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Italian olive salad is a wonderful thing. Although I use it pretty much exclusively on sandwiches, you can also mix it with pasta for a great salad. There’s a great mix of textures and taste. From crunchy carrots to rich Kalamata olives, to the kick of pickled cauliflower and pepperoncini. Although it’s a little work, and takes a few ingredients, this salad is the best there is. Make sure to let it set overnight before using it.

Olive Lover’s Heaven
If you love olives, you’ll more than love this Italian olive salad. It makes for the world’s best sandwich, a muffuletta. I can eat muffuletta all day long. I can also eat this salad out of a bowl. And if you’re looking for something different, add a good spoonful of this salad to your next pizza.
Make sure your olives are completely pitted. That’s one advantage of making this salad at home versus buying it. You can make sure each every pit is gone. I used a store-bought olive salad to make a muffuletta the other day and I bit into a pit. I about broke a tooth. No more of that. It’s homemade for me!
- Italian Olive Salad
- Essential to the Muffuletta Sandwich
I’m Just A Po Boy
One of my favorite things to eat is a cold cut po boy sandwich. Good (no, great!) French bread (as close as I can come to po boy bread here). A little lettuce and tomato. Good cold cuts, usually Italian. And some cheese. And lots of olive salad. And plenty of the olive salad juice, too. I like to drizzle that stuff on the bread before I even get started putting my po boy together. Get the bread kinda soggy with it. Heck yeah, that’s good stuff!
Yeah, you can buy olive salad online or in a store. And it’s good stuff. But, oh, there’s nothing like the homemade salad.

Italian Olive Salad
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 quart pimento-stuffed green olives drained, coarsely chopped
- 1 ½ cups Kalamata olives drained, pitted, coarsely chopped
- 1 cup extra virgin olive oil you may need a bit more
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- 1 cup pickled cauliflower drained, coarsely chopped
- 4 stalks celery sliced
- 2 large carrots peeled, sliced
- ½ cup peperoncini drained, coarsely chopped
- ⅓ cup cocktail onions drained, coarsely chopped
- ¼ cup capers drained
- 8 cloves garlic minced
- 1 ½ teaspoon Italian seasoning
- ¾ teaspoon dried red pepper flake
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
- ¼ teaspoon celery seed
Instructions
- Combine all ingredients in a large seal-able bowl.
- Let set in fridge overnight, stirring occasionally.
- Stir again before serving.
Notes
Nutrition
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