Home made olive oil spread -
delicious, nutritious and
easy to make!

Switching to home made olive oil spread is an easy way to introduce Mediterranean diet foods into your life.

A deliciously healthy alternative to processed spreads, it's inexpensive and easy to make. Learn how here.

Why make it?

We were walking around an Italian supermarket one day, looking for a low fat alternative to butter - Cath, as usual, trying to shed some pounds - when we came across the low fat spreads section.

Knowing that Mediterranean diet foods are hot on olive oil products we went for an olive oil spread. But hold on - looking at the nutritional information on the pack, it suddenly struck us that firstly, olive oil spread does not actually have a lot of olive oil in it and secondly - what's to stop us making our own?

We're very proud of our home made spread!

So we did!

And now we'd like to share the secret of our low cost, minutes-to-make, traditional Italian olive oil spread with you.

Some health facts first.

No trans fats in our home made spread!

It's now widely agreed that many low-fat spreads used for decades as alternatives to butter have high levels of trans-fats - which are regarded by medical professionals as more harmful even than saturated fats.

Butter, on the other hand, is known to have extremely high levels of saturated fat, regarded as one of the main contributors to heart disease.

But while olive oil spread has been acknowledged as a great alternative because of its low levels of saturated fat and the non-existence of trans fats, a recent report in the UK found that the average amount of olive oil used in some of these spreads is - wait for it - less than 4%. The rest is 'other vegetable oils', additives and preservatives. (Source - Consumers' Association UK, August 2001).

Why change to an olive oil spread? - Why not butter?

Great question. Basically because butter is animal fat. Medical research has demonstrated time and again that animal fat is one of the major causes of heart disease. Butter is lovely, and in small quantities it's fine to eat - it's just not as healthy as olive oil spread.

Just looking at our olive oil before it's made into spread lets you know it's healthy!

After all, look at who are the longest lived people in the developed world - the people of the Greek island of Crete. Why? Mediterranean diet foods, of which olive oil is a major player.

It contains no cholesterol, one of the other contributors to heart disease, but does contain mono-unsaturated fat which is known to help lower the levels of 'bad' cholesterol in the body.

Why not just buy it?

Great, if that's what you want to do. But remember to look at the pack to see exactly how much oil you're getting for your money.

The home made spread is 100% olive oil. No additives, no preservatives, no nothing except for pure, honest to goodness, olive oil. And it's a lot cheaper.

So, what are we waiting for? - Let's get on with it!

What you will need.

One small freezer-proof container - we use a little tupperware box with a sealing lid.

One bottle of the best olive oil you can possibly afford. (We're lucky - we use our own extra virgin, cold pressed oil which has its own gorgeous flavour).

One freezer compartment.

And that's it!

How it's done.

This is not rocket science!

Take your freezer-proof box and your bottle of olive oil. Pour the olive oil into the box until it's almost at the top.

Seal the box and put it into the freezer for at least 24 hours. Then take it out and use it!

Your spread should come out of the freezer with
the consistency of a soft butter.

Because different olive oils freeze at different temperatures according to its acidity and age, it may take a longer or shorter time for your olive oil spread to solidify. It's a question of trial and error at first - ours takes at least a day, more if it's very fresh.

If you find it's too hard, take it out of the freezer compartment and keep it in the coldest part of the refrigerator.

Delicious on its own with crusty bread.

Top tip : don't leave it out of the freezer for very long - it will start to return to its liquid form quite quickly (specially in the heat of an Italian summer!).

Finding it too bland?

We love eating our olive oil spread just with some good old crusty bread. Our own oil always tastes delicious - it has an unique, peppery taste - but even it starts to lose its flavour after ten months or so.

Oils bought from the supermarket are generally even older than this so, if you find the taste too bland, do what the Italians do - add something to it!

One of the favourites is simply to sprinkle a little salt on top. This is our very favourite - delicious! Don't add salt to the oil before you freeze - not everyone will want it salted.

But if you like it, feel free to add in some crushed garlic or very finely chopped basil or oregano to the oil before you freeze it. If you can, use fresh herbs rather than dried - they are just a different, and much better, flavour.

And then - enjoy!

Made it and want us to know how you liked it? Or have questions to ask about making your own? Great! Use this link to get in touch.

Olive oil spread to our home page about other olive oil matters.