My easy Italian appetizer with puff pastry, black olives, fresh basil, cherry tomatoes and sliced salami. Great flavors and appetizing colors!
I have to make a confession.
This Italian appetizer was an idea that I came up with after less than 30 minutes of brainstorming. I initially bought a slab of store bought ready-rolled puff pastry to make a dessert. But of course I never got that far.
Leftover Pastry
I’m not much of a baker anyway so I might have pushed the baking challenge to the day after. And then again and again. So there was that pastry still in my fridge, waiting to be prepped and baked.
So since we had also planned a cheese fondue evening that day too I had bought a nice selection of the most lovely Italian cold cuts. I love to serve cold cuts with a cheese fondue, it’s a classic side dish for it too!
That and a lovely crisp arugula salad right next to it.
Love it.
Easy Italian Appetizer Bite
So we had a bunch of freshly sliced Italian cold cuts in our fridge.
Mortadella, coppa, bresaola, speck and so on, straight from the deli just around the corner. Well I snatched some of the cheaper garlic salami. Then added half a jar of black olives to that as well and a handful of those sweet cherry snack tomatoes from my pantry.
Well I must say: this appetizer was packed with the greatest flavors and fancy pants colors! I like the crispy edge and the smokiness the folded slices of salami get in the end after baking.
Beautiful. Savory.
And again, a highly addictive little nibble!
Italian Flavors
Serve the appetizers immediately, don’t let them sit and chill on your kitchen counter for much longer after you’ve taken them out of the hot oven. You don’t want to let the puff pastry go all soggy and loose that gorgeous crunch.
So eat them while they are still hot, crisp and freshly baked!
Do you love appetizers like these?
Then also take a look at another very popular Italian appetizer: classic toast with tomato bruschetta! Or how about a slice of my homemade appetizer tomato pizza?
Cheers, and enjoy!
Easy Italian Appetizer Bite Recipe
My easy Italian appetizer with puff pastry, black olives, fresh basil, cherry tomatoes and sliced salami... Great flavors and appetizing colors!
- 1 sheet puff pastry
- 5 cherry tomatoes
- 10 large slices salami
- 20 black olives
- a handful fresh basil chopped
- dried herbs
- pepper
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Transfer the black olive to a clean blender. Remove the pips if that hasn’t been done yet.
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Then pulse into a fine tapenade. Cut little circles out of the puff pastry. They should be about 2 inches (5 cm) in diameter. You can use a cookie cutter or a champagne glass like I did.
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Place the circles on a baking tray lined with a piece of baking paper. Prick a good amount of holes in the pastry. Don’t be shy or the puff pastry will puff up while baking and throw off the ingredients laying on top.
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The salami I used was thin and pretty large so I cut them in half and folded each one of them so they fit on top of the pastry circles. Then top with a little dollop of the black olive tapenade.
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Slice the cherry tomatoes in quarters and place them on top of the tapenade. Sprinkle with pepper and some dried herbs.
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Bake the appetizers in a preheated oven at 410°F (210°C) for 10 minutes until the pastry is a little golden and baked through. Remove them from the oven, sprinkle with some freshly chopped basil and serve hot.
