The fennel sautéed with olives is a light and tasty side dish, a different way to enjoy fennel, an ingredient often recommended in diets for its low-calorie content and significant purifying properties. A vegetable that should definitely be reconsidered for its extraordinary versatility: there are many recipes with cooked and raw fennel you can try this season, to prepare both exciting appetizers, like Mediterranean-style fennel, and light first courses, such as fennel soup, as well as appetizing side dishes, like orange-roasted fennel. Fennel sautéed with olives, in particular, is a very simple and quick recipe that will allow you to give more character to this vegetable without overloading on calories: just a bit of onion, a few olives, some capers, and a few pine nuts will make fennel sautéed a delicious side dish suitable for any occasion. The extra touch, if you love sweet and sour flavors, is adding a tablespoon of raisins soaked beforehand at the end of cooking: it perfectly matches the other elements and makes the fennel sautéed a refined and decidedly unique dish.
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- Difficulty: Very easy
- Cost: Very inexpensive
- Preparation time: 15 Minutes
- Portions: 4 People
- Cooking methods: Stovetop
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Autumn, Winter, and Spring
- Energy 125.30 (Kcal)
- Carbohydrates 6.13 (g) of which sugars 4.54 (g)
- Proteins 2.81 (g)
- Fat 9.78 (g) of which saturated 1.26 (g)of which unsaturated 2.16 (g)
- Fibers 4.58 (g)
- Sodium 174.72 (mg)
Indicative values for a portion of 170 g processed in an automated way starting from the nutritional information available on the CREA* and FoodData Central** databases. It is not food and / or nutritional advice.
* CREATES Food and Nutrition Research Center: https://www.crea.gov.it/alimenti-e-nutrizione https://www.alimentinutrizione.it ** U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov
Ingredients for fennel sautéed with olives and capers
- 2 fennel (about 2.2 lbs (1 kg))
- 1/4 onion
- 2.5 oz olives (weighed with pits)
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon salted capers
- 1 tablespoon raisins
- 1 tablespoon pine nuts
- 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 1 pinch salt
Tools
- 1 Cutting board
- 1 Knife
- 1 Pan non-stick, wide, and with lid
How to prepare fennel sautéed with olives and capers
To prepare fennel sautéed with olives, start by cleaning the fennel: remove the stalks and the end (1), then cut them into slices about 1/8 inch (3 mm) thick (2). Soak the raisins in warm water (3).
Pit the olives and desalinate the capers, then coarsely chop them (4). Finely chop the onion and brown it over low heat in the oil (5). Add the fennel (6), lightly salt them, and let them absorb the flavors for a minute, turning often.
Add the lemon juice (7) and half a glass of hot water (8). Cover with a lid and simmer gently for about 15 minutes (9).
When the fennel is tender (10), add the olives, capers, pine nuts, and squeezed raisins (11). Mix well and allow to blend for a couple of minutes, letting the cooking liquid evaporate and lightly color the fennel; then turn off the heat (12).
Fennel sautéed with olives is delicious both hot and at room temperature. Given their rich flavor, they can also be used to garnish bruschettas to be served as an appetizer.
Storage
You can store the cooked fennel in the refrigerator for 2 or 3 days.
Tips and Variations
If you do not like capers and raisins, you can omit them, and the fennel sautéed will still be good. As for the olives, I find that those with a strong flavor, such as Gaeta or Taggiasca olives, work very well.
