Photo: Claire Lower
Anyone can display a bowl of olives as part of a sausage board or snack plate, but with a dish warm olives is a pro move. You can gently heat them up in a luxurious pool of warm olive oil – or you can blow them up with the hot, lashing winds of the air fryer. Both are good options, but the latter is my current favorite.
Like heating them in oil, air frying olives makes them fragrant and luxurious, but air frying has the added benefit of giving them a deeper, nuttier flavor thanks to a little browning. The meat becomes soft, supple and – due to the evaporation during frying – a little meatier and intensely tasty. It’s still an olive, but it’s a concentrated olive. I really can’t say anything bad about her.
These savory little fruits require very little prep. All you have to do is blot any excess brine or oil off your olives before tossing them in a 400-degree air fryer for 10 minutes. They’ll stutter and hiss for a while as their delicate skins bubble and gush, but they’ll calm down after a few minutes. When you air-fry olives stuffed with cheese, some of the cheese escapes and fries and turns into small, crispy pieces of frico. If you air fry whole olives that have not been pitted, you will be surprised how clean the meat slides off this pit. I haven’t air-fried a garlic-filled olive, but I bet it’ll be fine.
Air-fryer-roasted olives don’t need garnishing, but when you top them off with a pinch of parmesan, a pinch of citrus peel, or a dash of fresh herbs, this little snack feels so special. Serve with fancy cheese, fancy meat, and / or a very cold martini.