Tag: pitted olives

An Easy Way to Pit Olives

Posted on by Lisa P

I was making Moroccan Chicken in my new cast iron dutch oven tonight when I was faced with removing the pits from about 30 green olives.

Pitting Olives the Easy Way
Place the flat blade of your knife over an olive.

I had meant to buy pitted ones but I was in a hurry at the store and just grabbed the whole non-pitted ones without thinking.

So I did a little research and found this neat trick for pitting olives. It does make a bit of a mess of the olive, but when you’re just adding them to a stew, who cares?

[Note: Apparently olives with pits are moister than their pitted relatives and impart much better flavor to your food.]

Take an olive and place it on your cutting board. Take a large knife, and with the side of the blade press down on the olive until you feel it “give.”

Pitting Olives, Remove the pit
The pit practically pops right out of the olive.
Lift up your knife to reveal a flattened olive that’s been burst open on one end. Pick it up and pull the pit out with your fingers.

[Another Note: Look for the little stem that sometimes is still sticking to the end of the olive, and remove it. In my 1-1/2 cups of olives I found three with the stems, so just keep an eye out.]