Has life become as stale as yesterday’s bread? Check out this Panzanella recipe that will give both a second chance!
Panzanella is a chopped salad of soaked stale bread, onions, and tomatoes. Given that, it has bread and tomato, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Panzanella originates in Italy and more precisely Tuscany.
Fun fact though that tomato wasn’t part of the salad until the 20th century and onions played a much more centrical role to the dish. As with salads, there aren’t strict rules of what should or shouldn’t be added, so we can use our creativity to prepare the dish.
Some traditionalists may disapprove it but lettuce, olives, mozzarella, white wine, capers, anchovies, celery, carrots, red wine, tuna, parsley, boiled eggs, mint, bell peppers, lemon juice, and garlic can be freely used if desired.
As long as we keep the dish main character, the stale bread alive, we make Panzanella. Although, we can use freshly baked bread to prepare the dish, we won’t get the chewiness and flavor that only stale bread can provide.
So, if we plan to use Panzanella as a starter for our next social gathering, and not just as a method to use up leftover bread, keep in mind to buy bread beforehand and let it go stale for a day or even better, three.
On the other hand though, if we have an unexpected party knocking on our door and expects of being fed quickly, throwing together an innocently tasty snack with leftover bread, olive oil, onion and whatever else, could literally be a real lifesaver event.
Ingredients
- 1 loaf / 250g Ciabatta bread or any kind of bread really (stale)
- 6 medium / 600g Tomato
- 1 teaspoon / 5g Salt to taste
- 1 teaspoon / 1g Black pepper to taste
- 2 pieces / 50g Shallot
- 1 tablespoon / 15ml Extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tablespoon / 15ml Vinegar
- 1 handful / 30g Basil leaf (fresh)
- Optional
- Black olives
- Garlic
- Hard cheese
- Oregano
How to make Panzanella
- Cut the bread up into ½” / 1cm cubes.
- Chop the tomato into similar size as the bread then slice the onion. Sprinkle with salt, black pepper.
- Mix them together with chopped basil leaves, some sort of vinegar and extra virgin olive oil. Drizzle more oil on top when serving.
Enjoy!
Panzanella Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 loaf Ciabatta bread or any kind of bread really stale
- 6 mediumTomato
- 1 teaspoon Salt to taste
- 1 teaspoon Black pepper to taste
- 2 pieces Shallot
- 1 tablespoon Extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tablespoon Vinegar
- 1 handful Basil leaf fresh
- Optional
- Black olives
- Garlic
- Hard cheese
- Oregano
Instructions
- Cut the bread up into ½” / 1cm cubes.
- Chop the tomato into similar size as the bread then slice the onion. Sprinkle with salt, black pepper.
- Mix them together with chopped basil leaves, some sort of vinegar and extra virgin olive oil. Drizzle more oil on top when serving.
Notes
Pin now, Enjoy later!
