Homemade Olive Tapenade, Halloumi & Egg Sandwiches
My 2-and-a-half-year-old son has an olive obsession. He adores them. They will always be the first thing to disappear off his plate, and he will happily munch his way through as many as you let him have.
Given his love for them (one shared only ever-so-slightly less enthusiastically by his sister and my husband and I), I figured an olive tapenade would be an easy sell for him. Not so much. He gave us an amusing little speech upon seeing these sandwiches about how he loves whole olives, not broken up ones.
Once he got over the new olive texture, however, he did actually end up enjoying his sandwich and no more was heard about whole olives vs olive paste! 😉
The rest of us didn’t even question the new texture. Our four-year-old daughter wolfed these down, and it’s not hard to sell olive paste, eggs and halloumi to my husband and I. It makes for a delicious, salty, filling sandwich, and adding avocado and tomatoes gives a welcome creaminess and freshness to the whole thing (crunchy crisp lettuce like iceberg would be pretty yummy here, too).
And the olive tapenade is gorgeously salty, savoury and delicious. And it helps that it is made in seconds by blitzing a few simple ingredients in a blender.
The combination of olives, garlic, capers and lemon is a beautiful one, and there is no need for the anchovies so often found in tapenade(although a lovely addition) to make it salty and yummy, so this version is even suitable for vegetarians.
Who said sandwiches had to be boring? This vibrant healthy sandwich puts ham and cheese to shame!
This vibrant, healthy, veg-packed vegetarian sandwich is a salty, savoury, delicious lunch. The olive tapenade is homemade is seconds with only a few ingredients (and no anchovies!).
- 1 (350g/12 oz) jar pitted black olives, drained (should be about 140g/5oz once drained)
- 1 clove of garlic, minced
- 1 tablespoon capers
- juice of 1/2 lemon
- 4-6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 2 avocados, sliced
- 2 large tomatoes, sliced
- 10-12 small slices of halloumi cheese
- 4 eggs
- 8 slices wholemeal/sourdough bread
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For the tapenade: Blend all ingredients together until smooth, adding more olive oil as necessary to help blend to a paste.
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Fry the halloumi and eggs in olive or coconut oil in a large frying pan set over medium heat, until halloumi slices are golden and slightly crisp on the outside, and the egg white are cooked but yolks are still runny (I like to keep the heat fairly high to get crispy edges, too).
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To assemble the sandwiches: Spread 4 slices of the bread thickly with the tapenade, then layer each with sliced avocado and tomato, followed by some halloumi and an egg on each. Carefully top with the other 4 slices of bread (or serve as open sandwiches/tartines). Serve immediately.
