
Some sort of cheese dip or cheese ball is practically essential for holidays, and when discussing New Years food with our friends, this recipe for a marinated goat cheese dip came up. It’s an old one, courtesy of our friend Amanda (previously seen on recipes such as this keto shepherd’s pie and her ever-popular cabbage soup), and it sounded delicious enough we had to try it.

Since the recipe itself is so simple, picking the right ingredients makes a lot of difference. The important ones are:
- Goat Cheese. We tried with both plain goat cheese and herbed goat cheese, and while there’s a difference, plain works best to let the flavors of the marinade shine through.
- Olives. We used kalamatas and castelvetranos, because more strongly-flavored green olives weren’t readily available without already being marinaded or stuffed. Feel free to pick your favorite olives.
- Herbs. The recipe uses basil, rosemary, and thyme, all of which work best when they’re fresh.
- Garlic. We’ve made this a couple of times now, and while you can use fresh minced garlic, it’s a VERY potent flavor and kind of overrides everything. Roasted garlic, in my opinion, is much better.

Other ingredients can vary as well; getting a good balsamic vinegar and a good extra-virgin olive oil can be very flavorful. There’s a lot of room to play, too; add a bit of cayenne if you want, mix up the herbs, change the olives. It’s all up to you!

Marinated Goat Cheese and Olives
Equipment
- Small Bowl
- 9×9" Baking Dish Or any similar broad, flat dish.
Ingredients
- 8 Oz. Goat Cheese
- ½ Cup Olives Mix of black and green
- 2 Tbsp Sun-Dried Tomatoes
- ¼ Cup Basil
- 3 Tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
- 4 Cloves Roasted Garlic Half the amount if using fresh garlic
- 1 Tbsp Rosemary Chopped
- 1 Tbsp Thyme
- 1 Tsp Black Pepper To taste
- 3 Tbsp Olive Oil
Instructions
- Chop the goat cheese into slices (it's okay if it crumbles some) and arrange it in a single layer across your tray. If the goat cheese doesn't want to slice nicely, chill it for a while first.
- Coarsely chop your olives and sun-dried tomatoes. Spread these in a layer over the top of your goat cheese, and sprinkle the basil over the top of that. (Truthfully, we mixed them in a bowl and spread it all as one layer over the cheese.)
- In a small bowl, mix the oil, vinegar, garlic, rosemary, thyme, and pepper. Stir this up and break up the garlic with a fork if necessary. Drizzle this mixture over the garlic/olive layers.
- Marinade this in the fridge for at least 4 hours. We usually let it sit overnight and it's fine. Bring it to room temperature before serving, and serve over bread, baguettes, crackers, or whatever else you'd like to put it on.