Do you have the same habit as mine: toss slices of bread into the dripped summer tomatoes and cucumbers salad? From the moment I can remember, every summer I did this ritual with a bowl of salad, not knowing that I was making almost Italian panzanella.
- Prep time: 10 minutes
- Cook time: 2 minutes
- Serves: 2
- Difficulty: easy
- Course: salad
- Cookware: tomato knife
- Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients
- 1 stale ciabatta
- 2 tomatoes
- 2 small cucumbers
- ½ red sweet onion
- 10 olives
- 10 basil leaves
- 2 lettuce leaves
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
- freshly ground black pepper
- salt
Cooking method
Step 1
Break the bread into small pieces with your hands. Transfer to a bowl, cover with water, and leave for 3 minutes. Squeeze the bread, drain the water, and return the bread to the bowl.
Step 2
Finely chop the onion and add to the bread. Add balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper, and mix. Dice cucumbers and tomatoes and add to a bowl. Coarsely chop the basil leaves. Add basil and olives to the salad and mix. Place a leaf of lettuce on each plate. Top with salad from a bowl and serve.
My tips and tricks:
What if the bread in your house didn’t have time to stale? The answer is simple: take a fresh bread, cut it into cubes, put on a baking sheet and dry the bread in the oven 180˚С for 10-15 minutes. In this case, if you cook panzanella, bread does not need time to soak, it will quickly become soft by itself from the vegetable juices and dressing.
- 1 stale ciabatta
- 2 tomatoes
- 2 small cucumbers
- ½ red sweet onion
- 10 olives
- 10 basil leaves
- 2 lettuce leaves
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
- freshly ground black pepper
- salt
- Break the bread into small pieces with your hands. Transfer to a bowl, cover with water, and leave for 3 minutes. Squeeze the bread, drain the water, and return the bread to the bowl.
- Finely chop the onion and add to the bread. Add balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper, and mix. Dice cucumbers and tomatoes and add to a bowl. Coarsely chop the basil leaves. Add basil and olives to the salad and mix. Place a leaf of lettuce on each plate. Top with salad from a bowl and serve.