We love a chance to get crafty in the kitchen, and thinking about DIY hostess gifts inspired us to test out making our own infused olive oil recipes. A fun new challenge in DIY! Not only is infused olive oil delicious, the bottles (copper set, and single glass bottle) are absolutely gorgeous for kitchen styling and it can be a fabulous hostess gift option. We broke out of our comfort zone a bit on this, but we always encourage creative exploration. Luckily our Greek team member Stephanie knows a thing or two about olive oil and helped provide some great info about this kitchen essential.

Start by picking out your olive oil. Olive oil is like wine, there are tons of different varietals and each has its own flavor! Some varietals are robust, some are spicy, some are buttery. When we were creating our infused olive oil recipes, we wanted to make sure we would get the best result possible. Any olive oil will work, but we specifically chose a mild olive varietal as the base for our infusions. That way the natural olive oil flavor would not overpower the concoctions, and the infused ingredients could really shine through. If you want to try this for yourself, Stephanie recommends using an Arbequina olive oil.

To infuse olive oil, you will need to heat the oil over the stove. It is important not to have the heat too high – if the oil is heated above its smoke point, the enzymes will denature and increase the acidity of the oil. The more that the oil is heated, the more it will also lose its nutritional value. Find our 3 infused olive oil recipes in the printable recipe templates below, but please know that these are just light suggestions! Once you learn the technique for infusing, you can easily create your own recipes based on your flavor preferences. We suggest using dried herbs, or make sure to clean and completely dry any fresh herb sprigs overnight before using them. Bacteria won’t grow in the oil itself, but it can grow in the water left on the herbs. 

Because we originally envisioned this as a DIY hostess gift, we also designed a beautiful printable gift tag. You can edit the tag to say what you infused the oil with by downloading and installing the free font Cormorant. Print the gift tags onto cardstock and attach them to your bottles with a ribbon. Share your photos with us of your infused oils on Instagram using #DIYDreamingWithLia! Browse through all of our recipes for inspiration, or check out our navy and rose gold DIY tea towel for another fantastic hostess gift idea. Leave a comment with your dreamy olive oil infusion ideas, we love getting you in on the creative process! Until next time ~ Lia and the Team