Curing your own green olives at home is easier than you think and far more satisfying than buying them from the store. All you need is fresh green olives, water, salt, and a bit of patience. Let’s walk you through this simple, traditional process and show you how to cure green olives the way we learnt from our families in Turkey.
What is Olive Brining?
Brining is a natural preservation method used to cure green olives, which are naturally bitter when freshly picked. Soaking them in a salty water solution helps draw out their bitterness and slowly transform their flavor into something rich and savory.
We follow a two-step process specifically for green olives:
- First, water curing to remove their intense bitterness.
- Then, brining to preserve them and enhance their flavor.
This traditional method results in firm, flavorful green olives. Perfect for breakfast tables, mezze platters, or snacking any time of day.
You Only Need 3 Ingredients to Brine Green Olives!
- Olives: Choose firm, unbruised green olives. Slight color variations are fine, but avoid mushy or overripe ones. The best green olives are available in late September and October.
- Water: Filtered or bottled water is ideal, especially if your tap water has a strong taste.
- Salt: Use kosher salt, sea salt, or pickling salt. Avoid table salt, which may contain additives that cloud the brine.
- Optional flavorings: Fresh rosemary, garlic cloves, chili peppers, lemon slices, bay leaves or thyme can all be added to the jar to enhance flavor.
How to Cure Green Olives
Start by rinsing the green olives and discarding any damaged ones. Then, gently crack each olive to help them release their bitterness during the soaking phase. You can use a mallet, the bottom of a glass jar, or even a stone, but avoid crushing them.
Once cracked, soak the olives in fresh cold water for 7 to 10 days, changing the water daily. This step is crucial for removing the natural bitterness. Taste them after a week to see if they need more soaking.
After the bitterness is gone, drain the olives and prepare your brine by mixing water with salt until fully dissolved. Pour this brine over the olives in a clean jar, ensuring they are completely submerged. You can add herbs or aromatics at this stage if you like. Close the jar tightly and let it sit for at least a week in a cool, dark place.
During the brining process, the olives will soften slightly and develop a deep, savory flavor. The longer they sit, the more intense the flavor becomes.
Don't Pit the Olives Before Brining!
It might be tempting to remove the pits before curing, especially for convenience, but we strongly recommend keeping them in.
The pit helps the olive retain its firm texture throughout the brining process and protects the flavor from leaching out.
Pitted olives often end up mushy and less flavorful. So for the best results, always cure olives with their pits intact.
How to Test the Right Salt Ratio for Olive Brine
We use an old but reliable trick we learned from our families in Turkey to make sure the brine has the right salinity:
- Fill your container with water.
- Add salt and stir until it dissolves.
- Gently drop a raw, uncracked egg into the water.
– If it floats, your brine has the right amount of salt.
– If it sinks, add more salt and try again.
Storage Tips
Brined green olives can be kept for up to a year if the jar is sealed and stored in a cool, dark place. Once opened, it's best to keep them in the refrigerator and consume within a few weeks. Always use a clean spoon when taking olives from the jar.
How to Prepare Brined Green Olives for Serving
Cured green olives are usually too salty straight from the jar. Here’s how we serve them:
- Take out the olives you plan to eat and rinse them under cold water.
- Let them sit in a bowl of cold water for 15 minutes to draw out excess salt.
- Drain well, then drizzle generously with olive oil.
- Add optional garnishes like lemon slices, fresh thyme, rosemary or chili flakes.
Tip: Once opened, always use a spoon to remove green olives from the jar. Avoid using your hands, it introduces bacteria and can shorten shelf life.
Ways to Enjoy Brined Green Olives
- Traditional Turkish Breakfast – served with cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, and bread.
- Salads – add them to green salads for a salty punch.
- Tapenade – blend with garlic, capers, and olive oil for a savory spread.
- Snacking – simply enjoy with cheese or nuts.
- Garnish – perfect as a topping for Turkish baked potatoes or as a martini garnish.
Olive Harvest in Turkey
In southern and western Turkey, olive harvest is a treasured tradition. Families gather in the fall to hand-pick olives, often turning the day into a social event. Some olives are sent for oil production, while others are preserved through curing methods like brining.
From sorting the olives under the trees to cracking them by hand, it's a communal process involving all generations. This deep-rooted culture brings a unique meaning and care to every jar of olives.
FAQs
Can I use black olives? They’re better suited for dry salt curing. Green olives are ideal for this method.
Why avoid table salt? It may contain anti-caking agents that cloud the brine and affect flavor.
Do I need vinegar in the brine? No, salt alone is sufficient for preserving olives.
How do I know if olives have spoiled? Discard them if they develop mold, an off smell, or a slimy texture.
More Recipes with Brine
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📖 Recipe
How to Cure Green Olives (With a Simple Brine Method)
INGREDIENTS
- 2 pounds green olives
- 1 liter water
- 2 tablespoons kosher salt
INSTRUCTIONS
- Wash and sort the olives: Give your olives a good rinse under tap water. While you're at it, keep an eye out for any damaged ones or those with holes. Toss these out.
- Crack the olives: Take a mallet, the flat end of a jar, or even a stone, and gently tap each olive. You want to crack them just enough to see a bit of the flesh, but not so hard that you damage the pit. And, from our own experience, it's best to do this by hand, one olive at a time. There are gadgets out there that promise to make this step quicker, but we tried one and it was a letdown. A lot of our olives got squished instead of cracked.
- Keep the pits in the olives. This isn't just about texture – the pits help keep that classic olive taste. Olives can lose flavor if they're pitted before the brining process.
- An alternative way: Instead of cracking, you could make a small cut on each olive with a sharp knife. We find olives stay firmer when cracked, but this is up to you.
- Soak the olives in water: Put your cracked olives in a big jar and fill it with cold water. To make sure the olives stay under the water, put something heavy on top, like a small plate or grape leaves (that's what folks do back home).
- Change the water: Do this once a day for about 10 days. After this time, taste an olive. If it's still bitter, keep changing the water for a few more days.
- Make the brine: To get the mix right, fill a container with water, add salt, and stir.
- Brine the olives: Once your brine is ready, pour it into the jar with the olives (make sure you've drained the soaking water). The olives should be completely covered. To keep air out, put a piece of cheesecloth over the olives, then put the lid on. In about a week, they'll be ready to eat! They might look a little different – a change in color is normal.
- Optional flavor addition: Before you add the brine, you can put in some extra flavors. Think about adding rosemary, thyme, lemon peel, or chili.
NOTES
- Crack Carefully: When you crack the olives, be gentle. You don't want to hurt the pit inside.
- Keep Pits: Don't take the pits out. They help keep the olives tasty.
- Change Water: If you're soaking the olives to remove bitterness, remember to change the water every day.
- Make Enough Brine: If you have more olives, you can make more brine. Just use the same ratio of salt to water.
- Seal Tight: When you put the olives in brine, make sure the jar is closed tight. This keeps air out.
- Don't Use Hands: After opening the jar, use a spoon to take out olives. Touching them with your hands can bring in germs and spoil the brine.
- Store Right: Keep the jar in a cool, dark place. They keep well for a year.
- The nutrition facts are assumed for canned olives.
NUTRITION
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Atika says
Hi there! this is my first time curing green olives and now I'm at the stage of covering the olives in salt-brine and I'm using cheesecloth plus the lid to cover it. My question would be is it necessary to keep using the cheesecloth after the initial 10 days brining? Thanks!
Zerrin & Yusuf says
Hi Atika,
We put cheesecloth to prevent the olives that are on the top from being exposed to air. So yes it's better to put it at the stage of putting the olives in salted brine. You can remove the cheesecloth when you start eating the olives after about a week.
That being said, if your jar is large enough and if you are sure that all the olives are well covered with brine and none of them are close to the surface of the brine, then you won't need the cheesecloth.
Hope this helps.
Chris says
Thank you for this information. I just started water-curing my green olives yesterday. I cracked them and soaked them in water overnight, with a plate on top of them, to keep them submerged.
My question: this morning when I went to change the water, I notice that some of the olives are brown now, along the lines where they're cracked. I suspect they got exposed to air before going in the water. Is this okay, or have I ruined the batch?
Zerrin & Yusuf says
Hi Chris,
The reason for some olives' losing their color is, as you say, they must have been exposed to air for a longer time. But don't worry, they are still ok. The only thing is they won't be as green. So you haven't ruined the batch.
Thank you for asking this question. We should add in the recipe as a tip that you shouldn't keep the cracked olives outside for long before pouring water over them.
Would love to learn what you think when they are ready to eat!
Cheers!
Dee says
Hi
Can you so this with olives that was purchased and all the juice was used. Only olives in jar.
Ajay Kaul says
Sir
Purchased a JAR of Olives
After opening the Jar ........ after a week now ....The BRINE IS TURNING COLUR TO YELLOW .......Why is turning yellow ....IS IT ALRIGHT TO EAT THE OLIVES ...Regards AK
Yusuf says
Hi Ajay,
To be honest, I have no idea why the brine is turning yellow but I guess it is okay to eat the olives after giving them a good rinse.
Carla Sifoni says
Thanks for the recipe! It’s been two weeks since I jarred my olives. I have 10 jars. Opened half of them so far and the brine is fizzing and bubbling like seltzer. Are they still good to eat? What do I do? Do I replace the brine or throw them out? I’m so worried!
Yusuf says
Hi Carla,
So you changed the water in the jar for 10 days with clean water, right? Then you made the brine and put the olives(that are no longer bitter) in it?
Never experienced that bubbling like seltzer. But here is our solution for you: Taste a few of the olives and transfer them in a new brine if they taste good. Hope this helps.
Gudik Holm Plews says
Hi, thanks for the recipe.. One thing remains ambiguous to me: You both write that the olives can be kept in the salt/water brine for more than a year and that "the rest of the olives can remain in the jar for a few weeks".. So is it important that the salt/water brine is absolutely air tight and once you open it you only have a few weeks to eat the rest?
Yusuf says
That's right. When they are air tight closed, olives can stay longer. So it's better not to make them in too large quantities. Having said that, an opened jar can stay longer than a few weeks as long as you don't touch the olives by hand.
Diana says
Thank you for this recipe! I have made my jar first time before three years and it was discovery! I bought green olives and we go again 😉
Yusuf says
Hi Diana,
So happy to hear that you loved it! Everything homemade is the best. Right? Thank you for the feedback!
Meredith says
Help! I followed the instructions here but some of my jars, after 2 weeks in brine, have mould forming at the top! Do you know why this would have happened and Is there anyway to salvage those jars? Can I change the brine again and get rid of the olives at the top closer to the mould? I feel like it my have something to the do either with slicing vs cracking them (we did a bit of both) and/or the cheese cloth at the top of the jar.... any suggestions! I would hate to throw out everything!
Yusuf says
Hi Meredith! Mould might be caused by air exposure. Please make sure the jars are tightly closed. Another thing is that we should never touch the olives with hands after we put them in brine. Just like pickling. It causes bacteria and thus the mould comes out. So what to do now? You can remove the olives that are on the surface and touching to the mould and the mould. Close the jar tightly. If it happens again, make a new brine in a clean jar and transfer the olives into it. And when you want to eat, take some in a bowl, wash well and then serve with olive oil. Hope these help.
Jenny says
I put about a table spoon of extra virgin olive oil on top of the olives in brine to seal out the air. They last a long time when sealed this way … no mould
Zerrin & Yusuf says
Hi Jenny,
Sealing it with olive oil sounds brilliant! Thank you for your contribution!