Product knowledge
What Are Salkini Green Olives?
Salkini olives are a large green table-olive variety from northern Syria's olive belt, prized for a firm, crunchy bite and clean brine flavour rather than the softer texture of many Mediterranean green olives. They're a table variety start to finish — grown, cured and eaten as a standalone olive rather than pressed for oil — and they show up across Levantine mezze spreads, breakfast tables and olive boards. Green Olives Salkini from Lio Food, sourced from Latakia, Syria, is our stocked example of the variety.
The northern-Syria variety behind the name
Salkini takes its name from the olive-growing region of northern Syria where the cultivar is traditionally grown, an area whose coastal and inland groves have supplied green table olives to Levantine kitchens for generations. Like most named olive varieties, salkini is defined by the tree and the region as much as by any single processing method — it's the raw fruit that carries the name, and different producers cure it in slightly different ways once it's picked. It's a large-format green olive rather than a small or mid-sized one, which is part of what makes it a natural fit for a standalone mezze bowl rather than a garnish-sized condiment olive.
Why the crunch and flavour stand out
Table olives owe their crunch to how firm the fruit is at harvest and how gently it's handled through curing; salkini is picked and cured specifically as a firm-bite green olive rather than a soft, oil-cured style. Raw olives, salkini included, are naturally bitter straight off the tree from a compound called oleuropein, and brine curing over several weeks breaks that bitterness down until the fruit is ready to eat. The result is a clean, briny green olive with a firmer bite than many softer Mediterranean styles.
How salkini olives are served
In Syrian and wider Levantine kitchens, salkini is eaten as its own course rather than folded into cooking — set out whole on a mezze plate with olive oil, lemon and fresh herbs, or alongside labneh, za'atar and flatbread at breakfast. Their firm texture also holds up well on an olive board mixed with black olives and pickles, since they keep their bite rather than going soft next to sharper-cured neighbours. For volume planning when they're part of a spread, see how many olives to serve per person.
Ordering salkini by the case
Green Olives Salkini ships in 1300 g glass jars, six to a case, sized for a deli, restaurant or grocery shelf rather than single-jar retail. It sits in our olives and pickles range alongside black and sliced olive formats from Zer, so a mezze or deli program can source its whole olive board from one order.
Related questions
Are salkini olives green or black?
Green. Salkini is harvested and cured as a green table olive, picked before the fruit ripens to black, which is part of what gives it a firmer bite than fully ripened, darker olives.
What do salkini olives taste like?
Clean, briny and firm-textured, with the straightforward saltiness of a well-cured green table olive rather than the more bitter or oily character of some Mediterranean varieties.
Where do salkini olives come from?
The variety is grown in northern Syria's olive belt; our stocked jar, Lio's Green Olives Salkini, is sourced through Lio Food's Latakia, Syria supply chain.