Olive Poppers

Serve these Olive Poppers, and I promise that your guests will gobble them up and then wait like puppy dogs at the oven while you bake the next batch. They’re a baked appetizer made with pimento-stuffed olives wrapped in cheese dough and inspired by the olive poppers from Palace Kitchen in Seattle.

So read on for all the tips and tricks for how you can make the best one-bite appetizer ahead of time for game night or cocktail hour. Or just grab your jar of olives, hit that Jump to Recipe button, and let’s make cheese pastry wrapped olives tonight!

Ingredients

These olive poppers are simple to make with a cheddar cheese pie dough wrapped around small pimento-stuffed olives. I’ve also seen them called olive cheese balls, baked cheese olives, or hot cheese olives. I call them “oh-my-lord that was good, can I please have another?”

This recipe is simpler than jalapeño popper appetizers because you don’t stuff them with a cream cheese mixture, and you don’t fry them. That also means they’re easier to freeze either before or after baking.

To make these cheddar cheese olive poppers, you’ll need:

• small pimento-stuffed green olives. Recipe taste testers thought that small olives had the best crust to olive ratio, but these instructions will work with any pitted and stuffed olives (see substitution ideas below).
• homemade cheddar cheese pie dough or unbaked store-bought pie crust. If you have extra pie dough, you can open a second jar of olives or make savory pie crust cookies!

Variations and substitutions

• Vary the size of your olives, or use blue cheese stuffed olives!
• Use a cream cheese pie crust.
• Add herbs to your pie crust dough.

Recipe tips and tricks

The bad news is that wrapping each olive popper in the cheddar cheese crust does take a bit of time. But just like wrapping potstickers or empanadas, you’ll get faster as you go.

The good news is that you can do everything ahead of time. The cheddar cheese dough and the wrapped olive poppers can be refrigerated for a day or so or frozen for months!

To start, drain the brine from the olives, reserving it for dirty martinis, if you like them! Draining the olives and then patting them dry will make it easier to roll them into the cheese dough.

1. Pull apart a piece of the cheddar cheese pie dough about the size of your olive and roll it into a ball. You may want to start with larger pieces until you get a hang of how to wrap the olives.

2. Flatten the cheese pastry dough into a round, then nestle the olive into it.

3. Pinch the edges together.

4. Roll the ball in your hands until the seam is sealed. Pinch together any cracks – this will prevent your olive poppers splitting open during baking.

5. Put the cheese pastry wrapped olives in a pan lined with parchment. There’s no need to chill them before baking.

6. Bake until lightly browned, shaking the pan once or twice during baking so the poppers brown evenly.

Serve warm!

How to serve olive poppers

Olives wrapped in cheese dough are the perfect one-bite appetizer for cocktail hour with your dry martini or perfect brandy Manhattan. Or add them to your favorite homemade charcuterie board.

For a bigger cocktail party, these olive appetizers would work well with:

• Mini pie shells filled with mushrooms.
• Kale and cheese quick bread.
• Bacon gougeres.

Storage

There are lots of options for making this olive appetizer in advance and for storage. The cheddar cheese pie dough can be stored in the refrigerator for up to three days or in the freezer for three to six months.

Unbaked olive poppers can similarly be wrapped and stored in the refrigerator for a day or two or frozen for three months. Freeze the poppers on a baking sheet overnight, then transfer to a freezer bag. Bake at the same temperature for a few extra minutes.

You can even refrigerate or freeze leftover olive poppers. To serve, simply reheat in your oven until warm.

Related snacks and appetizer recipes

Check out other Ugly Duckling Bakery snacks and appetizers like: