These olive and roasted garlic tapenade stuffed mushrooms are the perfect appetizer or snack packed with lots of fresh olive flavor.
I can’t buy a can of olives without thinking about dinners at my grandparents’ house as a kid.
Every Sunday when we were little, before soccer games took over as the weekend activity, we’d go over for macaroni and meatball dinners.
While the women perfected the sauce in the kitchen and set the table for dinner, the men could be found in the living room watching either baseball or football depending on the time of year.
Come to think of it, that’s probably where my deep seeded hatred of American sports on tv comes from.
When you’re forced to dry dishes while the people with a Y chromosome in the house get to sit in front of a sports game, you’d probably end up with some residual negativity too.
While we waited for the sauce to cook down and the water to boil, there would always be a platter of celery, carrots (with a side story from grandpa about how good they were for your eyesight) and olives to snack on.
My job, since making sauce was a little beyond my capabilities as a 5 or 6 year old, was to make that platter.
The celery and carrot sections would be nice and full…and then there was the olive section, at best, half full from me eating them one by one as I arranged them on the plate with my back to my mom so she couldn’t yell.
I’d bring the plate into the “man area” shove a few on as many fingers as I could and then run out of the room before my dad would look away from the game long enough to notice what I was doing.
As a kid, I was partial to black ripe olives but as an adult, give me any olives, any color, any intensity, pit, no pit, stuffed with blue cheese in a martini, fried up with a crispy exterior or stuffed inside a mushroom as a tapenade and I will happily devour them all.
California ripe olives are great for snacking because they go with pretty much anything (olives + nuts, olive spread on sandwiches, olives in pasta, olives in salads).
Plus, they have a 3-4 year shelf life so you can keep plenty on hand to have in a pinch.
These tapenade stuffed mushrooms while not the prettiest little things (mushrooms + olives unfortunately = brown looking mush), are packed with olive flavor along with some sweetness from a handful of sun dried tomatoes and freshness from lots of basil.
They’re the perfect summer bite for snacking, serving up as an appetizer or even with some grilled steak for dinner.
Both 6 year old me and adult me approve!
MORE MUSHROOM RECIPES TO TRY:
Air Fryer Mushrooms
Black Garlic Cheese and Turkey Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms
Goat Cheese and Prosciutto Stuffed Mushrooms
Olive and Roasted Garlic Tapenade Stuffed Mushrooms
Ingredients
- 2 – 10 ounce packages baby bella mushrooms, cleaned and stems removed
- 1 – 15 ounce can ripe black olives, drained
- 1 – 15 ounce can ripe green olives, drained
- 2 tablespoons roasted garlic spread
- 1/2 cup fresh basil leaves
- 2 tablespoons pine nuts
- 4-5 sun dried tomatoes, not in olive oil
- Salt and pepper
- 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees and grease a baking sheet with cooking spray.
- Combine olives, garlic spread, basil, pine nuts, sun dried tomatoes, salt and pepper in a food processor. Process until finely chopped.
- Spoon tapenade into the mushroom caps, place on the baking sheet and drizzle with the olive oil.
- Bake mushrooms for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and serve warm.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
*This post is sponsored by California Ripe Olives through Kitchen Play. All content and opinions are my own. Thanks for supporting the brands I choose to work with.
Gina Matsoukas is an AP syndicated writer. She is the founder, photographer and recipe developer of Running to the Kitchen — a food website focused on providing healthy, wholesome recipes using fresh and seasonal ingredients. Her work has been featured in numerous media outlets both digital and print, including MSN, Huffington post, Buzzfeed, Women’s Health and Food Network.
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Invite sent, sorry for the delay!
No problem. Thanks, and joined.
Oh I LOVE olives. And mushrooms! Perfect pairing for me with this recipe. I would like to be invited to the pinning please and be eligible!
Hey Kaylin- Just tried to invite you but you need to be following me before I can add you to a group board. Reply to this comment once you have and I’ll send the invite!
Following you on Pinterest? I already follow on Bloglovin’ (love your recipe inspirations by the way!) I will make sure I’m following you on Pinterest. Thought I was!
yep, on Pinterest. Pinterest doesn’t let you add anyone to a group board unless they’re following you. If you use a different email for pinterest other than the one you’re leaving for these comments then let me know.
I’m following you now. :) No worries
Grrr…I can see you’re following but it keeps telling me you’re not when I go to invite you! I’ve tried to just send it through email but even that isn’t working. Let me know if you got it by any chance otherwise, I’ll keep trying. Pinterest can be so glitchy!
I hope you can send the invitation now. Like I said, I didn’t know about the California Olive company until you mentioned them, but I’d love to interact with them myself as a blogger because I love olives!
Just got it! Thank you so much! I appreciate it!
Beautiful! I love olives; I mostly eat them on their own as snacks, but tapenade is still one of my favorite ways to eat it. Beautiful dish!
Olives always remind me of my dad – well, that and the fact that I adore them too. The saltier the better! I love this recipe; perfect for game days or for snacks!