Olive Dip (Old Fashioned Stuffed Celery Dip)

Remember Grandma’s celery stuffing? That cream cheese mixture, many times with olives, that got spread into celery stalks and served as an appetizer? This is the modern dip version of that vintage recipe, and Grandma would be proud! This Olive Dip a.k.a. Stuffed Celery Dip, is delicious! Even those who say “I don’t like olives” will devour it!

Classic Olive Dip

“Just like Grandma used to make” is a well worn way of saying delicious. But the thing about it, a lot of those old classic recipes get lost to time. A new food fad comes along, a different diet, maybe taste buds change. Whatever the reason, sometimes we forget about great old recipes our mom’s mothers made delicious. 

This olive dip recipe is a variation on Grandma’s recipe. I actually blend the celery directly into the olive dip. So, you can still use celery to slide the dip onto of course, but this dip is great on chips, or melba toast, or anything else you want to put it on. Even friends who claimed to hate olives actually liked this recipe too. Always the best barometer of a great recipe!

Vintage Recipes from Days Gone By

Not unlike this olive dip, many of those old forgotten recipes are brought back to life and enjoyed all over again, whether, in the traditional sense like icebox cake or icebox pie, my Never Fail Fudge, or my Old Fashioned Sour Cream Sugar Cookies or in a modern twist on a classic like my Dill Pickle Dip that is a twist on the classic dill pickle wraps, or even my Dill Pickle Cheeseball which brings two ideas together.

Take these Pimento Cheese Straws, for instance, they combine that classic cheese straw idea with a pimento cheese spread. Or this modern twist on the classic Relish Tray.

Family recipes where old becomes new again are the best recipes of all, in my book. 

More Vintage Recipes to enjoy:

• Swedish Meatballs
• Summer Sausage Cheeseball
• Clam Canapés
• Tomato Relish
• Waldorf Salad
• Triple Layer Jell-O Salad
• Peppery Scrambled Macaroni & Eggs
• Deviled Eggs
• Dirty Martini Cheeseball

What kind of olives to use

So, this is different than a typical olive tapenade because you use cream cheese and mayo instead of olive oil. Also,instead of black olives you use the Spanish style green olives. There are actually several styles of Spanish olives but go with the pimento stuffed ones. The pimentos add a bit of flavor too. 

I guess you could use regular Spanish olives or ones stuffed with other things like blue cheese or garlic even, but the pimentos add a nice bit of color too. 

Manzanilla style olives are typically the easiest to find. If you are a fan of the dirty martini then you know exactly what I am talking about. They are so popular that they even named a color after them. 

If you have a supermarket with a fancy salad bar there are usually a bunch of different olives to choose from. Some stuffed, others not, and you can try others no problem. But you can’t go wrong with the manzanilla olives and those are easy to find in every market. 

Olive dip with a twist

Since it is Grandma’s recipe, you know it has to have a secret ingredient. In this case, I guess I would call the olive juice that ingredient. It adds that special extra bit of briny zip to the recipe. Try tasting it first without it. Then try it with. See what I am talking about?

The other twist is actually adding the celery into the dip rather than just using the celery as a boat to load the dip onto. Chop the celery into small bits but not too small. They add a wonderful crunch to the dip. 

Ingredients in Olive Stuffed Celery Dip

There really isn’t anything too crazy in this olive dip.  Chances are, you might have it all in your fridge right now. 

Cream cheese, mayonnaise, celery, dill pickle, green onion, pimento stuffed olives, chives and black pepper.

• With a mixer, cream the cream cheese until smooth.
• Add in mayonnaise, mix.
• Add in dill pickle relish, chopped olives and olive juice. Cream together.
• Fold in green onion and celery. (reserve a little green onion and/or sliced olive for serving if desired.)
• Mix in ground black pepper and chives.
• Store in a bowl in the fridge until you are ready to serve.
• Serve with celery, carrots, bell pepper, crackers and chips.

Garnish with a couple of sliced olives. Unless you’re trying to prove a point to those that say “I don’t like olives,” then leave them off and let them tell you how good the dip is, and ask “what’s in it?” 

Love it? Pin it!

If you can’t wait to make this, don’t let yourself wonder where you found the recipe! Pin it to your favorite Pinterest recipe board before you go!

What to serve with an olive dip

Grandma served her olive dip with nice long stalks of green celery, and sometimes called them “celery logs.” If you want to use celery to carry the dip from bowl to mouth, then go for it! Celery offers great fiber and lots of minerals. We should all eat more celery. However, this dip works very nicely on a lot of other things too. 

Pita chips to tortilla chips and any chip in between. Potato or sweet potato, you make the call. You can dial the thickness of the dip up or down depending on the thickness of the chips. A titch more mayonnaise does the trick if the chips are too thin to carry a heavy load.

Personally, I love it most as a veggie dip, with all sorts of crisp vegetables around it.

More dips to try

Having a variety of dip recipes to go to always makes entertaining more interesting. You never want to be that person that always serves the same old, same old dip. So that is why I love bringing back great old recipes like Grandma’s olive dip. It is fun to find great old recipes to resurrect, put a new spin on, and hopefully hear “that’s delicious”. 

Especially if it comes from someone that says something like “I don’t usually even like olives.”

Let’s grab the veggies, the chips, the crackers and get to making this insanely delicious Olive Dip! 

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Print Recipe

Olive Dip (Old Fashioned Stuffed Celery Dip)

Remember that filling that your Grandmother used to stuff celery with as an appetizer? Cream cheese, with things like olives, pickles and sometimes nuts? Well, I have taken that idea a few steps (decades!) further and turned it into a dip that is amazing with veggies or crackers. So full of flavor you won't be able to resist it!

Prep Time10 minutes mins

Total Time10 minutes mins

Course: Dips

Cuisine: American

Keyword: celery appetizer recipes, celery log, celery stick recipes, celery with cream cheese, Olive Dip, Olive stuffed celery, olive stuffed celery dip, Stuffed Celery, stuffed celery dip

Servings: 1.5 cups

Calories: 109kcal

Author: Michaela Kenkel

Equipment

• Zyliss Comfort Utility Knife
• KitchenAid Hand Mixer 

Cook ModePrevent your screen from going dark

Ingredients

• 1 8 ounce package cream cheese, softened
• 1/3 cup mayonnaise
• 1 Tablespoon dill pickle relish or finely chopped dill pickle
• 8 large Spanish Olives pimento stuffed chopped
• 1 teaspoon olive juice
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
• 1 Tablespoon chives
• 1 green onion sliced (the whole thing)
• 2 ribs of celery finely diced

Instructions

• With a mixer, cream the cream cheese until smooth.
• Add in mayonnaise, mix.
• Add in dill pickle relish, chopped olives and olive juice. Cream together.
• Fold in green onion and celery. (reserve a little green onion and/or sliced olive for serving if desired.)
• Mix in ground black pepper and chives.
• Store in a bowl in the fridge until you are ready to serve.
• Serve with celery, carrots, bell pepper, crackers and chips.

Nutrition

Serving: 1 | Calories: 109kcal | Carbohydrates: 1g | Protein: 2g | Fat: 11g | Saturated Fat: 3g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 7g | Cholesterol: 17mg | Sodium: 115mg