All About the Veg! is a biweekly recipe column where Best of Vegan contributor Seiran Sinjari breaks down one amazing plant at a time. In today’s column, she talks about her love of olives, particularly grilled marinated olives that have inspired today’s recipe. Her vegan grilled olive dip with sumac chips might as well become one of your last delicious memories of 2021, or a zesty start to 2022!
When you feel you’ve done everything you can possibly imagine with seasonal produce, maybe it’s time to have some fun and reach for preserved foods. Foods you can enjoy all year round.
I love all kinds of preserves, pickles, fermented veggies and some of my favorites are olives! Olives of all kinds can always be found in my fridge and pantry. We have them for breakfast, with lunch, dinner, or as movie night snacks. Lately, I’ve been obsessed with grilled marinated olives. I used to get them from a Middle Eastern deli every time I did my bi-weekly shopping until I started to make them myself at home.
We still have a few days left of this year and these days tend to be filled with snacks, dips, appetizers, and other goodies. So let’s make this grilled olive dip with tangy and crunchy sumac chips, maybe it will become a new good memory of 2021 or a delicious start to 2022!
Thank you so much for reading and cooking from my column this past year. Can’t wait to share the new All About the Veg! recipes with you in 2022!
Much love, Seiran
Ingredients
For the dip:
- 120 g pitted big green olives
- 30 g walnuts - roughly chopped
- 1 cup vegan Turkish or Greek-style yogurt - preferably the one with a thicker texture
- 1 cup vegan cream cheese
- 2-3 tbsp water - more if needed
- 1 small bunch parsley - finely chopped
- 1 garlic clove - minced
- freshly cracked black pepper to taste
- 1 ½ tbsp pomegranate molasses
- 1 ½ tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- ½ tsp mild chili flakes
Instructions
- If your olives are very salty, you can place them in a bowl with cold water for one hour, then drain.
- Pat dry olives and place them in a grill pan over high heat.
- Press them with the back of a wooden spoon a few times, flip & repeat on the other side once they have gotten some brown grill marks.
- Preheat oven to 225ºC / 440ºF
- Place vegan yogurt, vegan cream cheese, and water in a bowl, mix until you have a smooth & thick cream, add more water to adjust texture as needed.
- Roughly chop the olives (reserve some whole olives for garnish) and add to the cream along with walnuts, parsley, garlic, and black pepper. You can reserve some of the walnuts and parsley for garnish as well. Mix well and set to the side.
- Spread in a single layer on a lined sheet, then bake until crispy (around 5 minutes but they burn easily so keep an eye on them).
Notes
Recipe, text, and photography by Seiran Sinjari.
PIN/SAVE/SHARE THIS ARTICLE
