The perfect partner for a festive cocktail, or light appetizer before a big holiday meal, this marinated olives and cheese recipe is one of our favorite party tricks! Even if you want guests to save lots of room for Christmas dinner, you want to offer something for guests to nibble on while they wait. But, you don’t want people filling up. Enter; marinated olives and cheese! They’re the ideal appetizer because a single bite of olive or cheese literally bursts with big, herby flavors thanks to a garlicky, orange-flecked olive oil marinade. For a cocktail party spread — we’re thinking Christmas open houses, and New Years Eve gatherings! — pair it with other classic holiday appetizers, like a retro-licious Cheese Ball and some stuffed mushrooms, and any one (or two!) of our favorite festive holiday drinks!
Ingredients For Marinated Olives and Cheese
Olives: 5 ounces is most of a large jar of olives (or all of a small jar) and we love the bright, fruity flavor of green olives, like Castelvetrano or Frescatrano olives. They work so nicely with the orange zest, and are irresistible! If you are serving this to a crowd that includes little kids, be sure to use pitted olives.
Cheese: The cheese choice is up to you! We usually make marinated olives and cheese with salty manchego (a Spanish sheep’s milk cheese) or nutty Gruyère cheese (a cow’s milk cheese from Switzerland). But many cheese would work nicely here, so feel free to play around. Gouda, havarti, or even Jack cheese could work here.
Garlic: Fresh garlic won’t be eaten by your guests, but the smashed cloves will infuse so much flavor into the olives and cheese.
Orange peel: Use a vegetable peeler to peel some nice strips off an orange.
Rosemary: Fresh rosemary is so wintery and bright, and it’s a classic Italian antipasto flavor — you might even be able to clip it right out of your garden.
Black peppercorns: These add the subtlest heat and warmth.
Dried chili: Don’t fear the chili! It adds a very mild heat to the marinade. But if you’ve got spice-averse folks, it’s OK to leave it out.
Olive oil: You’ll need a lot. It doesn’t need to be the very fanciest olive oil, but we do recommend using extra virgin.
How To Make Marinated Olives and Cheese
Cube the cheese into easily toothpick-pokeable pieces. In recipe language, that’s about ½ inch cubes. But you don’t need to measure, just imagine having a flute of Champagne in one hand and a cocktail napkin in the other — you need small, bite-sized pieces.
Grab your favorite little bowl and put everything (except the oil) in it.
Pour in enough olive oil to cover everything.
Marinate! About 24 hours is ideal, but you can make it ahead and store it for up to a week.
When you’re ready to serve, let the marinated olives and cheese come to room temperature. Toothpicks on the side are nice, so that guests don’t have to get their fingers all messy.
Scale Up To Serve A Crowd
Our marinated cheese and olives antipasto recipe scales up really easily. As it’s written, it only serves about 4 people (and that’s assuming you’re serving it along side a few other party nibbles). So, if you’ve got dreams of a big platter brimming with marinated cheese and olives you’ll need to scale up! Also, we like how you think. To increase this recipe to serve a crowd, focus on the cheese to olive ratio. Think about it like this:
To serve 8, double this recipe. Meaning 10 ounces of olives, 6 ounces of cheese.
To serve 16, quadruple the recipe. 20 ounces of olives (at least 2 big jars) and 12 ounces of cheese.
To serve 32: Aim for 40 ounces of olives and 24 ounces of cheese. At this scale, you may want to mix-and-match types of olives to make it more colorful and interesting. Maybe toss some kalamatas in the mix!
More Classic Holiday Party Appetizers
Another Round, Anyone?
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