Lavender Olive Oil: What It Is and How to Use It

Lavender olive oil is extra virgin olive oil steeped with culinary lavender. Done well, it tastes of lavender the herb rather than lavender the soap: green, a little peppery, closer to rosemary and thyme than to flowers, with a floral lift at the end. It is a finishing oil, used by the drop, and one of the quickest ways to make simple food taste of the south of France.

What lavender olive oil tastes like

Not sweet. A good lavender oil is aromatic and herbal, with the gentle bitterness and pepper of the olive oil underneath. The lavender should be a note, not the headline; if it reminds you of a sachet, there is too much of it or the wrong kind.

How it is made

There are two ways. The better one steeps culinary lavender in extra virgin olive oil and then filters it, so the oil takes on the whole plant. The quicker one adds a lavender essence, which tends to taste perfumed. A L’Olivier’s lavender olive oil is made the first way. A L’Olivier is one of the oldest oil houses in France, founded in Paris in 1822, and it bottles this oil in a slim 150 ml bottle, the right size for an oil you use by the teaspoon.

Five quick ways to use it

• Over vanilla ice cream, with a pinch of flaky salt.
• Over warm goat cheese, or a goat cheese salad with walnuts.
• On roasted cod, halibut or another mild white fish, after it leaves the oven.
• With strawberries, lemon zest and a little sugar.
• Over apricots, peaches or plums, raw or roasted.

What lavender olive oil pairs with

Savory: lamb, especially with garlic or honey; duck with a honey glaze; mild white fish; goat cheese; focaccia and warm bread. Our pan-seared lamb chops with lavender olive oil, lemon and thyme is the place to start.

Sweet: stone fruit, berries, vanilla, dark chocolate and honey. It is especially good alongside French lavender honey, which carries the same note in a sweeter key.

A honey-lavender vinaigrette

Whisk 3 tablespoons lavender olive oil with 1 tablespoon lemon juice or white wine vinegar, 1 teaspoon honey, 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard and a pinch of salt. Toss with bitter greens, goat cheese and toasted walnuts.

How to use it without overdoing it

Treat it like saffron: start with drops, taste, then add. Use it to finish rather than to fry, since heat flattens the lavender.

How to store it

Like any olive oil: capped, in a cupboard, away from the stove and the window. It keeps as long as the oil it is made from; Does Olive Oil Expire? has the details.

Questions

Is lavender olive oil sweet? No. Any sweetness comes from what you pair it with.

Can you cook with lavender olive oil? You can, but its aroma is the point and heat dulls it. Add it at the end.

Is lavender safe to eat? Culinary lavender is. It has long been part of Provençal cooking and appears in many herbes de Provence blends. Use lavender sold for cooking, not decorative or treated flowers.

What else goes with lavender olive oil? Goat cheese, lamb, white fish, stone fruit, vanilla and dark chocolate.

See also our guides to lemon olive oil and basil olive oil, and all infused olive oils and vinegars.