Crispy on the outside with cream cheese and roasted garlic stuffed on the inside, these vegan fried olives are bite-sized, sharable, and ADDICTING! They are a great appetizer or snack to bring to a party.

A hand reaching for vegan fried olives, the perfect bite-sized snack that you can pop in your mouth!

I cannot rave about olives enough! They are the perfect bite-sized, salty snack. In all seriousness, I could eat an entire jar of olives daily if you let me. In fact, I love olives so much so that my dog's name is Ollie.

With this in mind, I decided to share my love of olives with you and created a recipe for vegan fried olives! This is the perfect appetizer or snack to bring to a party like the Fourth of July. I made two batches of these during the testing process, and no joke, they didn't even make it an hour in our kitchen before my boyfriend and I ate every last olive. The crispy outside with the salty olive and creamy garlic or cream cheese is straight-up addicting!

The stars completely aligned because I recently released a recipe for vegan garlic aioli. These vegan fried olives are even better (if that's even possible) dunked in some aioli!

What Kind of Olives to Use

Overhead of vegan fried olives with garlic aioli dipping sauce.

Since you'll be stuffing these olives, the bigger the olive, the better. Personally, I think green olives work better in this recipe as opposed to black olives because they have a more salty, acidic taste and hold up better after being breaded and fried.

I used pitted Castelverano olives because they have a more mild flavor and taste like buttery goodness, but manzanilla or gordal olives would also work. Whichever olive you choose, just make sure they're already pitted to make your life easier.

What to Stuff Olives with?

The perfect party appetizer - fried olives - on a wood serving board.

For this recipe, I chose to do half of my olives stuffed with vegan cream cheese and the other half with roasted garlic. Here are some other options you can try:

Almonds
Artichoke hearts
Jalapeño
Marinated artichoke hearts
Red bell pepper
Sun-dried tomatoes
Vegan bacon, ground meat, or pepperoni
Vegan cheese

You can also completely omit stuffing the olives if you prefer and just fry them. Olives in any form are delicious so you can't really go wrong here!

How to Make Vegan Fried Olives

A couple of ramekins stacked on top of one another filled with crispy olives.

Making vegan fried olives is not as hard as it may seem. There are three phases to bring this bite-sized snack to life:

Stuff the Olives

First, drain and dry the olives so they are completely dry.

For the garlic stuffing: Remove the outer skin of a full garlic bulb while still keeping the garlic intact. Cut the top ¼ inch off the garlic, drizzle with olive oil, and wrap in aluminum foil. Cook for 40-50 minutes until the garlic is golden brown and tender. Use a toothpick to stuff the roasted garlic inside each olive.
For the cream cheese stuffing: Place vegan cream cheese in a Zip-lock bag, and cut the tip off of one of the corners. Pipe the cream cheese into each olive.

Batter the Olives

Taking a few olives at a time, first cover them completely in flour (this will ensure they are super dry), then dip them in the egg mixture, and finally in the breadcrumb mixture. Place on a plate until you have dipped all of your olives.

I find it helps to keep one hand for your wet ingredients and the other hand for your dry ingredients, so your breadcrumbs don't get all soggy in the bowl.

Fry the Olives

Heat a couple of inches of oil in a castiron skillet or non-stick pan until it reaches 350° F. If you don't have a thermometer, you can test the oil heat by throwing a breadcrumb in it. If the breadcrumb sizzles, your oil is good to go. If the oil doesn't sizzle, give it a couple more minutes to heat up.

Place all of the breaded olives into the oil. Let the olives brown on one side for 1-2 minutes, then flip them to the other side to brown for 1-2 more minutes until the olives are golden brown and crispy on all sides!

Transfer the olives to a paper-lined plate using a slotted spoon to let the excess oil fall off. Serve with vegan garlic aioli and meet your latest obsession!

If you want a healthier option, I did try baking the olives, and they turned out golden brown and crispy too! To bake the olives instead of frying them, complete steps 1-5, then bake on a lined cookie sheet for 20 minutes at 400° F, flipping once halfway through.

Upclose of crispy fried olives with vegan garlic aioli dipping sauce.

There are so many reasons to love these vegan fried olives stuffed with cream cheese and garlic, they are:

Bite-sized
Crispy
Sharable
Addicting
Savory
A great appetizer or party snack

Let me know if you try out this recipe, and if you do, I would love it if you left a rating and review below! Make sure you are also following along on Instagram and Pinterest for more food inspiration.