Panzanella Salad (Italian Bread Salad)

Panzanella salad is a Tuscan salad made of chunky of lightly toasted crusty bread, tomatoes, red onions, cucumber, and Italian basil all soaked in the simplest salad dressing. If you got ripe tomatoes and day-old bread, the best summer Italian bread salad is just a few minutes away!

You got to use the best quality, juicy ripe tomatoes for this salad. One can never have too many tomato salads like simple summer tomato salad, marinated tomatoes salad.

Jump to:

• About panzanella salad recipe
• Ingredients you’ll need
• How to make Panzanella salad
• Panzanella salad recipe tips
• FAQS
• 📋 Panzanella Salad(Italian Bread Salad)
• Recipe Notes

Ingredients you’ll need

Here’s what you’ll need-

• 1 day old crusty ‘stale’ bread (about 4-5 cups broken into 1 inch chunks)
• 3 ripe juicy tomatoes cut into small wedges or cubes
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 small red onion, sliced thin
• 2 cucumbers, unpeeled, seeded, cut into ½ inch slices
• 1 cup basil

For salad dressing-

• 2 tablespoon white wine vinegar (or red wine vinegar)
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• ¾ cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 ½ teaspoon garlic, minced
• Salt to taste
• Ground pepper to taste

Bread– must use dense crusty bread like sourdough bread or ciabatta or artisan loaf bread. Baguette or dinner rolls aren’t ideal bread to use for making this salad. Softer bread won’t hold its shape and will turn mushy once salad dressing is added to it.

A day-old stale bread is best. Remember this recipe was created to make use of the stale bread left over in the kitchen.

Tomatoes– use the best quality juicy ripe tomatoes for this recipe. If you don’t have ripe tomatoes better skip making this salad.

Cucumber– I like to keep the skin on and remove the seed. No particular reason why I removed the seeds. I simply like the shape of the cucumber this way. You can skip removing seeds and simply slice them into ½ inch slices.

Red onion– did you know Panzanella salad was based on onions and not tomatoes until the 20^th century? Use salad onions like red onions.

Fresh basil– Italian sweet basil is what you have to use to make this salad. Do not substitute with any other variety of basil.

White wine vinegar or red wine vinegar can be used to make dressing.

Extra virgin olive oil– use good quality EVOO.

Additional ingredients

Other ingredients such as anchovies, capers, olives, lettuce, celery, carrot, boiled eggs and bell peppers can be added to panzanella salad.

How to make Panzanella salad

• Pick best quality juicy ripe tomatoes. Slice into thin wedges or cut into small cubes.
• Salt cut tomatoes with kosher salt. Toss well. Let tomatoes sit in a colander with a  bowl under it to collect all the wonderful tomato juice. Allow tomatoes to drain the juices for a minimum of 15 minutes to a maximum of an hour.
• Meanwhile prep other ingredients.
• Slice red onions. Cut the ends of the cucumber, and peel the seeds using a melon baller or spoon. Cut the cucumber into ½ inch slices. If you don’t like the skin on cucumber feel free to peel the skin.
• Cut bread into 1-inch chunks. Toast bread in olive oil until lightly browned on all sides. You can toast bread chunks in the oven or air fryer too.

• To the tomato juice that was drained add white wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, minced garlic, salt, and pepper to taste, and extra virgin olive oil.
• Whisk well.
• Gather all salad ingredients into a large salad bowl- drained tomatoes, sliced onion, sliced cucumber, toasted bread, and fresh basil leaves.
• Pour the dressing over the salad.
• Toss well.
• Let sit for a minimum of 5 minutes to a maximum of 1 hour so the salad marinates and sucks all the flavors and juices.
• Enjoy with grilled chicken, BBQ chicken, and shrimp.

Panzanella salad recipe tips

1. Day-old bread. Traditionally this salad starts with day old stale bread. I like the bread to have nice crust, so I cut bread into bite sized pieces and shallow fry in pan with olive oil (and sprinkle of salt on top). If you prefer to use fresh bread, make sure you dont skip this step of shallow frying bread. You can also toss bread in oven until crunchy and golden brown.
2. Sweating tomatoes. I highly recommend you don’t skip this step. Adding salt to tomatoes will make them sweat all their juices and release excess moisture. Without removing excess moisture from tomatoes the bread would get too soggy from tomato juice.
3. Serve within couple of hours. Panzanella salad is served best right after its made. You can allow the salad to marinate in the dressing for 30 minutes to a hour, longer than that croutons will soften and turn mushy.
   If you plan on storing longer for a few days in the refrigerator, reserve the croutons for later.

FAQS

More salads:

• Roasted cherry tomatoes
• 3 Bean Salad
• Bruschetta chicken pasta
• Greek pasta salad
• Greek orzo pasta salad

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