With juicy heirloom tomatoes, crisp cubes of grilled bread, cucumber, and recent basil, this panzanella recipe is a dish you’ll end up making all summer season lengthy. Serve it as a aspect or as a lightweight meal.
Traditional Italian Panzanella Salad
Panzanella is a Tuscan bread salad that mixes crusty bread, tomatoes, basil, cucumbers, purple onion, and olive oil—like Caprese Salad, it’s an ideal summer season dish for lunch or as a aspect for Grilled Hen Breast. (You can even make it right into a enjoyable appetizer, like these Grilled Shrimp Panzanella Skewers.) After tossing every thing in a bowl, you’ll let all of it marinate for a short time to permit the flavors to mix. The juices from the tomatoes combined with the olive oil types the dressing, which makes this salad recipe even simpler to place collectively!
Why My Household Adores This Salad
This easy Italian salad has change into a summer season custom in my house. Right here’s why we like it—and why you’ll too!
- A celebration of summer season. Summer season recipes let recent substances shine and that’s what’s finest about panzanella. Begin with fabulous heirloom tomatoes and aromatic recent basil leaves and also you’re already midway there to an ideal salad.
- Crispy bread. If croutons are your favourite a part of a salad, you’ll admire panzanella, the place the toasted bread isn’t only a garnish, however a predominant part of the recipe.
- Lighter than the normal model. I add solely a tablespoon of olive oil to my panzanella recipe, preserving the energy in examine.
Yield: 8 servings
Serving Dimension: 1 cup
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Evenly spray bread with olive oil and season with a bit salt; grill over medium warmth, till toasted and properly browned.
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Take away from warmth and reduce into 1 inch cubes. Put aside.
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In a big bowl, mix the tomatoes, cucumber, purple onion, basil, olive oil, and season liberally with salt and pepper.
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Let it sit for about half-hour to let the flavors mix.
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Add the bread cubes and toss.
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Serve in particular person bowls.
Final Step:
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As a predominant dish: Servings: 4 • Serving Dimension: 2 cups • Previous Factors: 4 pts • Factors+: 6 pts
Serving: 1 cup, Energy: 104.3 kcal, Carbohydrates: 17.7 g, Protein: 3.1 g, Fats: 2.9 g, Fiber: 2.2 g
What You’ll Want
The important thing to creating this easy salad is utilizing the freshest top quality substances. I used ripe tomatoes from my backyard, my selfmade Sourdough Bread Recipe, recent basil, and further virgin olive oil.
- Tomatoes – I take pleasure in utilizing colourful heirloom tomatoes as a result of they’re so stunning in a salad, however beefsteak tomatoes can even work.
- Seedless cucumber – Like English cucumbers.
- Purple onion – Or use shallot for a milder taste.
- Basil – Contemporary is a should. Dried simply doesn’t style the identical!
- Further virgin olive oil – Plus some EVOO spray for toasting the bread.
- Bread – Whereas I used sourdough, you can even use French bread or crusty Italian bread.
- Kosher salt and recent floor pepper – To season every thing and produce all of it collectively.
The way to Make Panzanella
Right here’s how simple it’s to make this panzanella recipe!
- Grill the bread. Spray the bread with olive oil and sprinkle it with salt. Grill over medium warmth till it’s toasted, then reduce it into cubes.
- Begin assembling the salad. Toss the tomatoes, cucumber, purple onion, and basil with the olive oil, salt, and pepper. Let the salad sit for half-hour.
- End. Add the cubes of bread and toss once more, then serve.
Ideas and Variations
Listed below are a couple of further pointers and a few methods you possibly can put your individual spin on this panzanella recipe.
- Use day previous bread. When you do that, you possibly can skip grilling the bread.Â
- Scoop out the seeds of backyard cucumbers. Have cucumbers out of your backyard? You need to use these in panzanella too! Simply slice them lengthwise after which scoop out the seeds earlier than chopping them.Â
- Add different substances. Sliced black olives, balls of recent mozzarella, shaved Parmesan, white beans, cooked and cooled Grilled Eggplant—there are such a lot of choices for this recipe. You can even add a drizzle of balsamic glaze simply earlier than serving, like I do with this Bruschetta Pasta Salad.
- Plan on consuming it instantly. The bread will get soggy because the salad sits, so that is finest eaten instantly. If you wish to make panzanella for a celebration, I like to recommend storing the bread individually after which including it simply earlier than serving.
What to Serve With Panzanella
Whereas I like panzanella as a lightweight lunch or dinner, it’s additionally nice as a aspect dish. Right here’s some inspiration.
Correct Storage
If you recognize you’re not going to eat the entire salad in a single sitting, solely add the bread to the portion you’ll be consuming instantly. Then, hold the toasted bread in an hermetic container for 1-2 days and retailer the veggie part of the panzanella within the fridge in a separate hermetic container.
When you’ve added the bread, the salad will final a day within the fridge, however the bread will get mushy.
