t normally fully seal them nor do I fill them to the top of the jar. Well, I might, but we eat them right away, so they haven’t stayed that way for very long.
I’ve never tried preserving them.
So, are you saying you used a canning technique on them and they exploded?
It makes sense in a way because it would be like the olives are fermenting and building up gas, much like when you make sauerkraut. I’ve never tried to preserve sauerkraut by any sort of canning technique either.
I haven’t really found a great way to preserve these sorts of olives. I just always thought of the salt technique as a nice one to use for this time of year when there are lots of fresh olives around. They don’t keep very well for me, and if I try to save them, the quality has always declined quickly. We just eat them quicker than that happens. I find it interesting that you were able to preserve them, though, but sad to hear about the explosion.
Do the olives taste good after having kept for so long? I’d think that if the jar exploded it’s because a lot of fermenting activity is going on.
If it were me, I’d probably open them to let the gas buildup out, but, yes, you’re right, that will almost most definitely make the olives go bad more quickly. Perhaps freezing them at the ideal point would work, but I haven’t tried that either, so I don’t know if that would affect their texture. Sorry I can’t be of more help!
(I can perhaps ask around, though, and see if someone around here knows a good way of preserving salt cured olives!)
Kim Abramson
What kind of salt? And how much?
Tracy Ariza
Hi Kim,
I just used sea salt.
I wanted a saturated solution of salt, so I added as much as I could until no more would dissolve into the water. To get a better idea, I just did a search for you, and I saw that they say that 100g of room temperature water can dissolve about 37g of salt. So, make a solution in that way, adjusting the amount you need according to how many olives you have. I hope that helps!
Linda
I cured my olives 8 months ago using a different recipe & they’ve been in glass jars with a brine solution, some herbs & 1 cm of olive oil on the top.
They are too salty – what can I do to rectify this?
Can I empty some of the liquid (say 1/2) out & top up with fresh water (no salt)?
Tracy Ariza
Hi Linda,
You can definitely try placing them in water to help reduce the salt. I would only do it with a small batch at a time, only an amount that you want to be eating quickly.
Usually, salt cured olives don’t last very long. They tend to get soft, so I’m actually surprised that yours have kept for so many months. If you cure completely in salt, the olives actually turn into something (delicious) that looks like raisins.
Once you reduce the salt level, they definitely won’t keep for as long and will tend to go soft quickly.
It’s all about experimentation, really.
Danielle
Hi. Can you clarify step 4 for me please? Are the olives left in the brine or poured off during the week they are processed? Thanks!
Tracy Ariza
Hi Danielle,
Let me see if I can try to help clarify what I meant.
What I was saying is that I mixed the salt and water in a separate container to the point of saturation. I added more salt than what the water could hold and some salt stays in the bottom of that container.
When it was time to add the brine to the olives, I just used the saturated liquid (my brine) by pouring that into the container with the olives, and I left the salt at the bottom of the other container which just gets discarded.
You leave the olives in the brine and periodically check on them to see if they are losing their bitterness. Some olives cure much more quickly than others. Those that are more bitter may need to have their water changed once or twice to help the process along.
I hope that makes sense and clears things up.
Jeannette
I loved this beautiful tutorial! I have always been an olive lover and was interested in home curing. Thanks for demystifying the process. I’ll definitely try it this year when I have the opportunity to get fresh olives again.
Tracy Ariza
Thanks, Jeannette!
I’ve been intimidated by curing olives myself for many years. I tried some strange process a couple of years back and they didn’t turn out very well for me, so I kept putting off trying it again.
This process has worked well for me several times now, though, so it’s my favorite.
I’m also trying to directly salt cure some whole olives, meaning directly in salt and not in a brine. They have shrivelled up, as I knew to expect, but I’m not sure how much I’m going to like them. 😉 I’ll let you know if I’m wrong and they’re great, though.