By Roberta Klugman—
Co-milled, sometimes called co-crushed, olive oils are made by milling fresh olives together with another fresh ingredient, such as citrus, herbs, vegetables, or spices. These require the same expertise, talent, and dedication to quality from grove to mill as extra virgin olive oils. Because extra virgin olive oil is made with just olives, co-milled oils containing another ingredient cannot be labeled extra virgin olive oil. They inspire cooking and creativity in the kitchen and are a flavorful shortcut for the pantry.
As Summer Thompson, senior buyer at Market Hall Foods, explains: “Co-milled oils are an excellent staple for serious home cooks. Essential when what you need most is a splash of bright flavor. With so many flavor options, and all of them so versatile, you really can’t go wrong.”
The Original Co-Milled Olive Oil
The original lemon olive oil, Agrumato, from Lanciano in Abruzzo, Italy, was first commercialized in the United States in the early 1990s by founder Francesco G. M. Ricci. By crushing fresh citrus together with olives, Ricci established a new category of olive oil and a new word, Agrumato, to name the brand, which now includes several citrus oils.
While Agrumato was the pioneer of this style of olive oil, today there is a growing selection of co-milled oils from producers in California and beyond. Since Agrumato is a brand, not a method or process, the term co-milled is used throughout this article.
California Took It Further
It didn’t take long for California producers to say, “We can do that, too.” Soon we had a range of citrus oils, including our beloved Meyer Lemon olive oil. By the 2000s, producers were looking beyond citrus, co-milling olives with ingredients such as jalapeño and basil. Today, we can choose from a stunning selection of co-milled oils featuring fruits, chilis, herbs, vegetables, and spices.
Do expect to pay a little more for these oils. Yields are generally lower, and the milling process is more time-consuming than producing EVOO. Think of it as a kind of choreography: getting the olives and the flavoring ingredient to work together in just the right proportion and at the right time. As food consultant and NPR host Clark Wolf puts it: “The craft of co-milling well is no mean feat. When done precisely it can be magic.”
Olive oil expert and Director of the Extra Virgin Alliance Alexandra Devarenne adds: “When done well, co-milled olive oils represent a high degree of craftsmanship and artistry. The miller must have perfect fresh olives of the right variety and maturity, while the flavoring ingredient be it fruit, herb, vegetable, or spice, must also be of high quality and fresh. Done well, co-milled olive oils taste natural and complex, balancing the fresh, vibrant notes of the added ingredient with clear, harmonious olive oil flavor.”
Author’s Note
For years, I was a skeptic about co-milled oils other than citrus oils. Few, if any, seemed to compare with the bright and harmonious Agrumato citrus oils. After all, they were the pioneers. Then, about 15 years ago, I had an a-ha moment with CaliVirgin’s Jalapeño Oil. I couldn’t wait to try it on corn on the cob or polenta, not to mention almost anything with avocado!
For this article, over the course of several weeks, I invited people ranging in age from 5 to 75 and from all walks of life to taste these oils and tell me what they liked, what they didn’t, and how they would use these pantry gems. The group included chefs, food professionals, and olive oil buyers; nascent and seasoned home cooks; ER doctors; schoolteachers; and real estate agents. This compilation reflects those tasting sessions.
The Flavors
Citrus
The range of fresh citrus oils now includes Meyer Lemon, Makrut Lime, Blood Orange, Mandarin, Clementine, Yuzu, and Bergamot. They work beautifully in baked goods, over fresh fruit and delicate fish, and in aioli, dressings, and marinades when less acid is preferred. Try an orange oil over vanilla ice cream for the childhood memory of a Dreamsicle. Wow!
Chili/Chile
Jalapeño may have started this trend, which now includes Calabrian, Fresno, Habanero, Hatch, Poblano, and more. Try Jalapeño with avocado and mango salads or on popcorn. Also look for Lime-Chili oils, where the olives are milled with limes and chilies, to enhance avocado salads and slow-baked fish.
Basil
When you want a taste of summer, grab a basil olive oil. It is also handy when the garden basil is gone and you want a caprese salad or need more basil for pesto.
Garlic
This oil is useful when your garlic has sprouted or you have run out. It is great for croutons and steamed vegetables, and less messy and time-consuming than fresh garlic. Combine it with basil oil for a quick pesto.
Rosemary
A pantry lifesaver for roasting potatoes, lamb dishes, and marinating feta and goat cheeses, rosemary olive oil can be used nearly any time your recipe calls for rosemary.
Spices
Try Ginger co-milled with Mandarins (43 Ranch) or Turmeric (McEvoy) to liven up grain dishes, pilafs, grilled poultry, and meats. 43 Ranch also suggests using its Ginger Mandarin in place of vegetable oil in a brownie mix. McEvoy Chai Spice is especially fun in a morning latte or on coffee ice cream. Also, these all would enhance East and South Asian inspired recipes. Try with noodle bowls, tofu, and dals. McEvoy’s Herbes de Provence works in omelets, on toast, or with roast chicken.
Alice Medrich on Co-Milled Oils
Alice Medrich is an acclaimed chocolatier, pastry chef, and five-time James Beard award-winning cookbook author. She is credited with popularizing chocolate truffles in the United States at her influential dessert shop, Cocolat, in the 1970s, and her work continues to influence generations of pastry chefs and home cooks.
“I first encountered Agrumato—the traditional Italian olive oil from milling olives with citrus—so long ago I can’t remember. But our California producers are known to pick up (and run wild with) the best Old-World traditions. Roberta recently introduced me to oils co-milled with all kinds of other, often unexpected, ingredients such as tomato, chai spice, lemon verbena—and chilies, of course. For me these were an invitation to play and create. I’ve drizzled Olivaia’s OLAmato tomato oil on garlic-rubbed toast and piled sliced tomatoes and torn basil on top. I’ve drizzled the same oil over air-popped popcorn and over eggs scrambled with scallions and fresh tomatoes, and I’ve made vinaigrette with it too. At first, I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to wear or eat Corto’s Lemon Verbena Olive Oil, but it turned out to be transcendent on toast topped with a generous slather of marmalade.”
“After getting acquainted, my first instinct with these fun new oils is to make a favorite olive oil poundcake glazed with icing made of the same oil. Then I imagine making the ethereally thin and crispy French cookies called tuiles, substituting a co-milled oil for the butter and adding pinches of fresh herbs or zests or spices appropriate to the oil flavor. Or, I’ll make Cornmeal and Olive Oil Biscotti from my book, Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-In-You-Mouth Cookies (Artisan, 2010) and pour a little of the oil over the finished biscotti as well.”
“What I love about co-milled oils is that they are not ‘flavored’ by the addition of some kind of ‘flavoring’ or extract after the fact. Honestly, I would run the other way if they were! The fact that the olives are crushed with a real (and often fresh) ingredient produces flavors that are nuanced and authentic; sometimes the flavor that comes through is an intriguing aspect of the fresh ingredient’s flavor that we might not ordinarily notice in that ingredient.”
Citrus Olive Oil Poundcake With Citrus Glaze
Adapted from Pure Dessert (Artisan 2007) by Alice Medrich
Co-milled citrus olive oils—made by crushing just-picked olives with fresh citrus—make divinely fragrant and flavorful poundcakes easily finished with a drizzle of glaze made from the same oil! (And once you taste the amazing 2-ingredient glaze for this recipe, you’ll find a million excuses to use it.) A few tricks and substitutions: inexpensive grocery store sherry is perfectly fine for this cake, but you could also replace the sherry with milk, as I did for a version using McEvoy’s Chai Spice Olive Oil. Either way, you could also make the cake with a plain, but flavorful (preferably robust) extra virgin olive oil (plus the grated zest called for in the recipe), and save your co-milled citrus oil for the glaze.
Makes one large tube cake or two loaves.
Ingredients
3 cups (385g) all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 large bright-skinned organic or pesticide-free orange—or a couple of tangerines or small lemons or limes, depending on the oil you are using
2 cups (400g) sugar
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 cup (215g) extra virgin olive oil co-milled with orange, tangerine, lemon, bergamot, etc.
5 large cold eggs
1 cup medium (amontillado) or dry sherry
For Glaze
1/4 cup co-milled olive oil with citrus
1/3 cup powdered sugar
Directions
Position a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees (non-convection). Grease and flour the pans or line the loaf pans with parchment.
Mix the flour and baking powder thoroughly and sift onto a piece of wax paper. Set aside.
Finely grate the citrus zest directly into the bowl of the stand mixer, or large mixing bowl. Add the sugar, salt, and citrus olive oil. Beat until blended. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Continue beating at high speed until the mixture is thick and pale, 3 to 4 minutes. Stop the mixer and add one-third of the flour mixture. Beat on low speed just until blended, scraping the bowl as necessary. Stop the mixer and add half of the sherry. Beat just until incorporated. Repeat with another third of the flour, followed by the remaining sherry, and then the remaining flour.
Scrape the batter into the pan(s). Bake until a cake tester comes out clean, 45–60 minutes for either the tube or loaf pans. Set the pan(s) on a rack for about 15 minutes before removing the cakes. For loaves lined with paper, simply lift the liners and set the loaves on the rack. Otherwise, detach the cakes by sliding a thin knife around the tube and sides of the tube pan, or just the sides of the loaf pans. Invert to remove the cake, then set them right-side-up on the rack to finish cooling. Make the glaze while the cake(s) are cooling: in a small bowl, gradually mix the citrus olive oil into the powdered sugar. Use a spoon or tiny pitcher to drizzle cake or loaves with glaze. Let the cake sit until the glaze is set. Slice with a serrated knife. Cake lasts for several days at room temperature in a closed container or several months in the freezer.
Where to Find Co-Milled Oils
Bondolio Estate (Winters) $50/500ml
Estate-grown olives are hand-harvested and milled within 90 minutes with either Hatch Chiles or Mandarin Oranges. Pre-order 2026 harvest oils and Olio Nuovo. Visit Sunday, December 13, 2026, for the Holiday Open House and meet Alice Medrich and sample recipes! https://www.bondolio.com/
Gold Ridge Organic Farms (Sebastopol) from $30/250ml
Sample or buy online. They make the Meyer Lemon oil used in Alice’s recipe as well as oils co-milled with Makrut Lime, Mandarin Kumquat, and Yuzu.
https://www.goldridgeorganicfarms.com/
43 Ranch (Ardo, Central Coast) $26/250ml
These are new harvest co-milled oils and Olio Nuovo available for pre-order. They custom mill award-winning oils for other growers.
McEvoy Ranch (Petaluma) from $14.95/100ml
McEvoy is a pioneer of the California olive oil renaissance, with vibrant oils. Visitors are welcome.
Olivaia OLAmato (Lindsay) $32/250ml
Milled at 43 Ranch, Olivaia expanded to co-milled oils last harvest to complement their EVOOs, including tomato oils with pepper/heat or dill. Restaurants using it include Chez Panisse, Seven Hills, and Crudo & Nudo in Los Angeles. As of this writing it is available, but check for availability and timing of the new harvest oils, and pre-order their olio nuovo!
Agrumato $28.50/200ml
The full line is available at Market Hall Foods Oakland and online:
https://www.markethallfoods.com/
Corto $84 set of two 500/ml
This year’s limited-edition gift set of two 500ml co-milled oils are Calabrian Chile and Horseradish! Online pre-order is required.
Specialty Retailers
In Bay Area stores, look for co-milled olive oils at Bi-Rite, Cheese Plus, Rainbow Grocery, and Market Hall Foods Oakland. Larger producers of such oils such as Cali-Virgin, ENZO, and Sciabica are well distributed in area grocery stores. At Olive This Olive That in San Francisco, taste ENZO co-milled oils.
Roberta Klugman is a ceaseless champion of olive oil. Her work with producers, brands, retailers, and organizations has fostered awareness about the uses and benefits of extra virgin olive oil and helped build consumer preference for olive oil. She is a recipient of the California Olive Oil Council Pioneer Award, and serves as Co-Chair of the Good Food Awards Oil Committee.
Bay Times Dine
Published on September 24, 2026
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