Panzanella
The salad that makes stale bread the main ingredient, and gives tomato juice a purpose.
- Preparation
- 20 min
- Cook/bake time
- 8 min
- Total
- 58 min
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Calories
The salad that makes stale bread the main ingredient, and gives tomato juice a purpose. In Tuscany, Panzanella is a summer dish born of necessity: hard bread, ripe tomatoes, and good oil. The trick is to toast the bread instead of soaking it, and to salt the tomatoes beforehand.
Why this works
Panzanella thrives on a delicate balance that easily tips: the bread should absorb the liquid, but not drown in it. That is why it is toasted and not soaked. The toasted crust acts as a barrier that delays how quickly liquid penetrates, giving the salad a window of about half an hour where the texture is just right. Salting the tomatoes is the second building block: salt draws juice from the cells via osmosis, and this juice is the actual sauce of the dish. It is salted, tomatoey, and much more aromatic than any added water. If you only salt the tomatoes at the end, you will have a dry bowl and wonder why the bread remains hard.
Step-by-step instructions
- 1
Salt the tomatoes
Cut the tomatoes into large pieces, salt them in a bowl, and let them sit for thirty minutes. They will release a surprising amount of juice. This juice is the sauce of the dish, not a waste product.
- 2
Toast the bread
Toast the bread cubes with two tablespoons of oil in a pan or for eight minutes at 200 °C in the oven, until they are golden brown on the outside and still slightly soft on the inside. Rub them afterwards with the halved garlic clove. This distributes the garlic flavor without you having to bite into a piece.
- 3
Prepare the cucumber and onion
Peel the cucumber in stripes, remove the seeds with a spoon, and cut it into thick half-moons. The seeds are almost entirely water and would dilute the salad. Let the onion rings steep in the vinegar for five minutes, which takes away their sharpness.
- 4
Combine and let steep
Mix everything with the remaining oil, the tomato juice, and the vinegar and onion mixture, and let the salad sit for thirty minutes. During this time, the bread absorbs the liquid but remains firm to the bite. Fold in the basil just before serving.
Our best tips
- Salt the tomatoes thirty minutes beforehand. Their juice is the sauce. Without this step, the salad remains dry and the bread hard.
