Beldi Olives substitute

Best substitute

Dry-cured or oil-cured black olives

Use the same amount as the beldi olives you are replacing

Best for chicken tagine with olives and preserved lemon

Close match

Wrinkled salt-cured black olives from anywhere, sold as oil-cured, dry-cured, Moroccan-style or Greek throumba.

Other beldi olives substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Kalamata olives, drained and patted dry
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount
Brine-cured purple-black Greek olives, the most widely available stand-in.
What changes
Best for
tagines, salads, pasta, roast chicken and lamb
The important difference is water. Kalamatas are brine-cured, so they are plumper, softer and noticeably fruitier and sharper from the vinegar in the brine, and they will slump and break down over a long braise where a beldi stays intact. Drain them hard, blot them on kitchen paper, reduce the recipe's added liquid slightly and add them in the last twenty minutes. Expect a brighter, less bitter, less concentrated result.
3Nicoise or Taggiasca olives
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount plus a pinch of extra salt per ½ cup
Small brine-cured olives that are the closest match in size and appearance.
What changes
Best for
salads, tagines, chermoula, roast vegetables
Size and shape are right, and they look convincingly like beldi on the plate. Flavour is much gentler: buttery, mild and only lightly salty, so a tagine made with them tastes noticeably flatter and misses the bitter edge that cuts through the richness. Add about a quarter teaspoon of salt per half cup, and consider a few capers alongside to sharpen things up.
4Green olives such as Castelvetrano or Manzanilla
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount
Firm brined green olives, at the opposite end of the olive spectrum from a dry-cured black.
What changes
Best for
chicken tagine, salads, braises
These are a legitimate Moroccan choice in their own right, since plenty of tagines are made with green olives, but they are not a beldi substitute so much as a different decision. They are crisp, grassy and mildly bitter rather than chewy, salty and deep, and the dish will look and taste brighter and greener. Choose this if you want a good dish rather than a faithful one.
5Canned California ripe black olives
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount plus ½ tsp salt and 1 tsp chopped capers per cup
The least-bad option, and worth being blunt about.
What changes
Best for
adding dark colour and soft bite when nothing else is available
These are lye-cured and canned, which strips out almost all the flavour, so they contribute colour and a soft yielding bite but essentially no salt, bitterness or fruit. If they are all you have, use them 1:1 and add salt plus a teaspoon of chopped capers per cup to fake the savoury punch. Expect a tagine that tastes distinctly flat compared with one made with beldi, and do not add them at the start or they will turn mushy.
6Oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes
Different taste
Use the same amount by volume
A sideways swap with the right chew and concentration but a different flavour direction.
What changes
Best for
salads, chicken tagine, couscous, cooking for people who dislike olives
Chopped oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes give you exactly the chewy, dense, intensely flavoured bite that a dry-cured olive gives, which is more than half of what a beldi contributes texturally. The flavour is sweet and tomatoey rather than briny and bitter, so a chicken tagine made this way reads sweeter and rounder. Add a few capers if you want to keep some salty sharpness.

What is Beldi Olives?

Beldi Olives is the Moroccan name for black olives cured dry in salt rather than in brine, which leaves them wrinkled, matte, chewy, intensely salty and slightly bitter, usually rubbed with a little olive oil before sale; in a tagine they supply concentrated salt and bitterness that cut through the fat, and they hold their shape through a long braise where a brined olive collapses.

Cooking tips

Taste one before you commit. Beldi olives range from pleasantly salty to fiercely so depending on how long they were left in the salt, and the same is true of the dry-cured olives you buy as a substitute. Adjust the salt in the rest of the dish after you have tasted the olive, not before.
If yours are too salty, soak them in warm water for ten to twenty minutes, then drain and pat them thoroughly dry. Do not skip the drying: putting wet olives into a tagine adds water exactly where you have spent an hour reducing it.
Add olives near the end of a tagine, in the last fifteen to twenty minutes. This is standard Moroccan practice and it matters: long cooking pulls their bitterness out into the sauce, and brine-cured substitutes will simply fall apart.
Dry-cured olives are usually sold with the pits in, which is a good thing, since the pit keeps them intact. Pit them by pressing with the flat of a knife and pulling the flesh away, and expect them to look rustic rather than neat, which is how they are meant to look.
Store them in the fridge in a sealed container with enough olive oil to coat, not in water. Dry-cured olives have no brine to protect them, so oil is what keeps them from drying out further, and the oil takes on their flavour and is worth using for cooking.

Frequently asked questions

Are beldi olives the same as oil-cured or dry-cured olives?

Essentially yes. Beldi is a Moroccan Arabic word meaning local or traditional, and beldi olives are dry salt-cured black olives, often rubbed with oil afterwards, which is why you will see them sold as oil-cured, dry-cured, salt-cured or simply Moroccan olives. If a shop has wrinkled matte black olives in a bin, those will work in any recipe that asks for beldi.

Can I use Kalamata olives instead of beldi olives?

Yes, and it is the most common swap, but drain and dry them well and add them late. Kalamatas are brine-cured, which means they carry water, they are fruitier and sharper, and they collapse over a long cook where a beldi holds together. The result tastes brighter and less intensely salty. It is a good dish, just a slightly different one.

Can I leave the olives out of a tagine?

You can, and it will still be a good tagine, but you will notice the gap. Olives are doing two jobs there: they supply concentrated salt and bitterness that cuts through the fat and the sweetness of the onions, and they give something chewy to bite. If you omit them, add a little more preserved lemon or a spoonful of capers so the dish still has a salty, sharp counterpoint.

Why are my dry-cured olives so much saltier than the ones in brine?

Because dry curing works by packing the olives in salt and letting them lose water, which concentrates everything left behind, including the salt on the outside. Brined olives sit in a diluted salt solution instead and end up plumper and milder. This is also why dry-cured olives keep their shape in a stew and brined ones do not.

Can I substitute green olives for beldi olives in a Moroccan recipe?

You can, and Moroccan cooking uses both, but understand that you are changing the dish rather than matching it. Green olives are crisp, grassy and mildly bitter and they lift a tagine; beldi olives are chewy, salty and deep and they ground it. Recipes that specify beldi usually want that darker, more concentrated character alongside preserved lemon.

Related substitutes

More vegetables & aromatics substitutes

Beldi Olives substitute

Other beldi olives substitutes

2Kalamata olives, drained and patted dry

3Nicoise or Taggiasca olives

4Green olives such as Castelvetrano or Manzanilla

5Canned California ripe black olives

6Oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes