Panzanella is Tuscan salad made of chunky of lightly toasted crusty bread, tomatoes, red onions, cucumber, 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 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.
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Ingredients you’ll need
Here’s what you’ll need-
- 1 day old crusty ‘stale’ bread (about 4-5 cups of stale bread 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 sour dough 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 it’s shaped 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 seed. No particular reason why I removed the seeds. I simply like the shape of cucumber this way. You can skip removing seeds off and simply slice into ½ inch slices.
Red onion– did you know Panzanella salad was based on onions and not tomatoes until the 20th 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 brand of 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 colander with a bowl under it to collect all the wonderful tomato juice. Allow tomatoes to drain the juices for minimum 15 minutes to maximum an hour.
- Meanwhile prep other ingredients.
- Slice red onions.
- Cut ends of cucumber, peel the seeds using melon baller or spoon. Cut 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 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, 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 minimum 5 minutes to maximum 1 hour so salad marinates and sucks all the flavors and juices.
- Enjoy with grilled chicken, BBQ chicken, shrimps.
FAQS
You must use dense crusty bread like sour dough 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 it’s shaped and will turn mushy once salad dressing is added to it.
Day old stale bread is best.
Yes you can. Although traditional recipe calls for ripe Italian tomatoes, cherry tomatoes or ripe juicy roma tomatoes can also be used.
Remember tomatoes should be best quality juicy and ripe.
highly recommend you don’t skip this step. Adding salt to tomatoes will make it sweat all it’s juices and release excess moisture. Without removing excess moisture from tomatoes the bread would get too soggy from tomato juice.
Other ingredients such as anchovies, capers, olives, lettuce, celery, carrot, boiled eggs, mozzarella, bell peppers, dried oregano can be added to panzanella saald.
You can make this salad an hour or two ahead. I wouldn’t recommend storing longer than that. The croutons will loose it’s texture and turn mushy if stored longer.
This salad doesn’t hold good to be stored for days. Soon as it’s made, allow the salad to marinate in the dressing for an hour, longer than that croutons will soften and turn mushy.
If you plan on storing longer for few days in refrigerator, reserve the croutons for later.
This salad pairs well with grilled meat, fish and shrimp. It pairs beautifully with BBQ chicken or grilled chicken, mild white fish, grilled steak, pork chops.
More salads:
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📋 RECIPE: Panzanella (Italian Bread Salad)
Ingredients
- 1 day old crusty ‘stale’ bread about 4-5 cups of stale bread 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
Instructions
- 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 colander with a bowl under it to collect all the wonderful tomato juice. Allow tomatoes to drain the juices for minimum 15 minutes to maximum an hour.
- Meanwhile prep other ingredients.
- Slice red onions.
- Cut ends of cucumber, peel the seeds using melon baller or spoon. Cut 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 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, 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 minimum 5 minutes to maximum 1 hour so salad marinates and sucks all the flavors and juices.
- Enjoy with grilled chicken, BBQ chicken, shrimps.
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