If you’ve never had it, a Panzanella salad is a delicious way to use up day old bread that’s gone a bit stale. I’m talking about a good, so called rustic bread, not the soft sliced bread from the supermarket with all kinds of additives and preservatives. Something like a French baguette or batard or Italian ciabatta or the like. Anything made with little more than the 4 basic bread ingredients: flour, water, salt & yeast. Well crafted, these breads are truly exquisite but they don’t last more than a day before beginning to stale.
What do you do with stale bread? Feed it to the ducks? Toss it in the compost bin? EEK! No! Make croutons to top your green salads. Make bread pudding. Make breadcrumbs to coat you chicken breasts. Make a Panzanella salad. Now there’s an idea!
Although it is popular in many parts of Italy, the panzanella salad is believed to have originated in Tuscany. Until the early part of the 20th century the primary ingredient (after the bread) was onion. Onion is still featured in the salad but delicious, sweet summer tomatoes are now the star of the show.
I have seen recipes where the day old bread is soaked in water to reconstitute it and others where the slightly stale bread is used as is. Mostly though, the bread is tossed in a little EVO and either toasted in a hot oven or in a skillet on the stove top. The croutons are then tossed with delicious, juicy, summer ripe tomatoes, and a simple vinaigrette. The bread soaks up the tomato juices and the vinaigrette to make a luscious salad that can stand alone as a lunch item or light dinner. With a little protein on the side it becomes a substantial meal.
When I was casting about recently for a panzanella recipe I came upon an excellent website called A Cup of Jo by Joanna Goddard, a lifestyle blogger based in New York. Joanna’s friend and author of The First Mess blog, Laura Wright, posted her version of a panzanella salad on A Cup of Jo and touted it as the best ever. A bold statement indeed but I have to say, I haven’t yet tasted one better, either here or in Tuscany.
With Laura’s kind permission I present my version panzanella salad, only very slightly modified from the original.
Interestingly enough, the recipe Laura posted on A Cup of Jo does not appear on her own blog, The First Mess. She does have a recipe she calls a Summer Panzanella where she adds shredded kale and chopped peaches. The last time I made this salad I borrowed the idea and adapted it. Instead of adding chopped peaches to the salad I poached a chicken breast in white wine and butter and made a sauce from the pan juices, adding the peaches to the sauce until they were soft and falling apart. I dressed the sliced chicken with the peach sauce and served it alongside the salad.
Laura’s recipe for the panzanella salad calls for cherry tomatoes but I often use a variety of heirloom tomatoes because I like them. Cherry tomatoes are sweet and delicious but I find their skins to be thick and unpleasant to eat. But that’s just me, what can I say?! Feel free to use whatever tomatoes look good to you.
I can’t leave without throwing in a bit of food science; after all, understanding your ingredients is one of the main goals of this blog. So, today’s lesson….
Is there a difference between stale bread and toasted bread (croutons)? Why, yes there is, since you asked.
Bread is mostly flour and flour is upwards of 75% starch. When bread stales, the starches crystalize and some of the water in the original fresh bread is trapped within that network of starch crystals. Oh sure, some water is lost through evaporation as the bread sits out but it retains some of its original water content. When stale bread is warmed (in a microwave oven, for example) the starch crystals soften, releasing the trapped water and temporarily reconstituting the bread.
Toasted bread on the other hand is exposed to dry heat which evaporates most of the water in the bread, drying it out. Our stale bread is heated in the dry atmosphere of the oven, first softening the starches and then evaporating the moisture that is released.
This is an important distinction for this recipe because the stale bread on its own still contains some water and therefore will not absorb as much of the juices and vinaigrette as the dry, toasted bread.
And so endeth the lesson!!
Panzanella Salad
Ingredients
Croutons
- 4 cups day old bread – *See note below
- 1 1/2 TBS extra virgin olive oil
- salt and pepper
Salad
- 5 cups ripe tomatoes – **See note below
- 1/2 Tsp salt
- 3 TBS red wine vinegar
- 4 TBS extra virgin olive oil
- 1/4 cup Shallot or red onion – finely chopped
- 1 garlic clove – minced
- 1 cup fresh basil leaves
Instructions
- For the Croutons
- Pre-heat the oven to 400°F (200°C). Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.
- Cut the bread into small, 1/2" (12mm) cubes and place in a large bowl. Toss the bread with 1 1/2 TBS of oil and a light sprinkle of salt and pepper. Spread the bread cubes on the prepared sheet pan into a single layer.
- Toast the bread in the oven for 10-12 minutes until it is dry and beginning to turn golden brown. Toss the cubes once or twice to ensure even toasting.
- For the Salad
- Meanwhile, in the same bowl, add the tomatoes, salt, vinegar, olive oil, shallot and garlic, tossing gently to combine. Set aside for at least 15 minutes to let the tomatoes give up their juices.
- When the croutons are nicely golden brown and quite dry and crispy, remove them from the oven and set aside to cool.
- Add the croutons to the tomatoes and toss to combine. Let the salad sit for at least another 15 minutes, tossing occasionally to let the croutons soak up the tomato juices.
- When the croutons are well moistened, coarsely chop the basil leaves and stir them into the salad. Taste for seasoning, adding more salt and pepper as needed.
Notes
