What to use instead of olives
It depends entirely on what it's doing in the dish. Here's the job, what else does it, and what to skip.
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Briny bite in a salad or sandwich
A cured olive carries salt, sour brine and fat in one soft piece, so it seasons the plate and enriches it in the same mouthful.
Capers, rinsedRan out
1 tbsp capers per 1/4 cup chopped olives
Sharper and more floral, and much stronger by volume. The salad loses the fat, so add a little more oil.
Pepperoncini or pickled peppers, choppedRan out
1:1 by volume
Vinegar comes forward and heat arrives with it. Crisper texture, and the plate reads Italian-American rather than Greek.
Feta, cubed smallRan out
1:1 by volume
Salt and fat both land, but it melts on the tongue instead of resisting, and it goes crumbly when tossed hard.
Sun-dried tomatoes in oil, choppedRan out
1:1 by volume
Sweet and chewy where olives are bitter and salty. Add a pinch of salt to make up the difference.
Cornichons or dill pickles, choppedRan out
1:1 by volume
Dill and sour vinegar pull the plate towards a deli sandwich. Crunchier, and the fat is gone.
What doesn't work: Canned black California ripe olives in a Greek salad. They are lye-cured and packed in water with no brine sharpness at all, so they sit there as soft grey padding next to the feta.
Salt and body dissolved into a sauce or braise
Over twenty minutes the flesh softens into the sauce and the brine seasons the whole pot. The oil in them rounds off the acidity of tomato.
Capers plus a spoon of their brineRan out
2 tbsp capers + 1 tbsp brine per 1/2 cup olives
Sharper and more pungent, and the sauce is leaner without the olive fat. Puttanesca made this way is punchier and thinner.
TapenadeRan out
2 tbsp per 1/2 cup olives
The same flavour spread evenly through the sauce instead of arriving in bites. The colour goes greyer.
Anchovy fillets, mashedRan out
2 fillets per 1/2 cup olives
Savoury depth rather than brine. The sauce goes rounder and darker and loses its salty punctuation.
Preserved lemon rind, finely choppedRan out
1 tbsp per 1/2 cup olives
Salt and bitterness with a citrus lift on top. Excellent with chicken, strange with beef.
What doesn't work: More salt on its own. Olives bring acid, fat and bitterness along with the salt, and a puttanesca seasoned with salt alone tastes flat and oddly sweet no matter how much goes in.
Buy them with the pits in if the dish leaves them whole. Pitted olives sit in brine longer and turn softer and blander for it.