Nicoise Olives substitute

Best substitute

Taggiasca olives

Use the same amount as the nicoise olives you are replacing

Best for salade nicoise

Close match

Kalamata olives are what most people reach for and they do work, but use about half as many, rinse them, and halve or slice them, because kalamatas are three times the size and much saltier and sharper. Taggiasca olives are literally the same olive under an Italian name and can be used 1:1. Gaeta or small oil-cured black olives are also excellent stand-ins.

Other nicoise olives substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Kalamata olives
Taste and texture differ
Half the quantity, rinsed and halved
Large purple-black Greek olives cured in brine and wine vinegar.
What changes
Best for
salade nicoise, provencal salads, pasta, tapenade
The swap almost everyone makes, and it needs adjusting rather than doing straight. Kalamatas are markedly saltier, sharper and more vinegary, and each one is roughly the size of three Nicoise olives, so a 1:1 count by piece makes the whole salad taste of olive. Use half the number, rinse them under cold water for a few seconds, and cut them into halves or slivers so the flavour spreads instead of arriving in salty lumps. Then pull the vinegar in your dressing back slightly.
3Gaeta olives
Close match
Use the same amount
Small, soft Italian olives, either brine-cured and purplish or dry-cured and wrinkled.
What changes
Best for
salade nicoise, pissaladiere, braised chicken, tapenade
One of the closest widely available options. Roughly the right size, mild, slightly winey and not aggressively salty, so they blend into a salad rather than dominating it. The brine-cured version matches Nicoise more closely than the dry-cured one, which is chewier and more intense.
4Small oil-cured or dry-cured black olives
Taste and texture differ
⅔ the quantity
Wrinkled, dry-salt-cured olives, often sold as Moroccan or Nyons-style.
What changes
Best for
pissaladiere, tapenade, braised meat, roasted vegetables
More concentrated, chewier and slightly bitter, with an intense pure-olive flavour rather than a brined tang. Use about two-thirds the amount. They are outstanding on pissaladiere and in tapenade, where the extra depth is welcome, and slightly overwhelming in a raw salad unless chopped fine.
5Castelvetrano olives
Close match
Use the same amount by piece
Bright green, buttery, exceptionally mild Sicilian olives.
What changes
Best for
salade nicoise, salads, antipasti, fish
The flavour balance is genuinely close, since they are mild, buttery and low in acid the way Nicoise olives are, and they are much easier to find. The obvious problem is colour: vivid green rather than dark purple-brown, so the classic dark studding of a salade nicoise is lost. Choose these when getting the taste right matters more than the photo.
6Canned California black olives
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount
Mild, evenly black, pitted olives from a can.
What changes
Best for
salads, emergency use, pizza
Honest assessment: they contribute colour and almost nothing else. They are processed to be uniformly mild and taste faintly metallic and blandly salty with none of the fruity brine character. If they are what you have, use them, and add a small extra pinch of salt plus a teaspoon of chopped capers to restore some of the savoury edge the olives are failing to provide.

What is Nicoise Olives?

Nicoise Olives is Nicoise olives, or olives de Nice, are small dark purple-brown brine-cured olives from the hills around Nice, mild and buttery with a faintly nutty taste, and they are the same variety sold in Italy as Taggiasca.

Cooking tips

Nicoise olives are sold with the pits in and are too small to pit neatly. Either warn people at the table, or crush each one under the flat of a knife and pick the pit out with your fingers, which is faster than any gadget at this size.
Rinsing any olive under cold water for a few seconds knocks back the harshest surface salt without washing away the flavour. This is the single most useful trick when substituting a strongly cured olive for a mild one.
Taste your olives before you dress the salad, then adjust the vinaigrette. Salty, vinegary olives mean less vinegar and less salt in the dressing; mild olives mean you can dress the salad normally. Doing this in the wrong order is why substituted salade nicoise often comes out too sharp.
Buy olives from the deli counter in brine rather than the dry vacuum packs when you have the choice. Vacuum-packed olives are drier and duller, and the brine itself is useful, since a teaspoon of it in the dressing adds a savoury depth that nothing else quite gives.
For tapenade, stick to real brine-cured or oil-cured olives. Canned black olives make a pale, watery paste with no character, and no amount of anchovy or garlic rescues it.

Frequently asked questions

Are Nicoise olives the same as kalamata olives?

No. Nicoise olives are small, mild and buttery, and kalamatas are large, meaty, distinctly salty and cured with wine vinegar, which gives them their characteristic tang. They are different varieties from different countries and are not interchangeable by piece, though kalamatas make a fine substitute once you halve the quantity and rinse them.

Can I use kalamata olives in salade nicoise?

Yes, and plenty of good cooks do. Just use about half as many as the recipe calls for, rinse them, and slice or halve them. Whole kalamatas in a salade nicoise overpower the tuna and eggs, which are gentle flavours, and that imbalance is the usual complaint about the swap rather than anything wrong with the olive itself.

Are Nicoise olives pitted?

Almost never, because they are small and soft enough that pitting damages them. Some jars are sold pitted at a premium, and they are worth buying if you are feeding a crowd. Otherwise assume pits and plan for it.

Can I leave the olives out of a salade nicoise?

You can, but they are one of the named components of the dish and they carry a specific job: small punctuations of salt and brine against the mild tuna, potato and egg. If you leave them out, add a spoonful of capers or a little extra anchovy so the salad still has something briny in it, otherwise it tastes flat.

What are Taggiasca olives and are they the same thing?

Taggiasca is the Italian name for the same Cailletier olive that grows around Nice, cultivated just over the border in Liguria. Same size, same mild buttery flavour, and often easier to find in Italian delis. Use them 1:1 with complete confidence.

Related substitutes

More vegetables & aromatics substitutes

Nicoise Olives substitute

Other nicoise olives substitutes

2Kalamata olives

3Gaeta olives

4Small oil-cured or dry-cured black olives

5Castelvetrano olives

6Canned California black olives