The Absolute Best Store-Bought Black Olives Are Complex And Nutty

Black olives are an excellent choice to keep on hand for adding to an array of recipes, from salads to pizzas. But when it comes to buying black olives at the grocery store, the choice of what brand to go with is not so simple. Depending on the brand, store-bought black olives can sometimes taste bland, mushy, or even come with a metallic taste. Luckily, Tasting Table ranked seven black olive brands from worst to best to make the decision a whole lot easier. And in our taste test, one brand stood out from the rest. Mina brand black olives received our vote for the absolute best due to the nutty and complex taste. 

According to our taste tester, this is the olive brand you want to pick up if "you want to up your black olive game." Mina brand black olives were quite different from the others tested. First, they came in a jar, not your typical canned black olive. Second, these black olives are not brined in liquid like the others. Instead, they're made in a traditional Moroccan way, cured in sea salt, then coated in olive oil. That dry-curing is what gives Mina black olives a chewiness and more crinkled look than the canned, brined black olives. It also results in a unique taste. As our taste tester put it: "rich and fatty, with a meatiness and texture that is somehow pleasantly soft." What more could you want in a black olive? 

Mina black olives received our best-ranking pick for their bold, memorable taste. For this reason, our taste tester did specify, "I think they're more appropriate for eating whole rather than incorporating into recipes (although you can certainly do that if you don't mind pitting olives yourself)." The hearty olives are perfect for snacking or eating with cheese and charcuterie. However, you can add them to a salad or top homemade pizza with the cured olives for a nutty, earthy flavor. Their flavor is also ideal for homemade olive tapenade. 

Just remember, Mina black olives are more complex in taste than your typical canned black olives. As with our ranking, this is usually a good thing for customers. On Mina's Instagram, the brand posted a photo of the black olives baked right into fresh olive bread. "I love your olives, they are the best," one person commented. "Yummy," someone else wrote, followed by heart-eye emojis. As the brand put it in their post, these olives impart a "savory richness." For us, that taste really made the brand stand out from the rest. 

If you're looking for a standard canned black olive with more of a firm, buttery texture and more neutral to savory umami taste, you might want to go with Pastene imported sliced black olives, which ranked second on our list. (Those kinds of black olives are what you might imagine for topping taco bowls.)