The best green olives should be meaty and firm. They should be bitter, briny, and buttery—not to mention tangy and savory. High quality olives also have subtle sweet and nutty notes, too. The bottom line is this: You know a bad olive when you try one. They’re too tart or too bland or too mealy or a confusing mix of all three. You’ll only find the best green olives on this list.
Green olives or black olives? Across the board, I think green olives have more flavor. They tend to be meatier, more buttery, and have a certain nutty quality to them. They make excellent martinis, but are also great to snack on, especially amidst a lovely and intricate charcuterie board. Stuff an olive with blue cheese or garlic to enhance the snacking experience, or buy them pitted, chop them up, and sprinkle them on some of your favorite foods. Green olives are a real team player, in that way. That’s why we love them so much. We tasted 11 different jars to find the best green olives for charcuterie, snacking, and more. Here are the top five.
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- Mezzetta Garlic Stuffed
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Pickled, pungent, firm, salty, oily, and briny—the list of adjectives used to describe Mezzetta garlic-stuffed olives is lengthy and wonderful. There’s a big-time garlic flavor here that just smacks you in the mouth and says, “How do you like that, partner?” The texture is deliciously meaty; it feels like you’re really sinking your teeth into something substantial. In addition to being tangy, the taste is quite oleaginous, too—it’s decadent and fatty and a damn good snack. The best pitted green olives are Mezzetta, and they’re stuffed with garlic.
Credit: Liv Averett/Amazon
- Jeff’s Garden Whole Castelvetrano
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I love a straightforward brand called “Jeff’s Garden.” It’s like when a business is called “Tom’s Diner” or “Earl’s Auto Body.” Everything you need to know is in the title. Hey, I’m Jeff. Welcome to my garden. What else do you want? Pretty simple stuff. Jeff’s Castelvetrano olives are wonderfully buttery, meaty, and kind of sweet, too. Castelvetranos are some of my favorite olives due to their size and almost crisp texture. Simply put, Jeff’s Garden won’t do you wrong. These are some of the best olives for charcuterie boards, as they won’t overwhelm the other flavors. Also, here’s a cute anecdote: My mom calls them “Castlevania” olives and refuses to pronounce the word correctly.
Credit: Liv Averett/Instacart
- Santa Barbara Olive Co. Hand Stuffed Garlic Olives
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These green olives come from, you guessed it, Santa Barbara, California and they’re strikingly buttery and beautiful. The texture is just amazing—lovely and firm, but a pure delight to bite into. These California olives come stuffed with bright, zesty pickled garlic. This would go great in a martini, sure, but they’re also some of the best green olives for snacking. I’m having the time of my life over here just eating them out of a bowl. A great product that’s salty, tangy, garlicky, and filled with deliciously natural fat.
Credit: Liv Averett/Instacart
- Great Value Blue Cheese Stuffed
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Nothing wrong with these cheap, salty, briny green olives stuffed with funky blue cheese. There’s so much bitter tang and salty flavor that it carries the whole olive experience. The blue cheese isn’t of the highest quality and, honestly, neither are the olives. However, there’s something about the bold, assertive flavors of green olives and blue cheese that just makes this such a delicious treat. Sometimes, you don’t need to splurge on fancy olives. Walmart will do just fine.
Credit: Liv Averett/Instacart
- 365 Organic
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These small, pitted green olives are meatier and more savory than Great Value, but they kind of lack the huge tang I’m looking for. Whole Foods is one of those companies I don’t mind purchasing olives from because they do a great job of sourcing organic products. And olives taste better when they’re of a higher quality. I do think that you often get what you pay for, and although these are pricier than some other olives, the taste is exceptional. They’re one of the best pitted green olives, I just wish they had a more assertive flavor.
Credit: Liv Averett/Amazon
Best of the Best
Best Castelvetrano
Best Buttery
Best Blue Cheese
Best Organic
Other products we tried: Jeff’s Garden Jalapeño, Jeff’s Garden Garlic, Great Value Jalapeño, Pearls, Market Pantry Manzanilla, Mezzetta Castlevetrano.
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It’s hard not to laugh reading Palumbo’s articles. After seeing him on More, I can hear him saying these things. Funny stuff and helpful. I would never consider buying generic blue cheese olives without this review.